A little humility can go a long way, especially for those of us in places of leadership.
Sadly, this conviction is seemingly absent in the Liberal government.
Tragically, it has become the habit of Liberal MPs to categorize anyone who disagrees with them as racist, misogynist, or even a Nazi. You will likely recall that we found ourselves thrust into an unnecessary election this time last year. From day one, the Prime Minister’s strategy was to divide Canadians, stigmatize anyone who failed to hold his ideals, and pit regions of our country against each other. With malice in his voice, he outlandishly labelled all unvaccinated Canadians “misogynists and racist.” He questioned whether we should tolerate “these people” as if they were of lesser value.
Mr. Trudeau even went so far as to liken my Conservative colleague, MP Melissa Lantsman, to people waving Nazi flags. Never mind the fact that she is Jewish.
In addition to routinely attaching the most heinous labels to people with whom they disagree, the Trudeau Liberals are obsessed with regulating speech. There are three separate pieces of legislation on the books for this year, which would censor what Canadians can see, hear, and say online: Bill C-11, Bill C-18, and a forthcoming online harms bill.
The Liberal government sees itself as the moral authority on speech. The irony, of course, is that they are some of the worst perpetrators of using distasteful language, inciting hate, and spreading misinformation.
There could not be a clearer example than the recent situation wherein the Canadian Heritage department hired a raging anti-Semite to provide anti-racism training for Canadian broadcasters. Laith Marouf is a senior consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), to whom the government awarded a $133,000 contract (paid with Canadian tax dollars) to conduct training sessions on hate speech.
What is unfathomable is the fact that Mr. Marouf somehow made it past the Liberal government’s vetting process—assuming there was one. A few minutes on his Twitter feed would have revealed a whole host of the most abhorrent anti-Semitic statements and racist slurs one could imagine. It begs the question, was Mr. Marouf assessed and contracted based on merit or was he a friend for whom the Liberals were simply doing a favour?
When the story started gaining traction, it was expected that Pablo Rodriguez, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, would issue some type of explanation and apology for this egregious incident. After a week of deafening silence, I decided to write a letter to the minister pointing out the hypocrisy of his government’s virtue-signalling and the fact that he had yet to make a statement on the hiring of Mr. Marouf, for which his department was responsible.
To my surprise, his office responded by shirking responsibility and redirecting me to a different minister.
This is an example of Liberal tactic 101: avoid and evade any accountability.
I know everyone makes mistakes. Awarding a contract to a racist to teach Canadian broadcasters about anti-racism could be classified as one of the worst.
The issue I take now is the utter silence coming from the Liberal caucus as whole. This is not about Conservatives vs. Liberals; this is about right vs. wrong.
Anthony Housefather, who is a Jewish Liberal MP, is the only clear exception. To his credit, he has been extremely vocal on this matter from the beginning. He even pointed out Mr. Marouf’s troubling conduct weeks before the story broke, but nothing was done. He later tweeted, “There is a feeling in my community that antisemitism is tolerated more than other forms of hate in North America today.”
Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel famously wrote, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”
The fact that there was an anti-Semite spewing hate from his social media pages while representing the Canadian government is reprehensible. The fact that the Heritage Minister has failed to take account and offer an apology is even worse.
And remember, this is the same minister who is responsible for three pieces of legislation targeted at regulating the speech of Canadians.
The hypocrisy could not be more obvious.
The tag line for the Liberal party should be “do what we say, not what we do.” Nothing more. Nothing less. Keep it simple. Keep it truthful. Afterall, honesty is the best policy, is it not?
Comentários