Trudeau Wants Us To Hate Each Other – Freedom Philosophy

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trudeau, canadian election

Politics is a very interesting game in Canada. Majority governments are common, but majority votes are not. The next majority government will likely need to secure 35%. It’s a sad reflection on our society that the soundest strategy for victory is to divide and conquer. If the 35% are enraged at the other 65%, then this is great politics – it ensures the voters show up on election day.

Rage against Justin Trudeau and his supporters’ rage against his enemies reaching a boiling point. Trudeau was recently confronted with an irate protester demanding compensation for Quebec being forced to handle illegal immigrants. His response was to accuse her of racism. An accusation that only fosters hatred on both sides of the issue and hate is only counterproductive to assisting immigrants. However, it will ensure he gets support from 35% of the voters who agree with him.

Dialoguing with right-leaning libertarians and conservatives, I’ve found multiple motivations for opposition to illegal immigration. In a pronounced minority of cases, bigotry was clearly an underlying motive. However, most were concerned about the impact on government treasuries. Some actually had the opposite motive to Trudeau’s accusation; they were concerned about legal immigrants, who went through due process, being treated unfairly. Some had practical concerns, such as how many of these people are vaccinated and does Quebec have enough surplus vaccines that can be produced for 100,000 people? As near as I could tell, most people opposed to illegal immigration weren’t racist or bigoted, and Trudeau’s accusation is remarkably unfounded.

Sadly, it doesn’t serve Trudeau’s purposes to unite Canadians and confess that his opponents are asking reasonable questions. It does serve his political purposes for his followers to hate those who are concerned about illegal immigration. It galvanizes them. Trudeau gets the support of the 35% of people enraged by the notion that anyone could be opposed to illegal immigration. He’s seen as the defender of the disenfranchised. Canada is the warm, welcoming, loving, nation they want it to be.

His position on the summer jobs program is equally divisive. In order to secure federal funding, one must attest to their support for abortion. Something that doesn’t actually further his cause on that issue, it only serves to foster divisiveness. The more pro-choice and pro-life people hate one another, the easier it will be for Trudeau to capture the pro-choice vote. Given that Elizabeth May has been the only leader to raise bioethical concerns about abortion, the pro-choice crowd might not actually vote for the Liberal Party. Trudeau can sow the seeds of division, stoke the fires of hatred, and have the prestige of being Prime Minister for another term without furthering the cause of abortion access by one modicum.

The summer jobs program is a disgusting precedent. Giving a government the capacity to dictate thoughts and violate freedom of conscience is an infiltration into our most private domain – our thoughts themselves.

Liberals often accuse pro-life people, or those opposed to illegal immigration, as wanting to turn the clock back fifty years. Trying to control people’s thoughts and minds, getting us to hate one another, turning to them as our defender, all of this is turning the clock back thirty-four years. For those not particularly talented at arithmetic I’ll be of assistance – it’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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Brandon Kirby

Brandon Kirby has a philosophy degree from the University of New Brunswick and is a current MBA candidate finishing his thesis. He is an AML officer specializing in hedge funds in the Cayman Islands, owns a real estate company in Canada, and has been in the financial industry since 2004. He is the director of Being Libertarian - Canada and the president of the Libertarian Party of Canada.

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