One of Plato’s most famous aphorisms is the city is a human being written in large letters. His observation meant two different things: first, every society reflects the kind of person of whom it is composed. For Plato Athens was a sophist writ large..Canadians were reminded of this very old way of discussing politics in an essay by Douglas Murray in the National Post a couple of weeks ago. His immediate focus was the welcome expressed in the House of Commons for Jaroslav Hunka who fought the Red Army in the uniform of the Waffen SS..Canada, he said, had become a “nation of ignoramuses.” The honourable parliamentarians simply did not have the intelligence (in both senses of the term) to guess that in 1944 the only Ukrainians fighting the Russians would be Nazis..This is what happens, Murray said, “when your society gets riddled with stupidity because of stupid leaders… when a country loses its adults. When ignoramuses who think they know everything take charge.”.Canada has become an ignoramus writ large..The second meaning of Plato’s phrase is inseparably linked to the first..It is an instrument of political analysis and critique insofar as not every Canadian is an ignoramus or riddled with stupidity..For Plato the true human type was the philosopher; the representative of the lie was the sophist. There are few enough philosophers bouncing around Canada today. The most we can hope for as the source of political analysis, is an individual shaped by common sense..More details to the portrait of ignorance and stupidity are found in the policies implemented by the Government of Canada under the direction of Justin Trudeau. They embody the large letters Plato had in mind..Justin has said, for example, Canada will never reach the NATO-mandated goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence. Indeed, from an already pathetic funding level he recently presided over a cut to the defence budget of a cool billion..The message is obvious: Canada is not worth defending..In contrast, Justin is perfectly happy to spend lavishly on his own self-indulgence and equally lavishly to ensure he is protected from scrutiny and opposition..For example, the costs of his Easter skiing vacation to Big Sky Montana were recently released. They amounted to nearly a quarter million, much of it, apparently, for the RCMP, which was rather surprising since the US Secret Service provided ground protection..There was no breakdown of the nearly $240,000 the horsemen spent..Did they get a group deal on lift tickets? But why go to Big Sky in the first place? Was the snow better than at Whistler? Or was he simply afraid of being harassed (as Pierre once was) if he showed his face at Louise or Sunshine?.One wonders why the Mounties charge so much for protecting him..For comparison, they billed $286,408 for Justin’s August vacation to Tofino. When you add in the New Year’s trip to Jamaica ($160,000,) this year the prime minister has spent about $678,000 on himself..Another obvious conclusion: this ignoramus is also a sybarite..Murray also noted Canada had lost its adults, which is a polite way of saying we are ruled by children. In his last election campaign, Stephen Harper warned Canadians that, despite his nice hair, Justin just wasn’t ready. He was a juvenile. Harper was correct..One of the attributes of children in power is they do not deal well with criticism. We saw that with his handling of the truckers’ convoy in Ottawa. It’s there again in his desire to control Internet communications..The Online Streaming Act (Bill 11) amends the Broadcasting Act to turn Internet audio and video into “broadcasting,” thus placing it within the regulatory coils of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). This innocent little change is designed to curtail free speech in Canada in the name of parochial (Laurentian) “Canadian content.”.Elon Musk observed that “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful.” Included in the crushing are Canadian pornography sources. But does not home-grown porn also tell “Canadian stories” as Heritage Minister Pascale St.-Onge put it?.That there are conflicting definitions of “Canadian content” does not surprise. Nor is the necessity to reflect the “linguistic duality of Canada” that is almost an exclusive burden on Laurentian Canada, not BC or Newfoundland..Likewise, “equity-seeking groups,” whomever they may be, are to be favoured by broadcast “outcomes.” That seems to mean the stories we tell one another must “address the repercussions of historical injustices and colonial legacies,” not the benefits and blessings of European civilization..Why choose the CRTC?.Originally this bureaucratic organ was designed to regulate and assign scarce bandwidth to radio and TV broadcasts. This is part of the supply-management-and-control culture beloved of Laurentians, and so helpful, for example, to Quebec producers of dairy products. However, as any number of commonsensical observers have noted, there is simply no need to regulate podcast bandwidth.. Tom FlanaganProfessor Tom Flanagan .Bill 11 is not concerned with real issues such as protecting privacy or regulating data collection. It will regulate users’ freedom to navigate the entire network and control content, which means interfering with, limiting, censoring — choose whatever term you like — free speech. At present, as anyone who cares can find out, there are no barriers to listening to Canadian content..Even worse is the Online News Act designed to force Google and Meta to turn over a large chunk of their profits to the legacy media. The premise, that the tech companies were “stealing” news from legacy outlets was, as Peter Menzies, a former vice-chairman of the CRTC and a former newspaperman, said, “unproven.” So, Meta cut links to Canadian news, resulting in less revenue for Canadian news organizations and more control by government. This outcome was not an accident..Next up? The Online Harms Act, designed to control speech the Digital Safety Commissioner doesn’t like. This collection of repressive measures is just more foot-stamping from the petulant juvenile to silence critics..Balancing attempts to deal with a non-existent problem is a failure to deal with a real one..On Truth and Reconciliation Day this year Justin announced, with a tear in his eye, that “denialism is in the rise.” Denialism is the term he and other progressive lefties use to describe questioning Canada’s complicity in genocide regarding indigenous Canadians.. Douglas Murray .Denialists want evidence that priest killers put so many Indian children into unmarked mass graves. It started with the Kamloops residential school in May 2001 and was followed by lowering the flag to half mast on all government facilities. Justin then made $320 million available for additional claims, which have come thick and fast..Brian Giesbrecht, in these pages, wondered why Justin didn’t show more respect and prudence since he knew the stories were lies. Why, indeed, does he insist the problem lies with the “deniers,” not the fabricators of those who identify with fictional victims? Can Orwell’s “thoughtcrime” be next?.As an antidote to government-promoted ignorance and stupidity, watch for a forthcoming discussion of Kamloops Myths and the Madness of Crowds, co-authored by my friend Tom Flanagan..Full disclosure: Flanagan and I studied Plato together in graduate school sometime during the last century. This nostalgic reflection returns us to what is writ large in the politics of Canada. Musk was right: however described, it is shameful. Much of the shame belongs to Justin.
