The failure of Canada’s Parliament

Canada degenerated into an authoritarian police state very quickly, and our public institutions, Parliament chief among them, have failed us. Parliament permitted an unscrupulous, power-hungry prime minister to exploit the pandemic crisis to acquire massive power to intimidate the political opposition. The passage of the Emergencies Act in the House of Commons on Monday will be remembered as one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. The fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared the crisis to be over yesterday merely underscores the fact that the government was the crisis.

The Emergencies Act gave Cabinet ministers the authority to delegate power to the police to compel financial institutions to freeze or close bank accounts of anyone suspected by the police of constituting a threat to the government. What constitutes a threat? The police decide.

There is no need for court orders and there is no possible appeal by victims to the courts. If there is a mistake (and what are the odds of your bank never making a mistake?) then individuals with the wrong political views who are unjustly “debanked” will have no recourse. A person could lose a business and fall into poverty. A person’s life could be ruined, and for a person in that situation, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms might as well not even exist.

Protesters have never been treated this way in Canada’s history.

As the Canadian Civil Liberties Association points out, by the time of Parliament’s vote on Monday, the blockades of border crossings had all been cleared and the trucks and protesters had been forced out of downtown Ottawa. The government supposedly had declared the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 to deal with these issues. There was no logical reason to vote to keep the act in place for 30 more days if the emergency over which it was invoked was now over. The government promised not to keep it in place a day longer than “necessary.”

Parliament, therefore, considered it “necessary” even after the protests were over, so what was the point? Stated plainly, the point was to intimidate future potential protesters by ruining the lives of the truckers and their families. Look at what might happen to you if you oppose Trudeau.

How did it come to this? Liberal democratic institutions in the English tradition have developed over many centuries to prevent all state power from falling into one despotic set of hands. The Canadian division of powers between the legislature and the judiciary branches of government and making the executive branch responsible to parliamentary supervision are at the heart of the system. Strict limits on police power and parliamentary supervision are also key. Why have our traditions disintegrated right before our eyes?

The whole system of justice in the English parliamentary tradition is rooted in a Christian worldview that starts with God as the supreme authority over all human law. The opening words of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” What could be clearer? The rule of law is based upon the supremacy of God.

Then the four fundamental freedoms are listed: (1) freedom of conscience and religion, (2) freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, (3) freedom of peaceful assembly, and (4) freedom of association. Then follows a whole list of other rights.

The point is that the whole edifice rests on the belief that government does not have absolute power but is subject to the rule of law. The rule of law means acknowledging that our dignity and rights as human beings come from God and therefore cannot be granted but only can be acknowledged by the government. Government does not have the authority to give or take away those rights. They are pre-political.

But what happens to a thousand years of tradition when a country ceases to believe in God? A culture that ceases to believe in God no longer sees any higher power than the government as the source of human rights and civil liberties. So, whatever the government believes is necessary must be right. Nothing restrains government power.

The basic issue here is not political; it is theological.

We have irreconcilable ideologies in conflict today and no way to resolve the conflict except by the exercise of raw power. Unable to appeal to universally acknowledged first principles, Trudeau has no way to convince a majority of his fellow citizens that his ideology is true, so he must resort to coercion. People acquiesce because it seems like the only choices are to let him get away with it or have society dissolve into chaos and open violence.

Our governing elites no longer believe in God. They recognize no limits to their power because they believe they are the source of political authority. They are unfit to govern. A society that no longer believes in God cannot remain a liberal democracy for long.