By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | February 27th 2024
NATIONAL OBSERVER
Pierre Poilievre outlines his "freedom, except for public bathrooms" policy at a recent press conference in Kitchener, Ont. Screencap from CPAC video
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Just over two years ago, Pierre Poilievre kicked off his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada with a video that hung his candidacy on one simple word: freedom. “Together,” he said, “we will make Canadians the freest people on Earth.” To him, that meant “freedom to raise your kids with your own values. Freedom to make your own health and vaccine choices. Freedom to speak without fear. And freedom to worship God in your own way.”
But with more than a year to go until the next federal election, it’s become increasingly clear that Poilievre’s vision of freedom is much narrower than he first let on. He has already signalled he plans to intrude on the jurisdiction of provincial governments and the freedom of municipal ones when it comes to homebuilding, while his supposed support for freedom of the press seems to be heavily informed by the partisan affiliations of said journalists.
His recent suggestion that access to online pornography should be mediated by government interference was equally telling. As the co-editors at The Line wrote, “There is no way to effectively age-gate porn without relying on intrusive and risky measures that would present the risk of — at a minimum — significant government overreach and, at worst, a high probability of identity theft and blackmail.”
As digital privacy expert Michael Geist noted, “The party that has championed Internet freedoms suddenly now finds itself supporting a bill that features website blocking of lawful content, subjects millions of Canadians to privacy-invasive age verification technology requirements overseen by a government agency such as the CRTC, and institutes regulations that apply to broadly used search and social media services.”
But these are mere appetizers to the main course — Poilievre’s unwillingness to grant people the freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies. That begins with his apparent interest in which bathrooms and changing rooms are being used by transgender women. "Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males," he said last week. How, exactly, he proposes to enforce that standard is not clear. Should all bathrooms and changing rooms have government-appointed gender inspectors posted at the doors? That doesn’t sound very free to me.
Instead, it sounds an awful lot like what’s happening in some of the most freedom-obsessed portions of America, where fears about transgender people have been used to advance a whole host of restrictive legislative measures. As writer Rebecca Solnit argued, “It’s no coincidence the American right is obsessed with border walls and with airtight gender definitions and racial discrimination to keep others in their places.”
And then there’s Canada’s medical assistance in dying legislation, which continues to draw the ire of otherwise freedom-focused conservatives. As freedom convoy leader Tamara Lich asked on social media, “Can someone please explain to me how we went from locking down everyone, everywhere in order to save every life on the planet to MAID, so our ‘public health’ can help our most vulnerable populations die?”
Gladly, Tamara.
In one situation, we were trying to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus and avoid more widespread human and economic casualties, all while balancing the complex architecture of freedoms that make up a society. In the other, we’re giving seriously ill people the freedom to decide how and when they want to die rather than subjecting them to the small mercies of fate, at no cost to anyone else’s constitutionally protected freedoms. Simple, isn’t it?
Pierre Trudeau famously said, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Now, more than half a century later, why does the otherwise freedom-obsessed Pierre Poilievre keep promising to insert it into our private lives?
Poilievre has already said he would restrict access to MAID to those with “irremediable health conditions, physical health conditions,” even though that would prevent those suffering from long-term mental illness from having the same freedoms as other Canadians. It’s fair to wonder what other fetters he would put on our personal freedoms in the name of his own political priorities. And yes, that does include access to abortion.
In Pierre Poilievre’s Canada, then, you’ll be free to decline a vaccine that’s in the best interests of your fellow citizens and worship God without fear of being judged by the non-believers in your midst. But when it comes to everything from public washrooms to private Internet searches, the government is going to monitor your every move — all in the name of your own protection. That’s the sort of freedom you might expect in Gilead, not Canada.
It’s also an inversion of the freedom-oriented formulation that Pierre Trudeau coined on his path to becoming a political rock star. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” he said when, as Canada’s justice minister, he announced the decriminalization of previously taboo things like homosexuality and abortion. Now, more than half a century later, another politician on his way to becoming Canada’s next prime minister seems determined to insert the state in the bathrooms of the nation. If he gets his way, maybe the bedrooms will be next.
February 27th 2024
Max Fawcett
Lead Columnist
@maxfawcett
Pierre Poilievre outlines his "freedom, except for public bathrooms" policy at a recent press conference in Kitchener, Ont. Screencap from CPAC video
Previous story
Listen to article
Just over two years ago, Pierre Poilievre kicked off his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada with a video that hung his candidacy on one simple word: freedom. “Together,” he said, “we will make Canadians the freest people on Earth.” To him, that meant “freedom to raise your kids with your own values. Freedom to make your own health and vaccine choices. Freedom to speak without fear. And freedom to worship God in your own way.”
But with more than a year to go until the next federal election, it’s become increasingly clear that Poilievre’s vision of freedom is much narrower than he first let on. He has already signalled he plans to intrude on the jurisdiction of provincial governments and the freedom of municipal ones when it comes to homebuilding, while his supposed support for freedom of the press seems to be heavily informed by the partisan affiliations of said journalists.
His recent suggestion that access to online pornography should be mediated by government interference was equally telling. As the co-editors at The Line wrote, “There is no way to effectively age-gate porn without relying on intrusive and risky measures that would present the risk of — at a minimum — significant government overreach and, at worst, a high probability of identity theft and blackmail.”
As digital privacy expert Michael Geist noted, “The party that has championed Internet freedoms suddenly now finds itself supporting a bill that features website blocking of lawful content, subjects millions of Canadians to privacy-invasive age verification technology requirements overseen by a government agency such as the CRTC, and institutes regulations that apply to broadly used search and social media services.”
But these are mere appetizers to the main course — Poilievre’s unwillingness to grant people the freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies. That begins with his apparent interest in which bathrooms and changing rooms are being used by transgender women. "Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males," he said last week. How, exactly, he proposes to enforce that standard is not clear. Should all bathrooms and changing rooms have government-appointed gender inspectors posted at the doors? That doesn’t sound very free to me.
Instead, it sounds an awful lot like what’s happening in some of the most freedom-obsessed portions of America, where fears about transgender people have been used to advance a whole host of restrictive legislative measures. As writer Rebecca Solnit argued, “It’s no coincidence the American right is obsessed with border walls and with airtight gender definitions and racial discrimination to keep others in their places.”
And then there’s Canada’s medical assistance in dying legislation, which continues to draw the ire of otherwise freedom-focused conservatives. As freedom convoy leader Tamara Lich asked on social media, “Can someone please explain to me how we went from locking down everyone, everywhere in order to save every life on the planet to MAID, so our ‘public health’ can help our most vulnerable populations die?”
Gladly, Tamara.
In one situation, we were trying to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus and avoid more widespread human and economic casualties, all while balancing the complex architecture of freedoms that make up a society. In the other, we’re giving seriously ill people the freedom to decide how and when they want to die rather than subjecting them to the small mercies of fate, at no cost to anyone else’s constitutionally protected freedoms. Simple, isn’t it?
Pierre Trudeau famously said, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Now, more than half a century later, why does the otherwise freedom-obsessed Pierre Poilievre keep promising to insert it into our private lives?
Poilievre has already said he would restrict access to MAID to those with “irremediable health conditions, physical health conditions,” even though that would prevent those suffering from long-term mental illness from having the same freedoms as other Canadians. It’s fair to wonder what other fetters he would put on our personal freedoms in the name of his own political priorities. And yes, that does include access to abortion.
In Pierre Poilievre’s Canada, then, you’ll be free to decline a vaccine that’s in the best interests of your fellow citizens and worship God without fear of being judged by the non-believers in your midst. But when it comes to everything from public washrooms to private Internet searches, the government is going to monitor your every move — all in the name of your own protection. That’s the sort of freedom you might expect in Gilead, not Canada.
It’s also an inversion of the freedom-oriented formulation that Pierre Trudeau coined on his path to becoming a political rock star. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” he said when, as Canada’s justice minister, he announced the decriminalization of previously taboo things like homosexuality and abortion. Now, more than half a century later, another politician on his way to becoming Canada’s next prime minister seems determined to insert the state in the bathrooms of the nation. If he gets his way, maybe the bedrooms will be next.
February 27th 2024
Max Fawcett
Lead Columnist
@maxfawcett
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