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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Wokeism VS. classical liberal truth-based order at the root of Online Harms bill debate

Published

2 years ago

12 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge

You can be made a criminal as a result of someone’s emotional response to what you say or write online. A successful complainant can receive up to $20,000 for that anonymous complaint from the person complained about.

Wokeism versus the classical liberal truth-based order is what the discussion on the Online Harms Bill, C-63, is really about. Although some see it as a plot to undermine free speech, it may actually represent the legitimate view of progressives—wokeism—to promote social justice, as they see it. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers—the first woke government in the history of Canada—sincerely believe in what they are doing. C-63 is wokeism at work.

I’m not talking about the sections designed to protect children from online harm. Everyone wants that. Whether or not the various digital safety commissars are necessary is questionable, but the politicians can sort that out. I’m referring specifically to the sections allowing anyone to anonymously make a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) that someone has written or said something that is “hateful.” This is defined as causing someone to feel “detested” or “vilified.” You can be made a criminal as a result of someone’s emotional response to what you say or write online. A successful complainant can receive up to $20,000 for that anonymous complaint from the person complained about. And that person, who is now $20,000 poorer, can be ordered to pay a further $50,000 to the government after CHRC bureaucrats—appointed by the government—decide that he has hurt the feelings of the anonymous complainant.

We don’t have to imagine how this will work, because we have already seen it in action with Section 13, the previous incarnation of C-63. In one famous case, Ezra Levant, now of Rebel News, was the person complained about. He had dared to republish the infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Someone complained, and Levant basically had years of his life, and most of his money, consumed with trying to defend himself.

The other famous Section 13 case related to the Islamist issue involved author and media personality Mark Steyn. His case was just as gruelling, time consuming, and expensive. Steyn eventually won, but at great cost in time and money.

Largely as a result of these cases, Section 13 was repealed by the Harper government. What had happened is that a commission with a particular view about Islamic issues had relentlessly prosecuted two men who legitimately held different views about the subject.

And that is exactly what we can expect with this resurrected version of Section 13.

It could be on Islamic issues where people have different views. Or it could be on a thousand other issues where people have different views.

The trans issue is one. The prime minister famously tweeted “Trans women are women.” That is a view held by many people. It is one of the fundamental tenets of progressivism—wokeism. However, many do not accept that view. How many? According to Professor Eric Kaufman, one-third of Canadians accept woke views, while two-thirds reject wokeism. This same two-thirds to one-third ratio also applies in Britain and United States. The one-third fervently believe that they must remake the world according to the way they know it must be, and that the two-thirds who don’t see it yet must be brought along.

So, with this proposed legislation, we see the problem immediately. Complaints will be made to the CMHR about a trans issue, for example, against someone within the two-thirds majority of the population who do not accept that “trans women are women” and that complaint will be adjudicated by mainly Liberal appointees—appointed in large part exactly because of their progressive views—who believe that “trans women are women.” The people complained about can expect to be treated the same way Levant and Steyn were treated: namely, being forced through lengthy and expensive hearings, simply for holding the same views that two-thirds of Canadians hold.

This is an absurd result. And the trans example is just one of many that can be expected to generate complainants. What about the belief that all indigenous complaints must be believed? This is the woke view, namely that the truthfulness of stories told within indigenous communities cannot be questioned in the usual way. The most dramatic example of this odd belief is the claim that 215 indigenous children were secretly buried at the former Kamloops Residential School, in some cases with the forced help of children as young as six. We were asked to believe this highly improbable claim simply because of stories that circulated within indigenous communities.

The Trudeau Liberals immediately accepted this baseless claim. A cabinet minister, Marc Miller, even publicly called a distinguished professor of history, Jacques Rouillard a “ghoul” for simply suggesting that it is in the interest of all Canadians that excavations should be undertaken at Kamloops to determine the truth. If a cabinet minister says such things, it can safely assumed that many other people are quite willing to lodge anonymous complaints against truth seekers, like this professor.

The prime minister actually gave an explanation of how he views free speech in a candid discussion with a journalist during the truckers’ convoy protest. He said that some Canadians—those opposing vaccine mandates and other forms of excessive government control—had “unacceptable views.” They must be stopped. Only “acceptable views”—his—would be allowed.

The problem with this simplistic view is that there are a myriad of subjects upon which people hold different views. Trudeau sincerely believed that these protesters were wrong, while the protestors just as sincerely believed that he was wrong. Imposing the Emergencies Act over a difference of opinion was an extreme move. We now know that what he did was unconstitutional. Bill C-63 is very similar to the use of the Emergencies Act. Both only make sense to the woke.

The classical liberal truth-based order, so painstakingly constructed, was built on free and raucous discussion. And that is the only way it can be maintained. That free discussion of ideas—no matter how offensive, “hateful,” or irksome they might be to people with different views—is vital to our democratic governance.

The woke view, on the other hand, insists that there are certain fixed ideas, such as systemic racism, trans women are women, etc., that must be accepted by everyone, at any cost.

That’s the fight that is underway now with the Online Harms Bill. One side—the one-third—say that they know the way, and everyone must follow. The other side—the two-thirds—say that no one “knows” the way, but only by free discussion can we find it. That free discussion of ideas is messy. People will have their feelings hurt by discussions that will not always be polite. But that’s exactly what has built our advanced civilization.

Wokeism versus classical liberal truth-based order. That’s what C-63 is about.

Children must be protected. Genocide is bad. No one argues with those things. But free speech must be protected. The one-third of the population who hold “woke” views are absolutely entitled to hold and express those views. But they cannot be allowed to prevent the two-thirds who view the world differently from expressing theirs.

Canadians are a trusting people, as Kaufman points out in the above article. And while the roughly two-thirds of the population that does not accept wokeism is identical to the two-thirds in Britain and United States, Canada is different from them in that our Conservative Party has been very reluctant to push back against wokeism, as the Conservatives do in Britain and the Republicans so vigorously do in America. The odd result is that the two-thirds non-woke Canadians tend to trust the one-third woke who have captured the media and our other major institutions. We saw that at work in the government control wielded during the COVID years. Bill C-63 can only make that tendency towards submission worse, by allowing only woke views—acceptable views—to be discussed publicly.

There will be some brave free-speech martyrs, like Levant and Steyn, who will be prepared to soldier on regardless of what legislation the current ideological government passes. But most people who would be inclined to push back against woke mantras—such as “a trans woman is a woman” or “all indigenous claims must be believed”—won’t, even if they know that the claims aren’t true. Canada will become the worse for it.

Wokeism is authoritarian, and will not tolerate free speech.

As drafted, Bill C-63 definitely contravenes Article 2 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to their “political or other opinion.”

C-63, as drafted, is bad law. It must not be passed.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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Canada At Risk Of Losing Control Of Its Northern Territories

Published on November 23, 2025

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Gerry Bowler

Canada has left the North wide open to foreign powers eager to grow their Arctic foothold

Canada is in danger of losing the Arctic because Ottawa has ignored the North for far too long.

The Canadian North makes up 40 per cent of our land mass and includes more than 19,000 islands in the Arctic Archipelago. Yet only about 120,000 people live across this enormous stretch of wilderness. Canada took control of the region in the late 19th century through territorial transfers from the Hudson’s Bay Company and the British Crown, one of the largest land transfers in history.

For decades afterward, the North received little federal attention. The Second World War briefly changed that, prompting construction of the Alcan Highway to Alaska and bringing new airfields and telephone lines.

The Cold War, along with the threat of Soviet bombers crossing the Pole, led to multiple radar lines. Still, Prime Minister St-Laurent admitted in the 1950s that Canadian governments had treated the North “in an almost continuing state of absence of mind.”

John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative administration tried to reverse that neglect. In 1958, he told a Winnipeg audience: “I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North! … We intend to carry out the legislative program of Arctic research, to develop Arctic routes, to develop those vast hidden resources the last few years have revealed.”

Plans for a research and industrial city in Frobisher Bay, new roads and railway lines and wide-ranging surveys were ambitious but ultimately unaffordable. In the years that followed, both Liberal and Conservative governments again set northern development aside.

Foreign interest, however, continued to grow. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service recently reported Russian and Chinese attempts at influence and subversion in our northern territories.

American governments over the past 20 years have shown serious interest in the region’s resources, which include significant oil, gas and mineral deposits, along with control of the Northwest Passage, a shipping route becoming increasingly accessible as Arctic sea ice recedes.

Canada considers those waters national; the United States, the European Union and at times China argue it is an international strait.

For all practical purposes, Canada has what amounts to no meaningful presence north of the tree line, leaving the field open to countries with far more ambition and far better-equipped forces.

Canada is in no position to defend its claims. We have no icebreakers capable of operating through the Arctic winter. We have no submarines that can work under the ice cap. We have no permanent air base for fighter jets.

And to cover two million square kilometres of Arctic territory, we have only 300 troops stationed there. The chance they could detect, let alone repel, a serious intruder is essentially zero. Without these capabilities, Canada cannot properly monitor activity in the region or enforce its sovereignty claims.

In the last federal budget, Ottawa announced a $1-billion Arctic infrastructure fund for new airports, seaports and all-season roads. Our foreign affairs minister has urged NATO to pay more attention to the Arctic, saying it “must be an organization not only that focuses on the eastern flank, but also that looks north.”

These steps are gestures, not strategy. Canadian governments excel at promises but struggle with procurement, and the idea that European allies might fill the gap, considering their weak response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine, is unlikely.

Our northern territory is under threat. We must use it or lose it.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Crime

How Global Organized Crime Took Root In Canada

Published on November 21, 2025

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

Weak oversight and fragmented enforcement are enabling criminal networks to undermine Canada’s economy and security, requiring a national-security-level response to dismantle these systems

A massive drug bust reveals how organized crime has turned Canada into a source of illicit narcotics production

Canada is no longer just a victim of the global drug trade—it’s becoming a source. The country’s growing role in narcotics production exposes deep systemic weaknesses in oversight and enforcement that are allowing organized crime to take root and threaten our economy and security.

Police in Edmonton recently seized more than 60,000 opium poppy plants from a northeast property, one of the largest domestic narcotics cultivation operations in Canadian history. It’s part of a growing pattern of domestic production once thought limited to other regions of the world.

This wasn’t a small experiment; it was proof that organized crime now feels confident operating inside Canada.

Transnational crime groups don’t gamble on crops of this scale unless they know their systems are solid. You don’t plant 60,000 poppies without confidence in your logistics, your financing and your buyers. The ability to cultivate, harvest and quietly move that volume of product points to a level of organization that should deeply concern policymakers. An operation like this needs more than a field; it reflects the convergence of agriculture, organized crime and money laundering within Canada’s borders.

The uncomfortable truth is that Canada has become a source country for illicit narcotics rather than merely a consumer or transit point. Fentanyl precursors (the chemical ingredients used to make the synthetic opioid) arrive from abroad, are synthesized domestically and are exported south into the United States. Now, with opium cultivation joining the picture, that same capability is extending to traditional narcotics production.

Criminal networks exploit weak regulatory oversight, land-use gaps and fragmented enforcement, often allowing them to operate in plain sight. These groups are not only producing narcotics but are also embedding themselves within legitimate economic systems.

This isn’t just crime; it’s the slow undermining of Canada’s legitimate economy. Illicit capital flows can distort real estate markets, agricultural valuations and financial transparency. The result is a slow erosion of lawful commerce, replaced by parallel economies that profit from addiction, money laundering and corruption. Those forces don’t just damage national stability—they drive up housing costs, strain health care and undermine trust in Canada’s institutions.

Canada’s enforcement response remains largely reactive, with prosecutions risk-averse and sentencing inadequate as a deterrent. At the same time, threat networks operate with impunity and move seamlessly across the supply chain.

The Edmonton seizure should therefore be read as more than a local success story. It is evidence that criminal enterprise now operates with strategic depth inside Canada. The same confidence that sustains fentanyl synthesis and cocaine importation is now manifesting in agricultural narcotics production. This evolution elevates Canada from passive victim to active threat within the global illicit economy.

Reversing this dynamic requires a fundamental shift in thinking. Organized crime is a matter of national security. That means going beyond raids and arrests toward strategic disruption: tracking illicit finance, dismantling logistical networks that enable these operations and forging robust intelligence partnerships across jurisdictions and agencies.

It’s not about symptoms; it’s about knocking down the systems that sustain this criminal enterprise operating inside Canada.

If we keep seeing narcotics enforcement as a public safety issue instead of a warning of systemic corruption, Canada’s transformation into a threat nation will be complete. Not because of what we import but because of what we now produce.

Scott A. McGregor is a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and managing partner of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting Ltd.

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