Connect with us

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

How Canadians lost the rule of law

Published

7 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Colin Alexander

Universal problems are evident in the rejection of Jordan Peterson’s appeal against Ontario’s College of Psychologists (CPO) in Divisional Court. They had sought to re-educate him as a condition for retaining his license—because he openly ridiculed public figures. But as Dr. Peterson related in the National Post, October 11, they’ve failed to find a brainwasher for him.

Precedent now confirms that unaccountable tribunals may override apparent Charter rights. That may declare as unacceptable anyone’s contrary opinion or peaceful protest. Dr. Peterson’s case follows the way the courts clobbered supporters of the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest on Parliament Hill. Now members of all regulated professions are especially at risk, including doctors, lawyers and teachers. Instead of protecting citizens from overreach, the courts have become the instrument for enforcing tyranny.

As the Toronto Star reported on the first press conference by Chief Justice Richard Wagner in 2018, he said his court was “the most progressive in the world.” Today, progressive is synonymous with the absurdities that Dr. Peterson ridiculed. Wanjiru Njoya, a legal scholar at the University of Exeter has been quoted as saying that the courts automatically define as unreasonable any perspectives falling outside progressive boundaries.

A further foundational problem is that judges now routinely preside over cases where they have an obvious bias or personal connection, and then defer to those interests. Canadian judges should follow this admonition in the American Judicial Code? “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge … shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Justice Paul Schabas wrote the Decision for Dr. Peterson’s appeal before Divisional Court. However, he had previously been involved, personally, on the side of the argument opposite that of Dr. Peterson. In June 2018, as head of the Law Society of Ontario (LSO), he oversaw the imposition on lawyers of their controversial Statement of Principles (SOP). As a condition of licensing, it required a commitment to Equity, Social and (Corporate) Governance (ESG). Later, the LSO withdrew it following protests like African-Canadian Elias Munshya’s in Canadian Lawyer: “Lawyers play an essential role in our society; that role, however, does not include becoming state agents that parrot state-sponsored speech.”

Chief Justice Wagner  recently confirmed that courts may now freely override common law precedent. He said that: “Apart from considering [historic] decisions as part of our legal cultural heritage, no one today will refer to a decision from 1892 to support his claim.” He added that “sometimes a decision from five years ago is an old decision ….”

Accordingly, the Supreme Court had simply disregarded century-old precedents when declaring Marc Nadon ineligible to join their club. My book Justice on Trial explains that many earlier appointments did not meet their newfound qualifications.

The subjective word “reasonable” supports much of Canada’s problematic jurisprudence. Absent objective criteria, judges reward friends and crush others as they may.

Justice Schabas said several comments similar to this one were unacceptable: “Dr. Peterson posted a tweet in May 2022, in which he commented on a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover with a plus-sized model, saying: ‘Sorry. Not Beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.’”

Dr. Peterson objected that the CPO’s Code of Ethics should not constrain such “off duty opinions.”  The Code says “[p]ersonal behaviour becomes a concern of the discipline only if it is of such a nature that it undermines public trust in the discipline as a whole or if it raises questions about the psychologist’s ability to carry out appropriately his/her responsibilities as a psychologist.” So which magazines’ cover pictures are not of public interest?

Justice Schabas continued, “The [CPO’s investigating] Panel also noted Dr. Peterson’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s decision in Grant v. Torstar, 2009 SCC 61, [2009] 3 SCR 640, a defamation case which held at para. 42, that “freedom of expression and respect for vigorous debate on matters of public interest have long been seen as fundamental to Canadian democracy … all Canadian laws must conform to it.” Why did Justice Schabas override this settled law?

Europe’s Charter of Fundamental Rights says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” So how can a right be fundamental in other free and democratic countries but not in Canada?

And why did the court of Chief Justice Wagner decline to hear Dr. Peterson’s appeal and allow Justice Schabas’ decision to stand? No prize for your answer!

As long advocated by The Globe & Mail and The Toronto Star, Dr. Peterson’s case shows the need to end self-regulation and in-house discipline for lawyers and judges. That happened for lawyers for England and Wales in 2007. So why not in Canada?

Ottawa resident Colin Alexander’s latest books are Justice on Trial: Jordan Peterson’s case shows the need to fix a broken system; and Ballad of Sunny Ways: Popular traditional verse about living, loving and money.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Health Risks from Water Fluoridation are not just in RFK’s Head

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

“There is evidence that fluoride exposure has been associated with the diseases [and] disorders that RFK listed, but with caveats”

Water fluoridation has returned to the forefront of public policy debates thanks to environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy is expected to have a role in the Department of Health and Human Services, giving his opinion more weight than ever.

In a post to X, Kennedy wrote, “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”

The post links to a High Wire video interview with lawyer Michael Connett, lead attorney in a successful case against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Last September, Obama-appointed District Court Judge Edward Chen sided with Connett and mandated the EPA to more strictly regulate water fluoridation.

Chen’s ruling states, “In all, there is substantial and scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health; it is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water…”

Fluoride is a poisonous industrial byproduct, handled in its pure form by people in hazmat suits. Dealing with sodium fluoroacetate was an expense for the Aluminum Company of America before Edward Bernays helped turn it into a profitable venture. In the 1940s, Bernays, the father of modern public relations and nephew of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, used mass psychology and public health advocates to have fluoride put in drinking water. Fluoridation opponents were dismissed as kooks ever after.

The toxicology adage “The dose makes the poison” applies. Chemicals, including drugs, can benefit health in some respects but undermine it in others. Unfortunately, recent analysis suggests the “side effects” of fluoridation may outweigh its alleged benefits.

A recent analysis by Cochrane Reviews said water fluoridation may provide a slight dental benefit, but less so since the mid 70’s when manufacturers commonly added fluoride to toothpaste. Fluoride reverses or stops early tooth decay by remineralizing teeth, making them stronger. It also reduces bacteria’s ability to make acids that cause decay.

Fluoride capsules have little effect on teeth, which suggests its main positive effect is topical (meaning by direct contact). An obvious question follows: if fluoride of roughly one part per million passing over the teeth before swallowing, what is its effect during digestion or bodily storage? After all half of fluoride is passed through urine, while the remainder is stored in the body.

In 2020 The Institute of Technology and Business in the Czech Republic made a six-article issue dedicated to the mechanisms of fluoride toxicity. One explained in the abstract that “fluoride is an enzymatic poison, inducing oxidative stress, hormonal disruptions, and neurotoxicity.” The toxic effects were magnified when trace amounts of aluminum were present, and “might contribute to unexpected epidemics in the future.”

Sleeplessness, hypothyroidism, and autism to conditions linked to fluoride consumption, whether through natural sources or water fluoridation. The risks were found through statistical studies comparing health issues in water fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas, biochemical analysis, and human and animal studies.

“We concur with the conclusions of many authors over the world that fluoride neurotoxicity is a serious risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure… […] Fluoride toxicity is a slow, hidden process. Evolving evidence should inspire scientists and health authorities to re-evaluate claims about the safety of fluoride…”

In 2019, researchers from Canadian and U.S. universities tested over 500 Canadian women throughout their pregnancies for fluoride levels in their urine. Their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that for each milligram of fluoride per litre in the mother’s urine, IQ dropped 4.5 points in their male children tested at ages of three to four years.

Christine Till, a professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, told CNN, “At a population level, that’s a big shift. That translates to millions of IQ levels lost.”

Ashley Malin, an assistant professor in the University of Florida’s Epidemiology Department, had similar findings in her Florida study, published in JAMA in 2024.

“There is evidence that fluoride exposure has been associated with the diseases [and] disorders that RFK listed, but with caveats,” Malin told the Virginia Mercury in a recent article.

“Aside from fluoride’s impacts on neurodevelopment, I think that there is more that we don’t know about health effects of low-level fluoride exposure than what we do know, particularly for adult health outcomes,” Malin added.

In August, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) in the United States found that fluoride levels higher than 1.5 mg/L (the highest acceptable level in Canada) are associated with lower IQs in children. The NTP said there is insufficient evidence to conclude that there are similar risks at the recommended level of 0.7 mg/L.

Montreal recently ended its water fluoridation and hopefully other cities will follow. Only a misguided nanny state would poison young minds and old bones for the sake of people who don’t brush their teeth.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Continue Reading

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Canada Fulfills the Dystopian Vision

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

The country our ancestors built is being torn down. The welfare state runs on massive deficits, increasing our public fiscal slavery. Cancel culture kills free speech. The government funds the Anti-Hate Network to oppose religious conservatives,  which negatively  stereotypes them.

Poet T.S. Elliot once wrote, “This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” Canada has fallen but has all the illusion of being what it always was. Many Canadians fail to see a dystopian future foretold decades ago has arrived. Our institutions are failing us.

In Orwellian fashion, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed Canadian values in the pretense of upholding them. They eliminated federal laws that made Sunday a day of rest, forced the provision of abortion and euthanasia in the name of the security of the person, and banned prayer from city hall meetings in the name of religious freedom.

The pandemic cranked the judges’ distorted amp right up to 11. In B.C., Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson struck down public health orders banning protests, but quizzically maintained the ban on religious assembly. Elsewhere, the hypocrisy just continued, laws or no laws.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could bow the knee at Black Lives Matter protests that exceeded gathering limits, while those who did so for church services or rallies against mandates were prosecuted–or even persecuted. The Walmarts and Superstores were packed, while the churches and small businesses sat empty.

Doctors who prescribed ivermectin, one of the safest and widely effective drugs of all time, faced medical censure–even if their actions saved lives. Medical colleges became bodies that betray the profession’s values by banning medical opinions and the off-label use of drugs when it contradicts poor policies based on weak evidence.

The media, which should have been pushing back at this nonsense, went along with the charade as if it was the right thing to do. Any perspective that could foment doubt against the recommendations and policies of those in power was banned. Such is the practice of authoritarian countries, which is what Canada became.

As law professor Bruce Pardy has noted, Canada has shifted from the rule of law to the rule by laws. Here, legal systems manage the public and the law and courts fail to call the governments to account. A rally that’s permitted one minute can be trampled by the Emergencies Act the next, while  donors to a protest see their bank accounts seized. Did you lose your job for refusing a vaccine? Too bad. Oh, and you don’t get EI either.

The pandemic and its fear subsided, but neither sober reflection nor an adequate reckoning arrived. People kept getting COVID after the vaccinations, yet some are getting booster shots to this day. Analysts such as Denis Rancourt, credit public responses, including vaccines, for worldwide excess mortality of 17 million. Yet, the bombshell falls like a dud, either ignored or diffused by dismissive “fact-checkers.”  The life expectancy of Canadians dropped two full years and barely a shoulder was shrugged.

Even our elections fail to inspire confidence. In many municipalities, programmable computers count the votes and no one checks or scrutinizes the paper ballots. In other cases, paper ballots don’t exist–it’s all done on screen. A computer gets the trust a single individual would never receive.

The country our ancestors built is being torn down. The welfare state runs on massive deficits, increasing our public fiscal slavery. Cancel culture kills free speech. The government funds the Anti-Hate Network to oppose religious conservatives,  which negatively  stereotypes them.

Gender ideology, now entrenched in law and schools, is facilitating a wedge between traditional values and woke values and between parents and their children. It even challenges the objective truth of biological reality. Truth has become what we feel, overriding rational norms, facts, and our inherited society.

Like George Orwell’s 1984, if the government says 2 + 2 = 5, then that’s what it is, and anyone who fails to accept it becomes an enemy of the state. Orwell’s novel envisioned a time when false propaganda like “war is peace” and “freedom is slavery” would prevail. The dystopia has arrived. Anyone who refers to someone by their biological sex is accused of misgendering hate.

Unfortunately,the dark vision of Aldous Huxley is also unfolding. In 1958, the author of Brave New World Revisited predicted,

“By means of ever more effective methods of mind manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms – elections, parliaments, supreme courts, and all the rest – will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the shows as they see fit.”

It’s especially sad to watch our elderly maintain trust in government and mainstream media narratives when the days they deserved it have left us. Like petrified wood, the forms of our institutions remain but their composition has entirely changed. Our democratic, legal, and media institutions, our schools and hospitals, are failing us badly.

Canada has fallen, but many Canadians can’t see it because there’s no rubble.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Continue Reading

Trending

X