Today's post originally appeared in the January 2025 edition of The Interim, Canada's pro-life and pro-family newspaper. We reprint it with permission. The article's author is John Carpay who is a lawyer and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom. Canadians are fortunate to have an organization like JCCF defending freedom and democracy.

State power must be held in check. Carpay rightly warns Canadians about the dangers of the Online Harms Act, but his point applies to the entire West as governments in recent years, during the "pandemic" in particular, have exercised more and more control over people. It's the citizenry that must have greater control over the government, not some form of Big Brother.

Online Harms Act stems from a culture that venerates government

Who would have imagined in the 1960s that Parliament would pass a law to punish Canadians if their speech was deemed to be “hateful” by federal bureaucrats? Who would have imagined, 60 years ago, that a Digital Safety Commission would enforce speech regulations created in secret by the federal cabinet? Would anyone in the 1960s have supported criminalizing advocacy for genocide with a punishment of life imprisonment, a more severe punishment than the maximum 14-year sentence for sexually assaulting a minor? What about giving the Canadian Human Rights Commission the power to prosecute unpopular or politically incorrect speech, with a penalty of up to $50,000? 

Who in the 1960s could have imagined we would punish Canadians for crimes they have not yet committed, but might commit in the future? Would anyone have supported a law to force a citizen to wear an ankle bracelet (electronic monitoring device), stay at home under a curfew, and turn in her legally acquired firearms, based only on a neighbour’s fear that they might commit a speech crime in the future?

Although our parents and grandparents would not have predicted or even imagined the Online Harms Act, it has already passed First and Second Reading in Parliament. 

If we could go back in time 60 years to inform our parents and grandparents about Canada in 2025, they would be astounded to the point of disbelief. While feeling horrified by this future dystopia, they would not have recognized their own contribution to putting Canada on this path to tyranny.

Canada’s road to serfdom began innocently enough, when governments in the 1960s gradually took over hospitals, hospices, adoption agencies, orphanages, homeless shelters, elementary schools, high schools, universities, nursing homes, and all manner of assistance to those in need and unable to help themselves. Over time, schools gradually stopped teaching history to children, and citizens gradually lost their appreciation for the free society. 

In the 1940s, Canadians were willing to die – and did die – to defend our freedoms against Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. 

Eighty years later, Canadians gladly gave up their freedoms to support a futile and unsuccessful effort to stop a virus from spreading. Even after it became obvious that the virus posed a serious threat to only a small number of people, Canadians embraced tyranny. Even when demonstrated facts discredited the media’s fearmongering narrative, many Canadians still asked politicians to lock people down harder and longer. Next, many Canadians demanded that everyone get injected with a substance that did not stop the virus from spreading. Those who did not get injected with this substance (for which no long-term safety data existed) became second-class citizens, denied basic human rights. 

Clearly, Canadian culture has shifted away from our former love for a free country in which the government was our servant rather than our master. Like sheep who long for a shepherd, many Canadians love the authoritarian state. They appreciate being told what to think, how to think, what to do, and how to live. They do not want to be responsible adults who use their God-given brains to think for themselves. Instead, they want to be guided, directed, controlled and managed like young children. This childish sentiment aligns with statolatry, the worship of the state. 

It is this excessive reliance on government that paved the way for the Online Harms Act. Most Canadians trust their federal and provincial governments to run hospitals, hospices, adoption agencies, orphanages, homeless shelters, elementary schools, high schools, universities, long-term care facilities, and all manner of assistance to those in need. Further, many Canadians want their government to regulate every business, profession, trade, charity, sport and hobby in the name of “safety” or “security” or both. 

If the government knows best how to manage all these enterprises and activities, why should the government not also lend its benevolence, expertise and wisdom to controlling and regulating our speech? The government’s “safety and security” claims have worked wonders in persuading Canadians to let government manage much of their daily lives. If we don’t want to be treated like adults in the social, economic and financial spheres of our lives, can we really demand that government treat us like adults when it comes to what we say, how we practice our faith, and how we raise our children? 

The Online Harms Act is a big step forward towards a totalitarian state. It must be vigorously opposed. But while fighting against this most aggressive assault on free expression in Canadian history, we must remember to fight as well against the rotten, government-venerating culture from which it came.