Canada’s War Propaganda, Censorship and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Open letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly

In Canada the CBC has suffered a tremendous loss of audience and credibility by making itself a publicity operation for the COVID officialdom whose key figure heads include Justin Trudeau. Seeking the votes of Ukrainian nationalists in Canada, many of whom are apparently quite comfortable with the Nazi elements in the current Ukrainian government, some members of Trudeau’s WEF cabinet are busy designing Canada’s version of anti-Russian war propaganda. See this.

Mélanie Joly, a young leadership graduate of the WEF and Canada’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, is prominent among those preparing the basis for Canada’s propaganda blitz to lionize Zelensky and demonize Putin. Not surprisingly she characterizes her work misleadingly as a counter-propaganda initiative.

Minister Joly is quoted in the following citation under the title, “Demand Wartime Censorship.” Blacklock’s Reporter explains,

“Cabinet must regulate the internet in Canada to curb Russian disinformation, says Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly. A federal ban on Kremlin-funded TV is not enough, said Joly: “My mandate as foreign minister is really to counter propaganda online.”  (emphasis added)

See this.

In aid of my continuing emphasis on the Honourable A. Brian Peckford’s efforts to restore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to its function as a beacon national inspiration in our failing polity, I wrote the following open letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly

The Honourable Mélanie Joly,

Foreign Affairs Minister of Canada
5  April, 2022

Dear Minister Joly;

I concur with Eva Lyman and The Honourable A. Brian Peckford that the federal government of Canada must put its own house in order by living within the rule of law including through adherence to our pre-eminent national law, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  As the former Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador observed in his letter of 30 March, 

“The truth is being suppressed. The Charter is being violated and cannot be excused with using Section 1. It’s intent was not for use in a circumstance like a virus with a 99% recovery rate and less than a 1% fatality rate, but rather in a circumstance where the country was in peril.”

After two years the Charter violations continue by, for instance, federal travel bans that have made Canada a national prison for those who have opted not to take mandated injections that have been shown to be notoriously unsafe and ineffective.

In a recent speech you made at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, you emphasized, Minister Joly, that human rights are universal. You also emphasized that the protection of human rights is a key aspect of international law. The protection of human rights is also a key domestic function of national governments. In Canada the primary legal means for implementing this protection is the enforcement of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a key part of Canada’s constitution that the Trudeau Liberals violate every day.

Canada’s growing reputation as a human rights violator was recently highlighted at the European Parliament where Prime Minister Trudeau was recently asked to “spare” the assembled parliamentarians of “his presence.” He was diplomatically asked to leave. 

A Member of the European Parliament declared that Trudeau’s invasive violations of the human rights of his own citizens has “made him a disgrace to any democracy.” Another MEP, who, like Eva Lyman, has lived under Soviet tyranny, called the current Liberal government of Canada “a dictatorship of the worst kind.” The MEP continued, under Prime Minister Trudeau’s “quasi-liberal boot… Canada is becoming a symbol of civil rights violations.”

Clearly these comments in the European Parliament resonated widely throughout the international community in a way that will certainly harm the credibility of Canada when your government tries to present itself as a champion of international human rights. The widening awareness that Canada’s federal government is facing growing internal criticisms for violating human rights and civil liberties, will no doubt be noticed outside the country as well as inside. 

It will not go unnoticed that one of those leading the criticism is a former Canadian Premier who helped draft and enact the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981-82. Indeed, the Honourable A. Brian Peckford is backing up his position by heading up a legal case whose objective is to restore the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to its proper status as the lead embodiment of national authority in the Canadian rule of law.      

In my 71 years of life I do not remember any other time when Canada has been the target of this level of harsh criticism from elected officials in an important international body. It is not a big stretch to surmise that the unwillingness of the Trudeau Liberals to place the federal government within the framework of the Canadian Charter of Rights set a course leading to such a harsh rebuke in an important arena of international affairs. 

It must be quite shocking for you to find Canada placed in such a position of international infamy during your watch as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Your government could send an encouraging signal to the world and to Canadian citizens generally by voluntarily dropping mandates to re-enter adherence to the requirements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I believe the restoration of the Charter as a leading beacon in the enactment of laws and policies by the Canadian government would lead you away from your apparent preoccupation with censoring freedom of speech and expression in promoting your government’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine. I don’t recall seeing any genuine debate in Parliament about what Canada’s policy should be in this conflict. There can be no doubt that the period of severe decline in the integrity of Parliamentary governance in Canada has been accompanied by the period when parliamentarians have failed to uphold the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canadian governance.  

You are quoted as declaring Minister Joly, “My mandate as foreign minister is really to counter propaganda online.”

See this.

Who do you believe entrusted you with such a mandate? Who appointed you arbiter of what constitutes propaganda and what constitutes honest reporting. How much honest reporting do we see these days in Canada now that our country is seen by some as a symbol of civil liberties violations and a dictatorship of the worst kind?

I humbly suggest that, under the present circumstances, you would serve yourself, the Canadian government, the Canadian people, and the international community best by setting yourself the task of safeguarding freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of movement in these difficult times. Please, Minister Joly, use your considerable influence to restore the rule of law in Canada especially by elevating the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to its proper status as a beacon of Canada’s national values and priorities.

Yours respectfully

Anthony J. Hall

*

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Dr. Anthony Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.


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Articles by: Prof. Anthony J. Hall

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