NDP residential schools bill is an attack on fundamental freedoms

One day I would like to figure out why Canadian left-wing political parties insist on tarnishing their name by introducing bills anathema to freedom of speech which make themselves utterly unworthy of votes. I had no clue that advocating for social programs came with the side effect of being terrified of speech. But here we are.

This week, NDP MP Leah Gazan introduced a private members bill that, if passed, would make it criminal to promote hatred against indigenous people by publicly “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada or by misrepresenting facts related to it.”  

If you are concerned with denialism or downplaying, Ms. Gazan, there are solutions that do not involve eroding basic rights. In fact, it is these basic rights that exist as the solution.

In order to discredit David Irving, the revisionist historian who downplayed and denied elements of the holocaust, the Western world did not rely on draconian restrictions of his speech. Irving wrote bad history. In order to discredit him, methodical, careful, and non-ideological historians pointed out the flaws in his approach, his mistakes, and the altering of facts to support his conclusions. His work, to this day, is not taken seriously, because it has been defeated in a battleground of ideas.

The introduction of this bill may serve as a flashpoint, but it is not the beginning and certainly not the end of this cancer that has infected the Left (that is not to say that the draconian impulse does not exist on the Right).

This will have a severe impact at the ballot box. There are voters who are referred to as orange blue switchers. They are people, mainly from the working class, whose votes alternative between the NDP and the Conservatives depending on who they perceive as acting most in the interest of the working class. These voters are a valuable bellwether, as they are non-partisan and their interests remain fairly constant.

Hostility towards freedom of speech will push voters towards Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives because the public does not believe he is a threat to fundamental freedoms. It seems the NDP is currently the threat. Even if these voters disagree with Poilievre on economics, a desire to hold onto fundamental freedoms is the more powerful force.

I do not feel that the Left can clean house. A new movement must emerge that is left wing in its economic orientation exactly because of the fundamentals of freedom that it is founded on. Freedom to live your life how you want to does mean having access to great education and healthcare regardless of your economic background. It means being able to take public transportation. It means not having to worry about corporations taking advantage of you at every opportunity. These ideas follow from the original principals of freedom. There is no better bedrock on which to build. This has been forgotten or willfully ignored by the Canadian Left.  

May this legislation utterly fail, and may we mock and shame the NDP for falling so short of the party it could be.