Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Criminalization of Dissent

In Toronto, an adult common-law couple are not allowed to be alone together, cannot communicate by cell phone and must be chaperoned by one of their parents. A 21-year-old woman is not allowed to leave the house unless she is accompanied by her parents. Last week, an Ontario judge ruled that attendance at a Ryerson University seminar violated parole conditions of a Toronto activist.

Read more about the stupidity of it all here.

This weekend will mark the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the end of Canadian democracy - the anniversary of the day that Pierre Trudeau imposed martial law in peacetime based on a completely false tale of "apprehended insurrection." We are a mere 100 days from when Stephen Harper essentially pulled the same authoritarian stunt in connection with the G20 protests in Toronto.

The student has surpassed the master, with Harper's arbitrary arrests more than doubling the number under Trudeau.

With the vantage point of history, it has become fairly clear that Trudeau's fantasy "apprehended insurrection" was nothing but a Reichstag Fire to justify a massive crackdown against his ideological foes. It is swiftly becoming obvious that Harper's $1 billion police state in Toronto was based on much the same authoritarian hysteria.

Stephen Harper is the new Pierre Trudeau - and I don't mean that in a good way.