It’s been said that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Forty years ago, the Soviet Union and its communist allies controlled much of this planet. Great swaths of humanity were oppressed, living under ideological regimes that did not respect the rule of law, and lacking the basic freedoms of expression, religion, conscience, association and peaceful assembly.
In 1982, the communists had ruled Russia for 65 years, crushing all dissent. Pro-freedom revolts in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968) had been ruthlessly supressed. People feared, legitimately, that the Soviets might invade Poland to supress its Solidarity movement.
Understandably (though not justifiably) many people in western democracies had resigned themselves to the communists holding power permanently, and perhaps even achieving their stated goal of establishing a “worker’s paradise” over the whole earth. There were no signs that communism would soon (if ever) retreat from its strongholds in Europe, Asia, Africa and the New World.
US President Ronald Reagan did not see it that way. In a speech given to the Parliament of the United Kingdom on June 8, 1982, he asked a tough question: "Must freedom perish in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil?"
Forty years later, President Reagan’s speech is just as relevant.
“Democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of oppression,” noted Reagan. How true today, considering Communist China’s "social credit" system, by which the state monitors the movement, travel, website posts, and purchasing decisions of citizens.
The government rewards good communist citizens with greater access to travel, lower rates of interest on loans, and better schools for their children. Chinese people who criticize the regime will find themselves unable to board a plane or train. Canada took a giant step towards Chinese-style “social credit” when imposing vaccine passports on Canadians, who were required to divulge personal, private medical information to total strangers in order to live their normal daily lives and enjoy basic freedoms.
Even today, Canadians who have refused the Covid injections (for which there is no long-term safety data) are subjected to two weeks of home quarantine upon their return to Canada, while “good” Canadians face no such restriction on their freedom.
The enormous power of the modern state threatens human freedom, noted Reagan in 1982. He proclaimed that the Soviet Union ran “against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens.” During the past 27 months, Canada’s federal and provincial politicians have not cited “building socialism” or “creating the worker’s paradise” as their pretext for violating our Charter rights and freedoms. Instead, the politicians’ pretext has been a virus that is worse than the average annual flu, but less than 1% percent as deadly as the Spanish Flu of 1918.
All of the restrictions on our rights and freedoms in the past 28 months have been based on the false claim of Dr. Neil Ferguson from March of 2020, that Covid would be like the Spanish Flu of 1918.
"We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable universal right of all human beings," claimed Reagan. Forty years later, freedoms were and are denied to Canadians who make the legitimate and reasonable decision to exercise autonomy over their own bodies by refusing a new vaccine. The vaccine manufacturers have stated publicly that Covid vaccines do not stop the spread of the virus. The Delta and Omicron variants spread throughout societies with very high vaccination rates, so there is no medical or scientific basis for this vicious discrimination.
Alluding to the error of appeasing Hitler in the 1930s, and alluding to those who wanted to appease the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Reagan claimed that "if history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."
Canadians in 2022 should not delude themselves about unpleasant facts. Government surveillance over Canadians’ private lives through vaccine passports can be re-introduced on a moment’s notice; repressive measures are based on the lie that Covid is as deadly as the Spanish Flu of 1918; violations of Charter rights and freedoms lacked medical and scientific justification.
In spite of dark and dire circumstances, Reagan called for the "rejection of the arbitrary power of the state," recognizing that "collectivism stifles all the best human impulses, since the exodus from Egypt."
In the face of evil, Reagan declared with confidence that "the march for freedom and democracy" will "leave Marxism Leninism on the ash heap of history, as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people." He reminded his listeners that "the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil" and that this struggle would not be waged by bombs and rockets but by "a test of wills and ideas."
Canadians today have the same choice that stood before us in 1982. We can allow freedom to perish in a quiet, deadening accommodation with Charter-violating health orders and mandates. Or we can see to it that the march for freedom will leave the unscientific laws and policies of the past 27 months on the ash heap of history.
John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
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