Prime Minister using the Canada Student Job program to punish people who disagree with him
In a democracy, governments don’t use public resources to punish political opponents. It’s outrageously shocking, and sad, to watch Canada regress to nondemocratic practices. I’m talking about the values screening now being imposed on Canada Summer Jobs applicants and others.
When I was young, I heard about patronage practices in my grandfather’s time which meant you couldn’t get a job as a dogcatcher unless you supported the governing party. No others need apply. We thought Canada had outgrown such blatant political corruption years ago. Why are our elected representatives silently allowing it to reappear in 2018?
To be eligible for assistance in creating student jobs, applicants must now certify that their core mandate respects, among other things, the “values underlying” the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and “reproductive rights.“
Let’s be clear about something: No law in Canada makes it illegal to hold the wrong opinion about the “values underlying” the Charter or about “reproductive rights.” Punishing wrong opinions about such things amounts to no more than the political policy of the governing Party and its leader. For goodness sake, even those “values underlying” the Charter are not written in any statute-book, except in the our current Prime Minister’s imagination!
Let’s also be clear that to deny government services to someone because of incorrect opinions is to punish them. That creates a second-class citizenship, and classifies people into it for having the wrong opinions.
It shouldn’t be necessary to remind our government that in a democracy we punish only conduct, not dissenting opinions. Why does a democratic government allow people to choose their own opinions rather than punish people who disagree with those of the powerful? There are obvious good reasons.
Perhaps the best reason is that a democracy tests every measure with this question: Do we as citizens serve the Government or does our Government serve us? No one should need to be told the answer to that.
Thinking through issues, weighing what’s at stake, and reaching your own conclusions allows you to work toward achieving your full human potential. To punish anyone merely for advocating dissenting opinions, in contrast, blocks them from growing into their own strength and dignity. Wrong decisions are part of that growth, and need not be restrained until acted upon to the detriment of others, and even then only with the least restraint possible.
If the government’s goal is to turn honest citizens into liars and hypocrites, they might succeed by threatening to treat those who oppose their political policy as second-class citizens, since most people will continue to hold their own opinion in their hearts even if forced to profess different beliefs publicly.
In a democracy we must also ask, does this measure treat people fairly? Does it treat those affected with dignity? If an applicant obeys all laws and creates student jobs, it is not fair treatment to withhold government services available to others who share the ruling party’s political opinions. And no one can describe punishing honourable citizens for advocating dissenting political policy as treating people with dignity.
Don’t think such measures only threaten those now targeted! The next Prime Minister, or another after that, might imagine their policy of promoting free market capitalism represents a “value underlying” the Charter. Or perhaps their policy of protecting private property rights will be imagined as a “value underlying” the Charter. Or it might be a policy of protecting the Canadian border against immigration. Or any other political policy from which you dissent, pushing you too into the swelling ranks of Canada’s new second-class citizenship.
As for me, when my time comes I hope I will have the courage to defy any punishment to uphold as my core mandate, even against those who say it violates the Charter, the principal established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of every member of the human family is the foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world.”