The CBC Tries To Claim Wanting Freedom Is “Far-Right”

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) recently published an opinion article masquerading as news, purporting to show that the word “freedom” has become a symbol of the “far-right”. 

It is almost trite to note at this point that Canadian taxpayers give the CBC over $1 billion every year to publish trash like this that attacks regular citizens for being concerned about the erosion of liberties. 

In the words of the CBC  “The word [freedom] has become common among far-right groups, experts say,” because of course they hinge this ridiculous narrative that wanting freedom is “far-right” with experts we will later find out is just a far-left activist. 

This article has no author – maybe it was too embarrassing for anyone to claim to have written this, but I digress. 

The CBC article opens up with these lines:

As demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions continue across Canada, the word freedom is on the lips and placards of many protesters.

Often associated with protests and rallies in the United States, the term has taken hold among protesters who are part of the Freedom Convoy, which rolled into Ottawa in late January and has become entrenched in the city’s downtown.

For many, freedom is a malleable term — one that’s open to interpretation.

It is difficult to comprehend the amount of patronizing derision the CBC has for those who have real concerns about freedom. They literally frame fundamental freedoms that all Canadians are supposed to have as “open to interpretation” which signals that they themselves do not actually believe fundamental freedoms exist. They either exist or do not. Freedoms and liberties are not “just an opinion, man” they are the safeguards that prevent individuals from undoing restrictions on their lives. 

The CBC article then attempts to accuse pro-freedom protesters of trying to redefine freedom by citing one of their “experts,” someone by the name of Barbara Perry, who is the director of the Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism at the Oshawa-based Ontario Tech University.

She claimed: 

It is a term that has resonated…. You can define it and understand it and sort of manipulate it in a way that makes sense to you and is useful to you, depending on your perspective,

Perry then later went on to claim the number of “far-right” groups in Canada was rising and then speculated that this is due to people wanting to follow the example of the January 6 riot at the US capital in 2021, which was clearly disproven by the peacefulness of the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa.

Of course, this is utter foolishness. Perry and the CBC want to keep repeating words like “far-right” “January 6” and “extremism” alongside the word “freedom” in order to associate everyone championing fundamental freedoms and liberties as being potentially dangerous. 

Somehow the CBC article gets worse with the unnamed author(s) quoting someone from the Anti-Hate Network, a far-left organization that investigates legitimately extreme individuals and movements but then uses the information to smear mainstream conservative Canadians. 

Evan Balgord from the Anti-Hate Network claimed that the number of protesters using the word freedom has rendered the word “meaningless,” stating:

When they’re yelling they care so much about their freedom, they’re taking freedoms away from other people who don’t have the same kind of agency and choice that they do.

This is again just another patronizing comment that both pretend to not understand what the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Charter are while acting as if what freedoms are should be dictated by those the left-wing has defined as not having “agency and choice” (ie. mascots for their agenda). 

Finally, the article wraps up with quotes from Washington University professor Elisabeth Anker who talks about what she calls “violent” forms of freedom.

Ankler said:

Freedom is a slippery concept. On the far right, [individual freedom] is often translated into somebody who refuses to be bound by norms of equality, treating all people equally or norms to remedy inequality, whether that’s trying to remedy racial discrimination or gender discrimination

Sorry, but no, freedom is not a slippery concept for those who truly value it. Ankler and the other leftists quoted by the CBC can’t seem to put a finger on what freedom is because they value government power and being able to control how other people say and do more than they value freedom. 

Canadians have equality under the law, but academic activists like Ankler think it is contradictory for those she labels “far-right” to not be in favour of complete economic equity, left-wing “anti-racism,” and gender theory. Basically, unless you are a socially progressive communist radical and want the government to impose itself onto every aspect of a person’s life, then you will be accused of not wanting real ‘freedom’. 

In reality, the CBC and the leftists quoted in this article know what the fundamental freedoms that protesters have been calling for are, but because they don’t like the implications of upholding those freedoms they instead smear those who want them. They know freedom is appealing so they are waging a propaganda war with Canadian taxpayer money against the concept to make it easier to push their authoritarian agenda.