C-9, The Threat to Freedom and The Loss of Canada’s Unique Identity
Ottawa, ON—A warm welcome to our friends in the media and to all those viewing or listening today. I’m Rod Taylor, national leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada. I’m speaking to you today from the nation’s capital with an urgency and a conviction that our nation is in danger of losing its unique identity and losing the freedoms that have made Canada—for many years—a model among the nations for justice, prosperity and basic decency.
Those freedoms and attributes are fading fast and are in danger of disappearing altogether—and along with them—our national prosperity. The benefits and blessings we have enjoyed in the past—energy independence, financial security and even food security—have been significantly impaired through government overspending and over-regulating.
What does overspending have to do with freedom, and what does our economic prosperity have to do with Bill C-9 and other bills currently being debated in the House? Everything.
Freedom and Justice—two of the most important elements of democracy and civilization—are intertwined and mutually dependent, and they, in turn, impact the kind of financial environment we can maintain. A nation cannot claim to be just or free when personal freedoms have been sacrificed to governmental bureaucracies. Today, bureaucratic interference with the free market economy…and regulated compliance in social and family matters—although emanating from Ottawa—can often be traced back to international institutions and globalist agendas.
When international bankers control the narrative through state-funded media…and when the promoters of a New World Order call the shots through seemingly respectable organizations like the UN, the WHO and the WEF…entrepreneurial Canadians and the businesses they represent can expect the short end of the stick. We can also expect to be increasingly tracked and monitored to ensure compliance with the goals of the corporate elite, which, by its very nature, is unaccountable and unresponsive to the concerns of the Canadian people.
Tracking, monitoring, censoring and restricting Canadian citizens has…and will have…a decidedly chilling effect, not only on our freedom of expression but also on our entrepreneurial endeavours. The increasingly litigious trend that seeks to control thinking and behaviour through fines, monetary penalties and forfeitures of property, raises red flags for risk-takers, whether businessmen or social advocates.
Legislation proposed or enacted by our current federal government—and all of its previous iterations—has undermined traditional values and also our shared expectations of free speech, freedom of the press and the presumption of innocence…all things we have taken for granted up until now. In concert with other restrictive and narrow administrative regulations, in time, it will cause “smart money” to find investment opportunities outside of Canada.
Even small business owners in Canada will think twice about starting or expanding a business if they see themselves as vulnerable to regulatory capture.
Bill C-9 has raised the question of religious freedom versus woke ideology and state sponsored censorship. Government spokespeople have already referred to certain passages of the Bible as “hateful.” While they disingenuously claim that freedom of speech and freedom of religion will still be protected, they have inserted an amendment that specifically eliminates the expression of opinion based on the Word of God…the same Word of God that is engraved on the stones of our Parliament buildings. The same God who is referenced in our beloved Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As I speak to you today on March 25th, MPs are debating and perhaps later today will be voting on 3rd reading of Bill C-9. The toxic trend towards treating every issue as a partisan issue has set MPs on a collision course based on partisan loyalties. But it ought not so to be.
Every MP is elected by his or her constituents. Every MP has a conscience and presumably the ability to weigh the pros and cons of a bill and to apply common sense and moral sense before voting yea or nay. The controversy around C-9 has been deep and widespread. Hundreds of thousands of phone calls have been made to Members of Parliament coming from both the right and the left. MP offices have been flooded with emails. Whether MPs take these concerns seriously remains to be seen.
The Christian Heritage Party I represent has been crystal clear in our commitment to defend the freedoms enshrined in our beloved charter: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of movement and freedom of association. The loss of any of these freedoms through government overreach will have deep and long-lasting impacts, not only on our social structures and institutions, not only on our families, churches and communities, but on the entire fabric of our nation, including our economy.
This is not a time for timid politicians just to tick the box and follow their leader and party whips. There is too much at stake. Our children and our grandchildren deserve protection from the heavy boot of tyranny.
I urge every MP—of whatever party and whatever creed—to vote against this Bill. Canadians will thank you for it and our country will be stronger for it.
And if, in the next few days or hours, this bill should pass 3rd reading in the House (God forbid), every senator worth his salt and every senator worthy of her paycheque will have both the responsibility and the opportunity to earn the admiration of Canadians by taking his or her role seriously as the people of sober second thought and rejecting this wicked attack on freedom.
The voices of Canadians have been heard loud and clear. I ask you, MPs and Senators, on behalf of all Canadians, those who have called and written and signed petitions and those who have not yet grasped the danger. Please! Use the authority God has given you to protect our freedoms…to protect the Canada we know and love from the loss of freedom and all that goes with it. Thank you.
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For more information, contact CHP National Office at 1-888-868-3247
or by email at nationaloffice@chp.ca