Let’s Talk About ‘Political Discrimination’

A few months ago, MP Garnett Genuis tabled a bill which would add protections to Canada’s human right legislation for “Political Belief”.  Then, as the Ontario College of Psychologists moved to discipline Jordan Peterson for spreading hatred, he started crying that this was political discrimination, that he was being “persecuted” for his “politics” (spoiler - he’s not).

This concept of “political discrimination” is really little more than another construct to tell the same people who tried to overthrow a government in February 2022 that their grievances are justified.  You will note that Genuis invokes the grievances over COVID, and Peterson tries to globally call his activity on Twitter “political speech”. 

While it is true that politics is always loaded with opinion, we need to recognize that politics can be reasonably informed by facts and evidence. Is Peterson calling a non-binary person “it” a matter of “politics”, or is it simply a mean spirited attack on the person? Are the protests against vaccines based in a sound understanding of the science? I am not going to argue the veracity of those claims here, they are provided to illustrate the issue being raised. 

Politics is a complex space, and it’s no secret that malign actors have been deliberately injecting disinformation and misinformation into our discourse for some time. It’s also not hugely surprising that conservative politicians here are often aligned with the propaganda. 

It is no surprise that it is conservative politicians pushing this narrative now. It’s convenient, it aligns with their ongoing campaign against Trudeau, and it further undermines public confidence in the institutions of democracy. It fits incredibly well with narratives like “the election was stolen”, and the narratives used to justify practices like gerrymandering electoral districts. 

I find it particularly interesting to note that this is coming from an Alberta conservative though.  Political discrimination has been rampant in Alberta for years. Decades of single party conservative rule long ago made it perfectly acceptable for all sorts of activity that could fall under the rubric of “political discrimination”.  

Stories of bosses telling their employees how to vote in elections have been a common occurrence in Alberta for years; an overtly aggressive form of conservatism has long made it very difficult to openly hold perspectives at odds with conservatism (or whatever is wearing that cloak today). Candidates have had their cars sabotaged, and having signs from other parties is also a good way to find your home vandalized.

I’m not saying any of this is good, rather that it is more than passing strange that conservatives are pushing this narrative today, when they’ve actively engaged in creating a political environment in Alberta that supports “political discrimination” for years - without moaning about it once.

Looking at our Charter, an argument could be made that Political Discrimination is in fact protected under a combination of fundamental rights.  In particular, the fundamental rights in S2. I do not think that it could easily be ‘read in’ under S15 because S15 is generally reserved for immutable characteristics of the person, and political perspectives are reasonably subject to change over the course of one’s life. 

To be clear, nobody who lost their job for refusing to be vaccinated did so over “politics”.  They lost their job for failing to comply with a new requirement. Yes, you can moan all you like about whether that’s coercion or not - but it’s not politics.

There are some interesting, and perverse consequences to introducing such a clause into our non-discrimination laws.  For example, political parties (who are employers), would suddenly find it much harder to get rid of an employee whose political beliefs no longer aligned with the direction of the party. Employers would find the murky waters of “political beliefs” being brought up in dismissal suits, and so on. 

In fact, the concept of “Political Discrimination” is so murky that it could be twisted into all sorts of forms.  That means it’s far more of a political weapon today than it is an actual tool. 

On The Public Order Emergency Commission

Public testimony of the commission initiated in the wake of the February 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act (EA) has concluded this week.

Frankly, there were few surprises in the course of testimony. Members of the Convoy swore up and down that they were just peaceful protestors, policing agencies demonstrated that they were woefully unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the situation, the conservative-led provincial governments failed entirely to actively engage until forced, and eventually the Federal Government decided that the overall impact required direct action. 

Perhaps the most interesting little piece of testimony came from the head of CSIS who stated that both that he had advised the government to use the EA, and that the situation did not fulfil the requirements of an emergency under the CSIS Act. I thought that was a particularly interesting, and important, piece of information. It reveals that the legislation we have today is a few years out of date in terms of identifying the potential threats.  

However, while the EA and CSIS legislation share the same wording, we can’t say that the threshold is “the same” in part because the “who” of decision making is quite different. The leadership of CSIS is part of the bureaucracy, and makes decisions based on the legislation that guides it, but there are additional safeguards through the political offices that oversee CSIS.  The Emergencies Act empowers the Governor in Council (Cabinet) to make the decisions, with the subtle little clause in it of “on reasonable grounds”.  

You can quibble over whether or not CSIS thought it met their definition of “Public Order Emergency” or not, but we have to recognize that the decision making of the bureaucracy is not the same as that of the elected politicians, and the authority vested in politicians is much different than that of the bureaucrats.

I also think that the testimony at the commission focused solely on the immediate events of the occupation of Ottawa and the various border blockades to the detriment of understanding root causes. This is reasonable given the mandate of the commission as set out in the EA. 

I think there’s a second level of investigation needed regarding these demonstrations. In particular the unwillingness of Premier Ford to testify is profoundly telling. Just as we have Candice Bergen’s desire to make the convoy “Trudeau’s Problem”,  Ford’s unwillingness to testify, combined with his inaction on the Ambassador Bridge blockade indicates to me that there was more going on at the political level that warrants investigation. I suspect that this will be that much clearer when some of the criminal proceedings start to unfold in court. Nobody wants to be hung with the full responsibility when they are facing prison time. 

I fully expect that when we get to the level of following email trails, text messages, and so on, the picture is going to start unfolding that the Convoy protest itself was nurtured and fed from within conservative political organizing circles. If it was “just” about vaccine mandates or masks, I would not have expected the focused anger directed at Trudeau. 

Yet, the protests themselves were covered with anti-Trudeau slogans. Hating Trudeau is an old sacred cow in conservative circles dating back to the 1980s. In today’s conservative circles, you aren’t even seen as conservative unless you become irrationally a angry about Trudeau.  

The protests likely as not are a case of using propaganda to “whip up a mob”, and the real goal was to undermine the elected government to such a degree that it would make it easy for the opposition to vote against a minority government in the wake of what was obviously going to be Poilievre’s coronation after O’Toole’s ouster. Yes, I know full well that O’Toole was still leader at the time, but it would be naive to think that the knives weren’t already out for him after the election.