Canada's Taxpayer-Funded Revolution
All levels of government now inculcate civil servants and youth into far left ideology designed to incite rebellion against western norms and political systems
A Liberal Party campaigner knocked at our door recently and asked to discuss the upcoming provincial elections. I let her know up front that we no longer vote for Liberal Party candidates. When she asked why, I said “one reason is that the Liberal Party promotes critical race theory”, to which she responded by waving her hand dismissively and saying, “Oh, no. That’s just in the U.S.! That’s not happening here!”
I assured her that she was mistaken, that CRT is prevalent here, but she showed no interest in debating, so we simply exchanged goodbyes and the encounter ended. I suppose she was right if she meant that Canada lacks the sort of loud, active, passionate movement against CRT ideology that we are seeing in America today, and/or if she meant that our mainstream media outlets have largely avoided deep dives into the topic. But she was dead wrong if she meant that the Liberal Party and the majority of Canadian government-funded institutions (even in nominally Conservative jurisdictions) haven’t fully embraced CRT as a modern gospel describing Canadian society’s original sin and illuminating only path toward redemption and salvation.
In the past few years, Canadian institutions have spent many millions, likely billions, of tax dollars on programs and policies to align society with the dictums and prescriptions of “anti-racist” ideology (AKA Cultural Marxism, Wokeism, Progressivism). These programs and policies are often funded under the banner of “DEI”, an acronym standing for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”. Such programs aren’t a new concept; massive public spending on “multicultural” education programs has for decades been considered de rigueur for the success of the Canadian project — most of our leaders act as if they believe society will devolve into tribal conflict should they not perennially spend millions of tax dollars teaching people it’s important to accept differences and treat others respectfully and fairly.
But in recent years, and particularly since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, we’ve seen a more nefarious development than a possible waste of tax money on telling us to be good to our fellow citizens of all colours and origins: most existing programs have now adopted today’s trendy, unabashedly leftist/neoMarxist/revolutionary ideological frameworks, and anyone who has studied these frameworks knows that they literally command praxis — every person who wishes to be considered a decent human being MUST put left-wing political activism at the top of their to-do list.
Canadian government agencies have not only expanded existing programs and shifted their Overton windows extremely far left, but they’ve also launched an additional barrage of brand new social engineering programs, designed and staffed by a small army of critical social justice ideologues and activists with special training in the art of re-educating people and commanding praxis. Invariably, the messaging of these programs is the same: western societies are fundamentally white supremacist, innately oppressive in a plethora of ways, and particularly discriminatory against members of minority groups. Progress requires systemic “dismantling” and “deconstruction” of a wide variety of our western socio-political traditions, norms, and conventions. Every good citizen will fall in line with this program, and anyone who dissents should be given opportunity to repent and atone and learn the truth and the way, and if they ultimately refuse to accept the ideology and practice recommended by the institution, they will eventually be blacklisted and likely expelled.
“Anti-racism” literature and programming typically doesn’t try too hard to hide its revolutionary long-term goals, but it usually falls short of actually calling for armed insurrection, and certainly we know that our bureaucrats do not publicly incite insurrection of this kind. Most of today’s social justice warriors in western contexts embrace a “Fabian” strategy, using existing bureaucracy, democratic mechanisms, and information warfare/control/propoaganda to wear down resistance and increase our society’s socialist/communist infrastructure, degree by degree. Whatever might be their fantasies of armed rebellion and punitive action against “the oppressors”, modern Canadian leftists know deep down in their Marxist hearts that the comfortable apathetic Canadian middle class has no appetite whatsoever for violent revolution — the revolution will not be led by soldiers and militia, but university-educated middle managers and legions of earnest educators and pencil pushers who follow their guidelines and circulate their curricular materials for a paycheque.
Most public institutions in Canada now employ “equity officers” whose job is to oversee (re)education programs and make policy and hiring recommendations that will help the organization meet equity goals. Departments strive to meet equity goals using measures designed to redistribute power and wealth, taking from members of “dominant” groups and giving to members of “marginalized” groups. The government commits to such equitable redistribution until (and conceivably also after) we achieve equal outcomes between racial identity groups. Equity goals are justified by the unproven (and often demonstrably false) assertion/assumption that all existing measurable disparities between groups are caused by systemic discrimination and white supremacy culture (AKA “whiteness”), which CRT teaches is present everywhere and at all times, and must be constantly called out and resisted. Team Equity solves the problem of lack of data and evidence by disallowing research and debate that might undermine their claims — much is now being written now about the “Lysenkoism” rampant in our universities that has gutted academic freedom and integrity.
A core belief of proponents of CRT is that our entire Canadian socio-political system was specifically designed by the dominant group (white people) to perpetually benefit their own group and oppress all other groups. People are being taught that Canada — despite being one of the most appealing immigration destinations in the world for people of all races, and constantly ranking in the top five or ten of world nations for social mobility and overall quality of life for all races — is built upon socio-political systems and a national culture that is intensely and innately discriminatory/white supremacist, warranting more derision and decimation/deconstruction than celebration for its success and global appeal. CRT teaches that Canadian progress and pluralism, so often celebrated in the dominant liberal culture, are in fact largely illusory and represent a form of insidious “interest convergence”, wherein gains by minorities have only been permitted by the dominant group because they simultaneously serve to consolidate white supremacy and accrue benefit to the dominant group. It’s a heavy irony that here at home Canadians are being taught to be ashamed and resentful of our dominant culture and heritage, while globally we are held up as a model of success for our pluralism and egalitarianism. According to our current national leader, Canada doesn’t even have a foundational national identity to speak of (he seems to believe our formula for success is just some sort of mysterious multicultural magic potion that we lucked upon due to welcoming a lot of immigrants).
As astonishingly regressive as it may sound, DEI mandates now actually require that managers/teachers in public schools and workplaces segregate and sort citizens into identity groups. The new orthodoxy commands this type of division as an essential element of praxis, so our leaders now consciously, constantly, and often very conspicuously separate us into categories along lines of race, gender, sexuality, religion, and more. They do this to facilitate both therapeutic/healing experiences and differential doling out of resources and programming, and this is the type of praxis that will supposedly move us toward racial/social equity. This is all being done according to the sage advice of those new DEI middle managers, who are trained at university level in critical social justice ideology, and who are predominantly leftists, politically, and self-professed Marxists, intellectually.
In practice, there is little or no evidence that new DEI social engineering programs and policies are increasing respect for diversity or greater inclusivity. In fact, the opposite can be observed occurring. Recent surveys suggest people believe racial conflict has increased in Canadian society in recent years. DEI initiatives clearly produce an intellectually stifling “revolutionary monoculture”, which is a culture characterized by censorship and self-censorship, in which administrators become hyper-focused on reforms meant to improve outcomes specifically for the members of a fairly narrow subset of minority identity groups. If you fancy a civil service job, be prepared to showcase your critical social justice allegiances and left-wing activist bona fides. If you are a white cis het male who votes conservative, don’t even think of applying to a government-funded job unless you’re prepared to be dishonest — you’ll have to consult the intersectionality hierarchy and construct a more sympathetic set of identity markers for yourself.
DEI (proudly!) stands in direct opposition to individualism, meritocracy, universalism, and equality of opportunity. It is now an everyday occurrence for students and workers across Canada to be subjected to anti-western leftist indoctrination via workshops and discussion groups that are eerily reminiscent of the infamous “struggle sessions” of past communist revolutions, such as those that were common in Maoist China and Stalinist Russia. In some cases, Canadian civil servants workers resisting the new orthodoxy have been reported by colleagues and disciplined or fired, even when they’ve expressed their criticisms privately, or in protected environments like union meetings. But it seems those in charge feel it’s really okay for Canadian government institutions to subject citizens to this new social credit system of reprogramming sessions and interrogations, because this is a quiet and kind revolution with the purpose of helping the most marginalized — this cultural revolution serves the downtrodden, it is not merely a political witch hunt! Workshop presenters are always trained to precede the reprogramming experience with sympathetic trigger warnings to let participants know that the organizers understand that the experience will likely cause personal discomfort and cognitive dissonance and challenge existing beliefs, but we must enter into it with faith that this hard work is necessary and conducive to achieve a healthy and equitable work/school/healthcare environment.
As mentioned above, the emissaries of today’s cultural revolution are typically young activists who studied critical race theory and other Marxist and postmodern critical theory traditions in university social science departments. Canadian taxpayers now support an army of “Diversity and Equity Managers” whose mandate is to disseminate information and implement programs designed to influence the populace to reject wrongthink (which includes traditionally centrist and right of centre western thinking and beliefs, including conservatism, libertarianism, even classical liberalism), develop critical consciousness (awareness of their own biases and the ubiquitous nature of systemic racism and discrimination), and support equity goals and resultant policy.
The rhetoric of “anti-racists” is always covertly anti-capitalist. In the public realm, the communist nature of the ideology is never overtly stated, and “anti-racists” on the public payroll will publicly deny the communist agenda of CRT/BLM/CSJ/DEI. But in fact, most seminal CRT texts explicitly state that “anti-racism” is anti-capitalist and Marxist/neoMarxist. A DEI officer/manager/facilitator will not come out as a communist, but will typically advocate a standard litany of far left political demands: tax increases; affirmative action and equity hiring and program entrance policies that benefit black and indigenous peoples while penalizing white, Asian, and Jewish peoples; price subsidies and freezes for lower income people; rent controls; increased immigration; lowered academic standards and moving away from meritocracy, increased public spending on housing; expanded welfare benefits; abolition or reduction of police departments and jail systems; decolonization of education, culture, healthcare, etc. Again, we see that the racial justice movement is a brilliant stroke of Fabian strategy, advancing communism under the banner of a supposedly organic civil rights movement perceived to occupy unassailable moral high ground, and allowing every critic and dissenter to be branded a retrograde racist unworthy of full citizenship.
Overall, with the advent of this new orthodoxy and class of middle managers, the Canadian government is actively grooming the populace, under the auspices of “anti-racism” and “social justice”, to vote in perpetuity for the candidates and parties who promise to maintain our traditions of big government and/or make the socialist bureaucracy in Canada even bigger, even more intrusive, and even more authoritarian than it already is. All sorts of new and newly strengthened anti-hate speech legislation and regulations lie in wait to silence any critics of this winning Fabian strategy.
Should the populace in future recognize this game, reject these far left social justice imperatives, and begin voting more consistently rightward, showing a preference for smaller government, traditional western values, and increased personal/familial autonomy and responsibility, the revolutionary zeal being implanted now will surely activate, and intense conflict is apt to ensue as a result. The populace is being primed to believe that whenever right wing candidates prevail, active participation in rebellion/revolution — even against the wishes of the majority — is an urgent civic, moral, and humanitarian duty. Voting for conservative or libertarian parties and policies is nowadays being branded by the left as a moral stain, a mark of bigotry and belief in white supremacy. And it makes no difference the skin colour of a right wing voter — CRT proponents have coined several phrases to slander any non-white person who refuses to vote for the interests of their “bloc” and cast a vote rightward. Such citizens are seen as players for Team White Supremacy, whether they are understood to be doing so as dupes, unwittingly, or as traitors, by conscious choice.
Purveyors of “anti-racist” programming and policy use both carrots and sticks to command citizens to publicly demonstrate/perform allegiance to various core tenets of CRT and a host of other related “critical social justice” ideologies (i.e. intersectionality theory, decolonial theory, gender theory, feminist theory). The people who resist being thus indoctrinated and controlled are now finding it difficult if not impossible to function successfully within Canadian institutions. Like all far-left cultural revolutions of the past, today’s movement features a host of mechanisms that squelch free inquiry, deflect criticism, and silence debate. Thanks to the rise of the racial/social justice movement, “cancel culture” now thrives in Canadian society. Socio-political wrongthink is now actively persecuted and has already resulted in heavy job losses amoung conservative constituents, along with public humiliation, violations of freedom of conscience and speech, and various other types of exclusion. Canadians of all political leanings now self-censor to a degree that we haven’t seen for several decades, if ever.
The goal of all this neoMarxist activism is the widespread adoption of a new collective paradigm, traditionally called critical consciousness. Only by making racial equity a central, driving focus of this new collective consciousness will we move toward the promised land of racial equality, which is no longer taught to be equality of opportunity for individuals, but equity, or measurable sameness of outcome for all racial groups. The liberation of so-called “racialized” people from oppressive social structures that were implemented by a dominant racial group must ultimately be achieved through radical cultural and political revolution. The new orthodoxy of “anti-racism” being forced upon us all by our bureaucrats is the frontline of the radically left wing revolutionary movement, and anyone who claims otherwise is either lying, or simply hasn’t done their reading and research.
Canadian dissidents against “wokeism” arguably have it much worse than their American counterparts. American First Amendment rights offer more robust protections for freedom of conscience and speech than our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Americans also tend to be much more vocal and forthright about their beliefs and opinions, and much more fiercely proud of their constitution and their liberty traditions. But both countries are struggling due to the rise of critical social justice ideology and activism. This cultural revolution sweeping the west is not confined to “anti-racist” activism, but it has found most traction with its “racial justice” front, since westerners are actually amoung the LEAST systemically racist populations on the planet. The fulsome embrace of CRT by our leaders and institutions is creating an unprecedented socio-political pressure-cooker environment in many western nations.
Vladmir Putin recently gave a speech expressing pity for westerners reeling from the forceful advances of radical leftism, drawing parallels with Russia’s terrible experience of communist rule during the Soviet era. And in France, Macron and other prominent voices have forcefully declared that France will reject the “woke” culture being imported from American universities and “racializing” society. The French voices remind people that the extremism and totalitarianism that characterized the French Revolution resulted in significant bloodshed and does not constitute the best manner for resolving social conflicts and concerns. Many regular citizens who are Chinese, North Korean, and Eastern European ex-pats are now likewise raising their voices in warning, seeing frightening parallels now in western society to the socialist hellholes they escaped. Even today’s left-leaning pope has formally voiced his alarm about the takeover of western societies by radical critical social justice ideologues, describing their movement as destructive and misguided, leading to widespread historical revisionism/ahistoricism and the silencing of reasonable and balanced consideration of various sensibilities.
Celebration of argumentation and passion for individual liberty is seldom displayed in Canadian culture... everyone knows us as a people who like to make nice and apologize for everything. But thankfully, a smattering of individual Canadians from various regions are beginning to show up for liberty and in defense of western traditions of open debate, academic integrity, individual free will, and equality of opportunity. It remains to be seen if the public will galvanize behind these brave individuals to form a “counter-revolutionary” cultural movement.
Brilliant article!