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From Crisis

By Donald DeMarco

Canadian voters have re-elected Justin Trudeau as their Prime Minister. The October 21 election shows that the Liberal Party garnered 157 seats to 121 for the Conservatives. Four other parties gained 60 seats total, which means that a Liberal minority will be in power. The popular vote was much closer with the Conservatives getting 34.4 percent of the vote while the Liberals received 33.06 percent.

What is most striking about the election for this observer, living in Canada, is that many Canadian voters seemed indifferent to the fact that their culture is clearly shifting in a totalitarian direction. A profile of the candidates is a sufficient indication of this. The Trudeau government required students applying for government-funded summer jobs to sign an attestation professing their support of abortion, same-sex marriage, and the LGBTQ coalition. He banned certain Christian summer camps serving underprivileged children from participating in the Canada Summer Jobs Program because of their religious beliefs. (This “is nothing short of anti-religious bigotry,” commented Justice Centre staff lawyer Marty Moore.) He has committed $7.1 billion over the next ten years to promote abortion at home and abroad. He will not allow Liberal MPs to vote their conscience on matters of abortion and LGBTQ matters, and he will not allow pro-life candidates to run as Liberals. He opposes conscience rights for health care workers.

The leaders of the New Democratic Party and the Green Party think the same way concerning abortion, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ issues, doctor-assisted suicide, and the decriminalizing of marijuana and prostitution.

This promotion of a unanimity of thought, together with an intolerance of dialogue, have received considerable impetus from academe. In a university textbook titled Sociology, for example, Marlene Mackie of the University of Calgary states that “Canadian society could not continue to exist unless the thousands of new members born each year eventually learned to think, believe, and behave as Canadians. The continuity of our society requires that children come to embrace societal values as their own. Citizens must adhere to cultural norms because they themselves view those norms as right and proper,” What this sociologist is really saying is that the aim of universities is to discourage students from thinking.

Michael O’Brien, in his 1993 booklet The Family and the New Totalitarianism, warned his Canadian readers of a new form of totalitarianism that they might not recognize as such. He wrote that the old totalitarianism conjured up images of “barbed wire, jack-boots, and thought-control” in people’s minds. Most Canadians fail to see the new and oncoming totalitarianism because it is fed to them in the deceptive context of diversity and inclusivity. The watchdog is distracted by the bait and lets down its defenses.
 
What are the signs of totalitarianism? We may list seven: 1) unanimity of thought, 2) suppression of criticism, 3) denial of conscience, 4) abdication of reason, 5) government coercion, 6) mass conditioning of thought and will, and 7) persecution of dissenters. All these signs are evident in Canadian society and they became crystal clear throughout the campaign. Omitted from all the discussion was the importance of spiritual values. In his book, The Crisis of Western Education, the eminent historian Christopher Dawson remarks that ignoring the “spiritual component in human nature and in the human psyche is a blunder so enormous that no advance in scientific method or educational technique is sufficient to compensate for it.”  The economy and scientific progress are unquestionably important, but they do not satisfy the essential needs of the human spirit.

“Unanimity of thought is the arteriosclerosis of society,” said Anatole France. Dialogue—dealing with differences of opinion—is required in a democratic society. Free citizens believe in the value of dialogue because they believe in the persuasive power of reason. Ideology smothers reason for the sake of a unanimity that is held together by power. Liberalism is not liberal when it attempts to force people into a mental straitjacket. As Christopher Dawson has stated in his book Religion and the Modern State, “Once society is launched on the path of secularization it cannot stop at the half-way house of Liberalism; it must go on to the bitter end, whether that end is Communism or some alternative type of ‘totalitarian’ secularization.”

Canadian “liberals” would do well to read Pope Benedict XVI’s statement of Truth and Tolerance: “In all known historical cultures, religion is an essential element of culture, is indeed its determinative center; it is religion that determines the scale of values and, thereby, the inner cohesion and hierarchy of all these cultures.” The Canadian election is much more significant than merely the election of certain individuals. It has been the election of untruth and intolerance.

Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He's a regular contributor to the St. Austin Review.