Around the same time last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to prioritize dealing with a pandemic over calling for politically opportunistic elections to bolster his party’s power. in Parliament. “I don’t want an election,” he said. “I think Canadians want politicians to work together to serve them, to build a better future for them and to keep them safe during this crisis.” But that was then. Trudeau last month called for an early federal election in an effort to secure an absolute majority for the Liberal Party, betting the public will reward him for his handling of Covid-19.

The election can prove to be a blessing in disguise for his opponents. Trudeau made some economically disastrous decisions, pushing Canada’s debt above the $ 1 trillion mark and its budget deficit to an unprecedented $ 340 billion (the previous record was $ 55 billion) . In his six years in office, Trudeau added more to Canada’s debt than all the previous prime ministers combined.

But for many of his detractors, the biggest threat Trudeau poses is freedom of speech. Part of his new liberal platform is a pledge to “combat serious forms of harmful online content,” which, given his recent track record and that of his party, has succeeded in alerting both Big Tech and defenders of freedom of expression. In May, he introduced Bill C-10, which seeks to regulate content distributed by media streaming services and social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Netflix under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. (CRTC). In July, the Liberals proposed creating a new bureaucratic organization called Canada’s Digital Security Commissioner, empowered to control the vague parameters of “hate speech” and “terrorist content”.

The Liberals also introduced Bill C-36, which seeks to revive section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act eight years after Parliament repealed it for being too vague. (It banned online speech “likely to expose one or more people to hatred or contempt.”) Critics of the bill include leftist scholar Noam Chomsky, who called it “outrageous.” . Under the law, hate speech would be defined as “communication that expresses hatred or defamation of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination”.

The irony of such a provision is that in recent days Trudeau himself has started to vilify a group of individuals on the basis of their state of health: the unvaccinated. He also threatened the jobs of all unvaccinated federal employees, as well as those who work for federally regulated industries. Rather than compassionately encouraging those who are reluctant to get vaccinated, he has chosen to score cheap political points with his base by denigrating them. It is improper to hear Trudeau – who in recent memory repeatedly and tearfully pleaded for public forgiveness – say words like: Oh, but I can’t go out to restaurants with my friends ‘or’ I am not allowed to go to the gym. ‘”

Trudeau’s turn towards sweeping vaccine restrictions stands in stark contrast to his January pledge to respect personal choice and not to impose the vaccine. (He said vaccine passports would “have dividing effects on the community and the country.”). More recently, he pledged to impose vaccines on federal officials and those who travel by train and plane; Threatened “consequences” for those who choose not to be vaccinated; guaranteed legal protection for companies that discriminate on the basis of vaccination status; and launched a C $ 1 billion fund to encourage provinces to implement intrusive proof of vaccination systems.

On Monday, the Canadiens will give their judgment on this issue. Polls show the Liberals and Conservatives are at a statistical stalemate, and the latest figures suggest early voting is up almost 20% from the last election. Could this be a sign that voters are eager to punish Trudeau?

Rav Arora is an undergraduate student in criminology and a contributor to the New York Post, Quillette, and The Globe and Mail. Follow him on Twitter at @ ravarora1.