In a scathing condemnation, an Australian senator has compared Justin Trudeau’s drastic crackdown on the Freedom Convoy protesters to the repressive tactics of communist China.
Trudeau decided to go full dictator and invoked the Emergencies Act to cut off protestors’ access to funds – becoming the first Canadian leader to do so. And now 2 years later, an Australian Senator is comparing Trudeau’s tactics to China’s tyrannic social credit system.
It seems as though Trudeau is becoming a laughing stock on the world stage, by using heavy-handed approaches and jeopardizing Canada’s democracy in the process.
What’s left to do when Canada’s image of a democratic, free nation is tarnished?
Even now, almost two years later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still facing criticism from international leaders for his controversial response to the Freedom Convoy protests in 2022.
Recently, during a speech to the Australian Senate, Senator Alex Antic of the Liberal Party compared Trudeau’s heavy-handed tactics of freezing truckers’ bank accounts to China’s oppressive social credit system. Antic condemned Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act to crack down on peaceful protestors by restricting their finances.
With this criticism, Antic has joined the international chorus of voices denouncing Trudeau’s severe response to the protests as an overreach of governmental power against civil liberties. But his comparison to communist China is perhaps the most chilling remark yet.
Senator Antic drew the comparison between Trudeau’s freezing of Freedom Convoy protesters’ accounts and China’s oppressive social credit system when talking about the risks of governments implementing centralized digital currencies and digital ID programs.
It’s not a difficult comparison to make considering that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland even stated that the Emergencies Act would authorize banks and insurers to freeze accounts and cancel policies belonging to protesters.
Trudeau took things a step further, utilizing anti-money laundering and even anti-terrorist financing laws to cut off funding tied to the protest movement. These drastic measures just prove that opposition to the severe COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine requirements made you a terrorist in Trudeau’s eyes.
It was pretty obvious back then that Trudeau was taking matters to the extreme, with many arguing that it was unnecessary and could have been avoided.
But since then his actions have only hurt Canada’s reputation as a fair and free society on the world stage. Politicians and leaders from other countries have felt the need to publicly denounce Trudea’s approach, while calling on their own governments to avoid following in his footsteps at all costs.
Based on this Australian Senator’s past remarks, it seems he is terrified that his own country could implement some of Trudeau’s policies.
He has called out Trudeau for his tyrannical approaches in the past, even accusing the World Economic Forum of influencing governments from all across the world last year. He pointed out Trudeau’s Liberal government in particular describing it as “authoritarianism and Marxist ideology.”
But Senator Antic is far from Trudeau’s only critic on the international stage.
Earlier this year, Dutch Member of European Parliament Marcel de Graaff raised concerns in the European Parliament, likening Trudeau’s actions to a “social credit system” and warning against potential government overreach in citizens’ financial affairs.
De Graaff also drew parallels between Trudeau’s response to the Freedom Convoy and China’s authoritarian social credit model, signaling concerns about the precedent set for governmental overreach into people’s financial autonomy. He warned European lawmakers about the dangers of the state overstepping into private bank accounts, using Trudeau’s actions against the Canadian protesters as a cautionary example.
But the criticism doesn’t end there…
Another example of politicians in other countries quite literally mopping the floor with Trudeau’s approach is when Croatian Member of the European Parliament and former judge, Mislav Koalkusic accused Trudeau of engaging in a “dictatorship of the worst kind” while the prime minister paid a visit to the European Parliament.
The MP voiced his concerns, writing:
“PM Trudeau, in recent months, under your quasi-liberal boot, Canada has become a symbol of civil rights violations. The methods we have witnessed may be liberal to you, but to many citizens around the world, it seemed like a dictatorship of the worst kind.”
It’s obvious what Kolakusic thinks of Trudeau since he delivered this speech directly to Trudeau’s face, right after Trudeau addressed the parliament about the supposed threats to democracy the freedom protesters posed.
And still the list goes on! Besides criticisms from Australia, Croatia, and the Netherlands, Trudeau’s actions were also denounced by Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes who offered his support to the Freedom Convoy protestors as well.
It’s important to note that Romania and Croatia both felt the heavy hand of socialism in their countries’ histories and suffered under the brutal policies and regimes resulting from it. So criticism from these countries in particular should be taken as a warning sign for Canadians.
But even in the United Kingdom, there has been an outcry against Trudeau’s dangerous actions. Conservative MP Marcus Fysh urged his country’s Foreign Secretary to advise the Canadian government against imposing authoritarian measures against its own citizens. This was a valiant attempt on Fysh’s part to dissuade Trudeau from wreaking havoc on Freedom Convoy protesters with his extreme measures, but it wasn’t enough to stop Trudeau from taking action.
It’s interesting to hear what the world really thinks of Trudeau. Once the Prime Minister steps outside his echo chamber of yes-men, it’s obvious that he is not as universally adored as he seems to think he is. Too bad he never listens to criticism.
These latest remarks from the Australian Senator using Canada as an example of what NOT to do is just a sign of how far Canada has fallen in the eyes of the world. This country was once respected internationally as a model of prosperity, democracy, and stability, but now, after 8 years of Justin Trudeau, this positive image has been tarnished.
While it will likely take a new leader and a new government to repair the damage caused by Trudeau’s heavy-handed response to the Freedom Convoy protests, it’s a shame that Canada’s current Prime Minister isn’t willing to listen to Canadians even now.
Either he doesn’t listen, or worse, doesn’t care about the state of many struggling Canadians. The same way he didn’t care about the Freedom Convoy protesters’ desperate attempts to make the government see the damage it was creating with its lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
It should be a warning sign for all Canadians when the Prime Minister’s oppressive tactics are compared to those of the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian regime
