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Justin Trudeau introduced the Liberal’s new 32-point plan for democratic reform called “Real Change” — which I assume came from a Microsoft Word template for a political platform. It’s meant to show that the Liberals are serious about democratic reform, but they’ve already shown that by supporting the radical democratic reform of Bill C-51, which gave our security agencies so much power that it effectively turned parliament into a referee at a Harlem Globetrotters game. 

The very first sentence of the first reform proposed by the Liberals is “Our objective is nothing less than making transparency a fundamental principle across the government of Canada.” Oh we know. Because one of the sections of Bill C-51 Trudeau says he liked best allows citizens’ private information — that has nothing to do with terrorism — to be shared across 17 government agencies. The Privacy Commissioner called it “unprecedented” and “excessive.” So obviously transparency is a fundamental principle of the Liberals. But it’s transparency for citizens. They want us to be really transparent. 

Trudeau seems surprised by the backlash over his support for C-51. He recently said in an interview that he “didn’t think that people would be so divisive and so aggressive as to somehow make it seem like the Liberal party doesn’t care about the Charter.” Personally, I don’t think he doesn’t care about the charter. But based on his cynical support for that divisive and aggressive “anti-terror” bill, it seems reasonable to conclude that he doesn’t care about the Charter as much as he cares about getting elected.

Scott Vrooman

Scott has written and performed comedy for TV (Conan, Picnicface, This Hour Has 22 Minutes), radio (This is That), and the web (Vice, Funny or Die, College Humor, The Toronto Star, The Huffington Post,...