The institutions we once trusted – our courts, media, and government – are failing, leaving Canada a hollow version of itself
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T.S. Eliot once wrote, “This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” Canada has fallen, yet it retains all the illusions of what it once was. Many Canadians fail to see that a dystopian future, foretold decades ago, has quietly arrived. Our institutions are failing us, and we are too distracted or complacent to notice.
In Orwellian fashion, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, once a pillar of Canadian values, has been distorted into a tool that undermines the very principles it claims to protect. Federal laws eliminated Sunday as a day of rest, mandated abortion and euthanasia in the name of “security of the person,” and banned prayer at city hall meetings in the name of religious freedom. These changes were heralded as progress, but in reality, they eroded cultural norms and foundational values.
The pandemic amplified these contradictions. In British Columbia, Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson struck down public health orders banning protests but upheld the ban on religious gatherings. Across the country, political hypocrisy was rampant. Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knelt at Black Lives Matter protests that exceeded gathering limits, while worshippers and those who rallied against mandates faced fines, prosecution, or even persecution. Meanwhile, Walmarts and Superstores teemed with shoppers, but churches and small businesses sat empty, shuttered by decree.
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Doctors who prescribed ivermectin – a drug once celebrated for its safety and effectiveness – faced professional censure, even when their actions saved lives. Once defenders of open inquiry, medical colleges transformed into enforcers of narrow, politically motivated policies. They banned dissenting medical opinions and the off-label use of drugs when it conflicted with shaky, poorly supported government directives.
The media, which should have held power to account, instead played along with the charade. It censored any perspective questioning government policies or recommendations, ensuring public discourse remained tightly controlled. This is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, and Canada fell into the trap. As law professor Bruce Pardy aptly observed, Canada has shifted from the rule of law to rule by laws – where legal systems exist to manage the public rather than to hold governments accountable.
The Emergencies Act, invoked to crush a peaceful protest, is a prime example of this shift. A rally permitted one moment was trampled under emergency powers the next, while donors to the cause saw their bank accounts frozen. Workers fired for refusing vaccination found no recourse, no employment insurance, and no public sympathy.
Yet even as the pandemic faded, there was no reckoning, no sober reflection. COVID spread among the vaccinated, but vaccine boosters continue to be pushed. Analysts like Denis Rancourt attribute 17 million excess deaths worldwide to pandemic responses, including vaccines, but such revelations are ignored or dismissed by “fact-checkers.” In Canada, life expectancy dropped by two years – a catastrophic decline – and it barely made the news.
Even our elections no longer inspire trust. Programmable computers count votes in many municipalities, often without checks on paper ballots. In other cases, voting is entirely digital. A computer is trusted to tally votes in ways no human being would ever be.
Meanwhile, the country our ancestors built is being dismantled piece by piece. The welfare state runs on unsustainable deficits, deepening our fiscal dependence and ensuring future generations remain trapped in economic slavery. Cancel culture stifles free speech, and government-funded organizations like the Anti-Hate Network perpetuate stereotypes against religious conservatives, painting them as threats to social progress.
Gender ideology, now embedded in law and education, drives a wedge between traditional values and a woke agenda. It divides parents from their children and denies biological realities, replacing objective truth with subjective feelings. Rational norms and inherited wisdom are discarded in favour of fleeting emotions.
Like in Orwell’s 1984, the government declares 2 + 2 = 5, and dissenters are labelled enemies of the state. Propaganda such as “war is peace” and “freedom is slavery” no longer feels like fiction. Anyone referring to biological sex risks accusations of hate speech, and this dystopian reality has taken root in Canada.
Aldous Huxley’s warnings have also come to pass. In Brave New World Revisited (1958), he wrote, “By means of ever more effective methods of mind manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms – elections, parliaments, supreme courts, and all the rest – will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial. Meanwhile, the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the shows as they see fit.”
How right he was. It is heartbreaking to watch our elderly cling to trust in government and media narratives, unaware that the institutions they once relied on have fundamentally changed. Like petrified wood, the forms of our institutions remain, but their substance is gone. Our democratic, legal, media, educational, and healthcare systems are failing us.
Canada has fallen, but there is no rubble. Many Canadians cannot see the collapse because it is not physical – it is institutional and cultural. Yet, if we continue to ignore the signs, we risk losing the very essence of what this country was meant to be.
Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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