Brave New Normal with host Jason James: In a compelling and wide-ranging discussion, law professor Bruce Pardy delves into the Canadian government’s increasing tendency to manage society through a series of new bills—C-2, C-5, C-8, C-9, and C-12—legislation that reflects a broader philosophy of state control, placing power in the hands of bureaucrats, officials, and technocrats rather than adhering to established legal principles. In the example of Bill C-9 (the “Combatting Hate Act,”), Prof. Pardy asserts the shift from rule of law to the “rule of emotion” creates a subjective legal framework that could lead to a dangerous precedent of criminalizing feelings rather than actions. He warns that the increasing complexity of laws and regulations is indicative of a society in decline, where the government becomes the only answer to its own overreach, pointing to the early 1980s as the point at which Canadians began to view themselves as vulnerable individuals reliant on state protection, and the resulting complacency and lack of personal agency that besets the nation now. This mindset has been the result of a series of legislative measures that further entrench government control over citizens’ lives. What’s needed, he says, is nothing short of a cultural transformation to combat the “cultural disease” that Canadians have fallen prey to. In other words: Grow Up, Canada.
Bruce Pardy is the executive director of Rights Probe and a professor of law at Queen’s University.
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