CARPAY: Outside of the CBC’s echo chamber, everyone is ‘far-right’
When the CBC dislikes a person or an opinion, our taxpayer-funded broadcaster calls it “controversial.” In CBC-speak, “controversial” means conservative, libertarian, religious, traditionalist, classical liberal, or otherwise not in line with woke ideology. For the CBC, there is nothing “controversial” about a man who “identifies” as a woman having an absolute right to enter women’s washrooms and other female spaces. Only those who seek to protect safe spaces for women are “controversial.”
As millions mourn the murder of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the CBC describes his pro-life and pro-Israel opinions as “controversial.” According to CBC writer Verity Stevenson, Charlie Kirk promoted “some of the far-right's more extreme ideas.” In her story, Ms. Stevenson secures quotes from academics who describe Kirk’s “far-right” rhetoric as “harmful” and as “hate speech.” As can be expected of any good CBC employee, she reliably fails to quote academics (or anyone, for that matter) who have a different opinion.
Our taxpayer-funded propagandist describes Charlie Kirk’s opposition to Covid lockdowns as a “conspiracy theory.” The CBC does this not in an opinion piece, but in what is supposed to be factual news reporting. For the CBC, accepting the government’s narrative on COVID-19, lockdowns, and vaccines is smart, good, right, moral, and scientific. The CBC dismisses as “conspiracy theorists” all citizens who question their all-wise and all-good government. And, of course, the CBC does not interview or quote these “conspiracy theorists.” Under the heading “conspiracy theories” in its article, the CBC actually takes Charlie Kirk to task for using the term “China virus” to describe a virus that came from China.
Millions of Americans and Canadians are law-abiding, responsible firearms owners. They hate the criminal misuse of firearms as much as (and probably more than) their neighbours do. Believing that crooked politicians are the only people who have grounds to fear an armed citizenry, Americans understandably cherish their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Yet the opinions of tens of millions of Americans and Canadians are “controversial” for the CBC, because the CBC fervently believes that forcing good, law-abiding citizens to register every gun they own will somehow reduce violent crime.
The CBC’s description of Charlie Kirk as “far-right” is consistent with its long-standing practice of demonizing people who prefer freedom over various woke, socialist, and neo-Marxist ideologies: classical liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and those who adhere to traditional religious teachings. For the CBC, even the word “freedom” is a rallying cry for the “far-right.”
The CBC uses “far-right” to describe neo-Nazis and other actual racists, and then also uses “far-right” to describe mainstream conservative opinions on topics like abortion, Israel, transgender ideology, owning guns, and a country’s right to secure its own borders. The left-right political spectrum (which I believe is deeply flawed, because there are more than just two ideas on politics) presupposes the existence of a large block of “centrist” Canadians in the middle, with smaller numbers of people on the “far-left” and “far-right,” and even smaller numbers on the left and right “extremes.” Does the CBC believe that half of Canada’s population is “far-right”?
As explained by Élie Cantin-Nantel, a search for the term “far-right” on the CBC’s website yields over 2,170 results, while a search for “far-left” produces just over 120. But since the CBC’s “far-right” includes millions of Canadian conservatives, libertarians, religious believers, and other non-woke folk, it makes sense that the CBC would refer to the “far-right” 18 times more often than it refers to the “far-left.” If the CBC can barely notice the “far-left,” this is likely because the CBC itself lives in a “far-left” corner of the universe. Outside of the CBC’s own echo chamber, everything is “right” or “far-right.”
Our taxpayer-funded broadcaster uses the term “far-right” to smear Charlie Kirk, and millions of Canadian conservatives and libertarians, by putting them into the same category as white nationalists and other actual racists (as opposed to people falsely accused of “racism” for opposing things like racial quotas and woke ideology). Until the CBC (and other government-funded media) started using “far-right” to describe libertarians and conservatives, the “far-right” was a specific reference only to fascism and other racist movements that oppose Parliamentary democracy and civil liberties. Surely CBC writers like Verity Stevenson know that the label “far-right” is pejorative. Surely they have progressed beyond a kindergarten-level understanding of politics, and know the difference between fascists and classical liberals?
The CBC endears itself to its Liberal-NDP audience, always keeping them on high alert about the dangers of a large “far-right,” a growing movement that includes most or all of the Canadians who disagree with the NDP-Liberal-CBC narrative. The CBC’s strategy may secure loyalty from woke Canadians in the short run, but in the long run the CBC’s shallow smear campaign is undermining its credibility ever further.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
EDITORIAL: The assassination of Charlie Kirk: The Left’s war on dissent
Utah Valley University was transformed into a scene of horror on Wednesday. A shot rang out during a question-and-answer session featuring Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA. Witnesses say the bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and later died.
This is not an isolated episode of civic unrest. It is the culmination of years of contempt from the Left for anyone who dares to disagree with them. From cancelled lectures to masked mobs breaking windows, the march of radical progressivism has been away from dialogue and toward coercion. This time, the weapon was not a shouted slogan or a social media purge, but a firearm.
Kirk had been participating in his American Comeback Tour, a campaign aimed at inspiring young people to think for themselves. Instead of being allowed to present his case, he was met with gunfire. That ought to trouble even the most hardened partisan. For if one side can only tolerate its opponents in silence — or worse, six feet under — then democratic society itself begins to unravel.
We have seen the signs before. When Jordan Peterson was prevented from speaking on Canadian campuses, the justification from his opponents was that his words were “harmful.” When J.K. Rowling questioned aspects of gender ideology, she was threatened with death. When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith proposed modest reforms to parents’ rights over their children in schools, Leftist activists attempted to paint her as beyond the pale rather than engage with her arguments.
In each case, the pattern is clear. The Left prefers denunciation to debate, censorship to persuasion, and now, apparently, murder to dissent. One does not need to agree with Kirk — or with anyone else who has faced intimidation — to grasp the enormity of this shift.
The mainstream media is unlikely to frame this event honestly. When a lone lunatic attacked Paul Pelosi in San Francisco, the narrative immediately became a sermon about the menace of “right-wing extremism.” When Antifa mobs burned American cities, the media coverage softened their crimes as “mostly peaceful.” The ideological filter is as predictable as it is corrosive.
One might compare the present moment with the repeated attempts to silence US Supreme Court justices. Crowds gathered outside their homes, implicitly threatening their families, while commentators winked at the spectacle. When activists feel emboldened to menace the judiciary, the legislature, and now popular conservative speakers, we are no longer discussing isolated incidents. We are describing a culture of sanctioned hostility.
There will be calls for restraint, for conservatives to mute their language so as not to “provoke” further incidents. That is precisely the wrong lesson. If violence is rewarded with self-censorship, it will only breed more of the same. The proper response is to insist on speaking more, not less, and to demand that public institutions — from universities to media outlets — defend, rather than smother, free expression.
It is not simply Kirk who has been attacked. It is the idea that one may stand before an audience and speak without fear of reprisal. It is the principle that disagreement is not a crime. It is the foundation of a civil society.
The West has always prided itself on debate rather than decree, ballots rather than bullets. Yet at Utah Valley University, we saw a grim inversion of that tradition. If we allow political violence to metastasize, we will wake one day to discover that the exchange of ideas has been replaced with intimidation and silence.
Kirk’s life has been cut short, leaving a wife and two young children. Kirk fought for free speech and conservative values. His death cannot be in vain. For if our universities become shooting galleries instead of forums for ideas, then the free society we inherited is already in mortal danger.
EDITORIAL: Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination is not journalism
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