Tucker Carlson: How long until Canadian-style tyranny comes to America?

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Tucker: Justin Trudeau is using power to crush all political opposition

‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ host argues Canadian prime minister is combating trucker protests through ‘tyranny.’

A lot is happening in the news. Here's one item that we noticed: Canada canceled democracy last night. And the remarkable thing is no one in this country seemed to notice that it happened. There was no outcry from our political class, as their friend Justin Trudeau declared martial law in response to an entirely peaceful protest from his country's working class. 

Our news media barely noted that it happened. Weirdest of all, the State Department, which exists these days to denounce such attackers of democracy as Hungary and Poland, didn't say a single word as democracy in Canada ended. That's pretty weird, if you think about it. 

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Canada is not some exotic, faraway land with an alien culture and unintelligible language. It's not Ukraine. Canada is our neighbor. It's our trading partner. Canada is our closest ally on Earth. It's frankly part of our country. Our vice president grew up in Canada, so did half of our comedians and actors and singers. Our border with Canada is the longest border in the world. It stretches more than 5,500 miles. So on every level, we are deeply intertwined with Canada, whether we notice it or not. 

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What happens there matters here. If nothing else, it's a preview of what will likely happen in the United States. So with that in mind, you should know that Justin Trudeau is no longer the prime minister of Canada. Justin Trudeau is Canada's maximum leader, its strongman, its potentate. Justin Trudeau is the dictator of Canada. If you think that's an overstatement, try to think of another way to describe what Justin Trudeau is now doing. 

For the first time in Canada's history, Trudeau has invoked what's known as the Emergencies Act, but the protests he is facing hardly qualify as an emergency. But suddenly, Justin Trudeau has the power to crush all political opposition to his rule, and that's exactly what he's doing. Trudeau has ended free speech in Canada. He's banned free assembly. Trudeau's government has shut down political rallies and arrested his political critics without probable cause. Trudeau has instituted internal passports, that restrict travel within Canada, to the politically obedient. Canadians are no longer allowed to leave their own country unless they obey Justin Trudeau. And if they don't obey, they could be bankrupted and destroyed. He now has the power to do that. Trudeau has claimed the power to freeze the financial assets of any Canadian who resists him. No court order is required to do this, he just decides. 

Trucks block a downtown road in Ottawa as truckers and supporters continue to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates. via Reuters 

Justin Trudeau can even dictate what you do for a living and how you do it. Today, Trudeau threatened to arrest tow truck drivers who refused to tow the trucks of protesters. Is this really about stopping the spread of coronavirus? No one in Canada is even pretending that it is anymore. Trudeau himself didn't mention the risk of COVID a single time yesterday. He's not worried about unvaccinated truckers spreading a virus. Trudeau is worried about Canadians resisting his rule. And that's why Trudeau's government announced yesterday they plan to regulate cryptocurrency forever. Watch. 

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA: We are broadening the scope of Canada's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules, so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use. These changes cover all forms of transactions including digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies. The illegal blockades have highlighted the fact that crowdfunding platforms and some of the payment service providers they use are not fully captured under the proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act. 

Oh, the Terrorist Financing Act. So that was a law passed to defeat Al Qaeda. Now it's being used to stop law-abiding Canadians, middle-class people, students, truck drivers, from protecting their earnings from the total mismanagement of Canada's Central Bank. Justin Trudeau has wrecked the Canadian economy; but thanks to the Terrorist Financing Act, there is no escape from the consequences. Canadians are going to have to live with the consequences of Justin Trudeau's fiscal recklessness, whether they want to or not. Otherwise, they're terrorists. 

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It shouldn't surprise you that Trudeau's first move in the face of a trucker protest was to clamp down on cryptocurrency. Democrats will try this in this country, guaranteed. They'll tell us Bitcoin is a Russian plot, CNN will dutifully back them up. Watch it happen. But at the same time, you've got to wonder, since we're speaking of terrorism, what happened to the actual terrorists? Those do exist. How is Justin Trudeau treating them? Well, let's see. A few years ago, Justin Trudeau gave more than $10 million in taxpayer money in a settlement to a self-described Al Qaeda soldier called Omar Khadr. Khadr murdered a U.S. Army sergeant. 

Now murdering a U.S. Army sergeant is bad, but it's not as bad as criticizing Justin Trudeau. So Trudeau did not freeze Khadr's bank account. Instead, he just made him rich and moved on. When anti-Christian arsonists burned more than 50 Catholic churches across Canada, Justin Trudeau did not declare an emergency. Instead, he issued a statement sympathizing with them, "It is fully understandable," Trudeau said, "Given the shameful history we all becoming more aware of."

Are you beginning to see how this works? In a dictatorship, the only real crime is opposing the regime. So how did all this happen so quickly in a country as nice and moderate as Canada? Well it happened the way that it always happened. It happened with maximum aggression and limited popular support. Justin Trudeau won reelection last year with less than a third of the national vote. In fact, he finished the election behind his main competitor, the Conservative Party. Thanks to quirks in the parliamentary system, Trudeau took power anyway, and he immediately began to crack down on anyone who opposed him. Trudeau had relatively few supporters, but they turned out to be the right supporters. They were the people with power. 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. REUTERS/Blair Gable

The woman, for example, you just saw announcing the crackdown on cryptocurrency is Canada's deputy prime minister. But before she was that, she was a long-time journalist, including in our country. She used to write for The Washington Post. She's currently married to a New York Times reporter. Why is that relevant? Well, because up and down this story, you see the starring role that media organizations have played in the death of Canadian democracy. The other day, for example, somebody hacked the database of the crowdfunding website Give Fund Go, and then revealed the names of people who donated to the truckers protesting in Ottawa. You've got to ask yourself who would have the tech savvy and the political motive to do something like that? Well, state intelligence agencies would. In fact, we can't really think of anybody else. It would certainly be interesting to find out who did it. It's a big part of the story. But media companies seem curiously uninterested in finding out who did it. Instead, they immediately started using this stolen information to intimidate the donors. 

Anyone who dared to send money to Justin Trudeau's political opponents was unmasked in public, shamed, and of course, inevitably threatened. Because that's what happens. Trudeau's state TV channel, the CBC, has been working on this retribution project all day long. They knew who their enemies are, and they knew who their master is. It's Justin Trudeau. But Canada's National Post newspaper is doing the same thing. The National Post is supposedly independent of the government, but they're still doing it. In this country, Vice Media, to its great and eternal shame, has been doing the same thing. 

So what do all of these media companies have in common? Well, they're all squarely on the side of entrenched power against the population they supposedly serve. That's the opposite of what journalism was designed to do. But at this point, it is the rule. Not just in the United States, but around the world. Reporters and politicians and big business all align against voters, against you. Have you noticed? Earlier this week, the CBC warned Canadians that the word freedom has "become common among far-right groups." So only QAnon wants freedom. Remember that the next time you complain about Justin Trudeau. 

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Media organizations have been agitating against democracy for years now, even as they've posed loudly as its greatest defenders. In February of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, Vice Media ran this headline: "Anti-vaxxers are terrified the government will 'enforce' a vaccine for coronavirus." "Anti-vax groups on social media are claiming that the spread of the disease will lead to mandatory vaccinations and unlimited surveillance." Yeah, those conspiracy nuts. Now that all of that has actually happened, Vice has not apologized, instead Vice is helping Justin Trudeau to hurt anyone who complains about him. 

In October of that same year, 2020, the CBC warned Canadians about a "disinformation campaign [that] falsely suggests Canadians will be forcibly sent to quarantine sites." A few months later, as if on cue, the Trudeau government began forcibly sending Canadians to quarantine sites. But the CBC never apologized for posting what turned out to be disinformation. Instead, they set about enforcing Justin Trudeau's latest decrees. They see that as their job. So by the way, this is the so-called academic community. These are the university professors who've been granted lifetime job security, precisely so they can think for themselves. Freely, independent from government control. And yet, in practice, no one is more controlled by the government than they are. Here's a professor from Canada's Carleton University — that's an institution heavily funded by Justin Trudeau — telling CNN's viewers how dangerous and immoral it is to criticize Justin Trudeau in any way. Watch. 

PROFESSOR: I think it's important to remember that at the core of this protest, you know, it was never really about mandates in the first place. It's always been about a small group of people who called for a convoy, who hold very anti-government views, as well as kind of a racist and white supremacist views, conspiratorial world views.

Demonstrators dance in the streets as truckers and supporters continue to protest in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. REUTERS

Oh, they hold anti-government views, that's the crime. But isn't holding anti-government views allowed in a democracy? In fact, isn't the measure of democratic government the degree to which you're allowed to question the people in charge? Well, that used to be the definition of democracy. It's not anymore, certainly not on CNN. The CNN anchor who heard that just nodded. Yes, it is indeed a scary problem when Canadians disagree with Justin Trudeau — arrest them. On MSNBC, which is less subtle, but a lot more straightforward most of the time, they're telling Justin Trudeau to stop with the half measures; the problem with Canada is it's not authoritarian enough. Time to get the stick and start hurting people. 

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I do have to ask one question, though the liberal prime minister in Canada. Seriously? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, if I'm a mayor or I'm a prime minister, your trucks get in my city street? They're not going to stay there a week. No, no, no, no. They're not going to stay, there's going to be somebody with a stick and it's going to be banging on the window. It's going to say, you got one or two options in this thing. Are we going to cuff you and take you to jail and we're going to pound this and we're going to find your company. Move it or lose it.

Settle down, tough guy. There's going to be someone there with a stick. It's interesting. It's always the very same people who call for violence. It's almost like it excites them. It's not a good sign. So clearly there is an appetite for Canadian-style tyranny in this country, and the question is how long til we get it? Let's see. 

This morning we learned that American intelligence agencies are trying to censor a financial website called ZeroHedge. Unnamed sources from Joe Biden's intel community told The Associated Press, off-the-record of course, that ZeroHedge was, "spreading Russian propaganda," by which they meant criticizing Joe Biden. We can't have that. So how long before they pull ZeroHedge off the internet? How long before they try the same thing with Joe Biden's many other critics in the media? All of whom, we can tell you firsthand, have also been accused of working for Vladimir Putin. 

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And when that does happen, when these voices are silenced, what will we call it then? CNN will, of course, describe it as a necessary national security measure. But it's not that. It's tyranny. And by the way, since when does the CIA get to decide what websites Americans read? Are there any civil libertarians left in this country? Old-fashioned liberals, anyone? What do they think of this? Maybe they don't notice it. In their defense, it's hard to notice sometimes with leaders like Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau. They don't look very threatening. They're not the Hollywood version of fascist. Look at Justin Trudeau. He's absurd. The '70s haircut, all those little outfits when he feels like playing dress-up. He doesn't look dangerous, he looks ridiculous. 

But maybe Justin Trudeau is smarter than he looks. Leaders like Biden and Trudeau avoid the usual tells. They don't use armies to invade other countries, for example. Instead, they promote color revolutions and control foreign governments from afar. That's exactly what they did in Ukraine, which became a far more repressive place once Joe Biden began running it, and he does run Ukraine. Make no mistake. That's what they do. This new class of dictators seizes power incrementally, through the bureaucracy. They never raise their voices. They don't wave their arms. They smile and they tell you they're protecting democracy and public health. They praise diversity, even as they demand conformity. They're entirely passive-aggressive. But they're no less dangerous. One morning you wake up and they've canceled your job and seized your bank account for the crime of disagreeing with them. This is the architecture of tyranny, and it's not just happening in Canada. It's happening here in the United States. It will be used against us. Bet on it. 

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening monologue on the February 15, 2022 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."