Unlike some recent scandals and controversies for which voters and “tax payers” have no chance of opting-out (including a weapon’s trade with Saudi Arabia, one that even the new government cannot opt out of), OPIRG has a levy policy that allows every individual student to ask for their levy back.
Communist sympathizers love to compare violent communist regimes to the early forms of developed western countries. This approach is academically dishonest and fails to give credit to contemporary and developed democracies like Canada.
Apart from the general conservative cold-war platitudes and red-baiting used by Mr. Mattinson as arguments to denounce socialism, all the while holding up Canada as a “free” country of “hope and opportunity,” he conveniently omits many issues that one would expect such a strong advocate of human rights would consider.
The problem with redbaiting is this: it demands accountability for the historical crimes of some (the scary communists) and not others (the colonists and the capitalists).
Ottawa’s judicial precinct is prime real estate for the establishment of cultural touchstones and it should be reserved for a building or monument that speaks to some kind of national experience. Instead, this area is going to be used to build something that will only divide Canadians along political and ideological lines.
