Trudeau smears country he governs with charge of racism.

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Oct 20

 RE: Trudeau wants united anti-racism fight. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is once again shamelessly exploiting an incident to smear Canada with the accusation of racism.  In this case, it had to do with alleged racist comments against an aboriginal woman who died in a New Brunswick hospital.  Trudeau, in what amounts to high dudgeon for him, wants to eliminate racism from health care delivery in Canada. Below is a rebuttal.

The great American economist Thomas Sowell distinguished between racism and discrimination.  Racism is an idea that exists in people’s heads.  Racism isn’t measurable or even directly observable.  Discrimination, on the other hand, is expressed in overt acts that exist in objective reality.  Mr. Trudeau foolishly says he wants to eliminate racism in Canada.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of thought, belief, and expression.  Racism, being a system of beliefs, is legally protected, as are political expressions of those beliefs.  The reason Trudeau wants racism eliminated is only that that idea is unpopular.  The Indian Act is overtly racist and discriminatory, but Mr. Trudeau leaves it alone because it is popular.

I don’t understand why Mr. Trudeau insists that Canada is full of racism.  It’s the country he governs, and after five years of power those accusations begin to reflect on him.  But, I digress.

It isn’t racism Trudeau needs to fight, it is discrimination.  Discrimination is observable and measurable.  Discrimination in the delivery of health care lies within the powers of the provinces and Federal government to address.  To address discrimination, however, they need to name names and practices that are discriminatory.  But they won’t do that because too many important people are involved, and, on close examination, unjustified, systematic discrimination doesn’t occur.  Oh, you can call upon anecdotes, but anecdotes aren’t data.

Smearing Canada as a racist nation may gain Trudeau temporary popularity, but the long term consequences of that smear we can see in the United States.

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