Parental rights have been a hot-button issue in Canada for a long time, but is it really a socially conservative issue? In this episode, I discuss why parental rights are not a socially conservative issue at all, and why the argument against them is toxic to freedom itself.
00:00:00.000I think one thing that needs to be gotten right about the parental rights issue in Canada is that it's not a socially conservative issue.
00:00:07.800Since Blaine Higgs, the premier of New Brunswick, had sort of challenged the woke orthodoxy by changing policy 713 and making it so that parents need to be informed about their child trying to identify different genders at school.
00:00:21.500I think a lot of people have begun to think that this is a issue that a lot of socially conservative people care about.
00:00:26.780And of course, it's only being talked about right now in New Brunswick because it's a very socially conservative province.
00:00:31.660Literally, the PC government is made up of people who used to be part of the People's Alliance Party, which is an extremely socially conservative party.
00:00:39.680But that would be missing the sort of key issue here that more people need to be paying attention to.
00:00:45.080Even if someone's not extremely hawkish on parental rights the way a lot of socially conservative voters are, they have to understand that the left's arguments against parental rights to oppose Blaine Higgs could affect every single other right you have.
00:00:59.180Justin Trudeau and Seamus O'Regan and other members of the Liberal government who have been sort of going after what Blaine Higgs is doing in New Brunswick.
00:01:07.520Their argument is the idea that any perceived or not even perceived, any imagined, dreamed up potential harm requires the government to restrict fundamental freedoms.
00:01:18.300The idea that somehow if by telling a parent about how their child tries to identify at school is going to potentially cause abuse and ergo requires the schools to restrict information to parents is incredibly disgusting.
00:01:32.480And this could be an argument made for free movement, for like your medical freedom, for free speech, that any potential harm that could ever arise because the government gives you freedom is a bad thing and must be tamped down on.
00:01:47.420So I think that more people need to see this issue as not just being an issue about parents having more rights to see sort of what's going on in the classroom in regards to their children, which is an incredibly important issue.
00:02:01.500But it's also important because the arguments the left are making are toxic to freedom itself.
00:02:07.000The idea that somehow if I say something and it's quote unquote harmful to someone else, that means I should somehow not be able to say it.
00:02:14.180That is effectively the liberals' argument and why they've been trying to pass hate speech laws for the last little while.
00:02:20.520It's because they fundamentally see the state goals as being more important than individual freedom.
00:02:27.720This is why in the terms of the parental rights argument, they see the schools as having more right to have impact on children's lives and being able to have more insight into the lives of children than their parents should.
00:02:39.900So the school should be able to keep secrets from the parents, the school should be able to teach whatever they want.
00:02:44.760And, you know, it's just it's so evil and terrible that parents want to know what's being taught in the classroom.
00:02:50.000That's where you have people in the mainstream media demonizing parents who show up to school board meetings demanding to know why there's inappropriate materials being shown in the libraries, demanding that they stop teaching basically woke orthodoxy in the classroom.
00:03:02.000The media and liberals or the liberal kind of political establishment hate the fact that parents are asserting the rights and make no mistake.
00:03:10.080They hate the fact that anyone is asserting their rights over any issue.
00:03:14.200They do. They they sort of cast anyone who stands up for absolute free speech as somehow being extremist.
00:03:20.440Same thing for people who stand up for the rights to, you know, protect themselves by being able to own firearms legally as a licensed owner.
00:03:27.640They go after stuff like that. They go after free movement. We just came out of the whole sort of covid pandemic era where you weren't even allowed to leave your homes at times.
00:03:37.520All of the liberals arguments against these sorts of freedoms are the same arguments they're using against parental rights now.
00:03:43.640So that this is why I think that this cannot just become a socially conservative issue that only socially conservative people care about.
00:03:50.780It has to be an issue that everyone cares about.
00:03:53.100And I'm not even just saying just sort of different versions of conservatives like libertarians and fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.
00:03:58.120I think it's something that even moderate liberals and NDP voters can get behind the idea that the individual must be or the individual and the family unit must be sort of like, you know,
00:04:09.240must take precedence over whatever the interests of the government or the greater sort of community or public are.
00:04:17.160As soon as we start arguing about sort of just the potential for harm or potential for harm within the community or offense or the or sort of being not politically correct,
00:04:27.520then we are effectively forfeiting our individual freedoms and freedoms to sort of run our families and raise our families the way we want to.
00:04:35.740So hopefully I'm not rambling too much in this video, but it's just one of those things I've noticed where so far,
00:04:42.300I think the argument, the sort of the issue of parental rights has been going very well.
00:04:47.000Pierre Polly, the leader of the Conservative Party, made a great statement in favor of parental rights that, you know,
00:04:51.820schools should be focused on teaching academics and parents should be should be in charge of raising their kids.
00:04:57.200There shouldn't be this bleed over where the schools sort of take partial ownership over raising people's children.
00:05:01.660And then sort of parents are only allowed so many, so many sort of so much latitude.
00:05:06.920And I think what Blaine Higgs is doing in New Brunswick is fantastic.
00:05:10.040But again, I think that this shouldn't just be considered its own small issue.
00:05:14.400It's an issue that touches on every single fundamental freedom in Canada.