True Patriot Love - December 23, 2025


Six Laws Reshaping Canada’s Freedom


Episode Stats

Length

25 minutes

Words per Minute

172.80971

Word Count

4,440

Sentence Count

302

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. My name is Jonathan Harvey, and this is The Weekly Take, where we look at
00:00:07.960 Canada's biggest political stories of the week. What happened, why it matters, and how it actually
00:00:11.640 affects you. On today's show, how six federal bills are turning Canada into a police state.
00:00:17.560 Canada enters the USMCA renewal talks, divided, strategically exposed, and buried in tariffs.
00:00:22.660 Made in Canada. When killing children becomes care, society has lost its moral compass.
00:00:27.820 From big cities to small towns, Canada's homelessness crisis is accelerating fast.
00:00:33.580 How Gen Z uprisings abroad are reshaping Canada's streets, and finally, reclaiming the spirit
00:00:38.280 of Christmas during hard times. All right, let's get into it. Story number one for the day.
00:00:43.580 Death by policy. How six federal bills are turning Canada into a police state.
00:00:48.700 Canada isn't losing its freedoms in one dramatic overnight crackdown. It's losing them quietly,
00:00:53.320 incrementally, through six separate laws. Each may sound reasonable on its own,
00:00:57.260 but together, they fundamentally change the relationship between citizens, the state,
00:01:00.800 and the internet. This is how modern democracies slide toward controlled speech and routine
00:01:04.980 surveillance. Not with a single shocking law, but with many small ones that never quite trigger
00:01:10.060 mass resistance. The pattern is consistent. Each bill is framed as a technical fix, updating outdated
00:01:16.940 rules, protecting children, supporting journalism, securing infrastructure. But each one chips away at the
00:01:21.980 barriers that once protected individual liberty. And once those barriers fall, they hardly ever rise
00:01:27.340 again. It started with the Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11, which extended CRTC authority into the
00:01:32.480 digital world. Streaming platforms, and in some cases, user-generated content, were pulled under the
00:01:37.620 same regulatory framework as traditional broadcasters. In practice, this gives regulators the
00:01:42.480 power to influence what is promoted, what is deprioritized, and what counts as Canadian content.
00:01:47.200 That power doesn't require outright bans to work. Algorithms determine visibility, and visibility
00:01:52.720 determines survival online. When the government mandates discoverability, it inevitably favors
00:01:58.160 certain viewpoints, industries, and institutions, usually those already aligned with state funding,
00:02:04.120 while burying independent content creators, dissenting voices, and smaller outlets. No censor has to
00:02:09.880 knock on your door if your content simply disappears. Next came the Online News Act, or Bill C-18,
00:02:15.220 framed as a way to help journalism survive in the digital age. In reality, it reshaped the news
00:02:19.720 economy around government-approved deals. Meta responded by blocking Canadian news entirely,
00:02:24.760 devastating traffic to independent outlets. Google negotiated a $100 million annual payment scheme,
00:02:30.500 overwhelmingly benefiting legacy media. The danger here is structural, not malicious. When news
00:02:36.060 organizations rely on government-linked payments, they become more risk-averse, less adversarial,
00:02:41.120 and more aligned with official narratives. Journalism shifts from servicing the public to maintaining
00:02:45.760 access. Independent voices shrink, and the media ecosystem becomes centralized, compliant,
00:02:50.740 and financially dependent. The temporarily stalled Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, shows us the next
00:02:57.240 stage. Under the universally appealing goal of protecting children, it proposed a digital safety
00:03:02.500 commission with sweeping powers, forcing platforms to remove lawful speech, compelling disclosure of user
00:03:08.580 data, conducting warrantless inspections, and issuing massive fines, even jail time, all with minimal
00:03:15.480 oversight. What made Bill C-63 dangerous wasn't just that it targeted citizens, but how broadly it defined
00:03:21.640 harm. The bill could punish Canadians for lawful expression and even preemptively for speech someone
00:03:26.840 might make in the future, which is clearly insane. Once governments adopt that mindset, speech itself
00:03:33.140 becomes a liability. Next is Bill C-2, which is currently before Parliament. It's better known as the Strong
00:03:39.200 Borders Act, a name that obscures its true function. The bill dramatically expands warrantless access to
00:03:44.720 subscriber data and metadata, not just for police, but for a wide range of government officials. It allows
00:03:50.440 Canada posts to open mail without a warrant and criminalizes large cash transactions. It's kind of insane.
00:03:56.720 This isn't border security. It's surveillance infrastructure. Metadata can reveal political activity,
00:04:01.280 personal relationships, religious practice, and protest involvement. And once collected, it rarely stays
00:04:06.880 confined to its original purpose. Systems built for serious crimes are routinely repurposed for regulatory
00:04:12.180 enforcement, political investigations, and administrative convenience. So beware. Alongside it sits the Critical
00:04:18.860 Cyber Systems Protection Act, or Bill C-8, giving cabinet authority to declare almost any service vital and
00:04:25.820 impose binding directives on private companies. Under vague language about interference or manipulation, the
00:04:31.140 government can order telecom companies to cut off the internet and mobile services entirely with no warrant and no real
00:04:36.620 explanation needed. Of course, as with all policy, the risk of abuse lies in discretion. Broad definitions and secretive
00:04:43.500 enforcement allow political pressure to seep in. Protection against foreign cyber threats can easily expand to
00:04:48.960 domestic disinformation, dissent, or unpopular viewpoints, especially during elections or crises when governments are most
00:04:55.800 tempted to control the narrative. And finally, the Combating Hate Act, Bill C-9. This lowers the threshold for hate speech
00:05:02.340 prosecutions by removing attorney general approval and increasing penalties. This sounds procedural, but it changes
00:05:09.040 enforcement incentives. Lower barriers mean more investigations, more charges, and more pressure to self-censor, especially
00:05:16.020 online, where speech is permanent, searchable, and easily misinterpreted. In this environment, religious expression,
00:05:23.040 political activism, satire, and protest all carry legal risks. The law doesn't need to be enforced
00:05:28.760 aggressively to be effective. The mere possibility of punishment is enough to kill free speech.
00:05:33.620 Taken individually, each of these bills can be defended with soothing rhetoric. Together, they form a system.
00:05:40.180 Speech is monitored, visibility is regulated, privacy is conditional, dissent carries growing risk. In this case,
00:05:46.720 control is exercised not through blunt force, but through algorithms, licensing, and compliance requirements.
00:05:51.620 This is the boiling frog model of governance, a slow procedural and bureaucratic death. People adapt to
00:05:58.340 each change and one day realize that the environment itself has been completely transformed. So, this is
00:06:03.780 your warning. Canada still has a choice, but only if it recognizes the pattern before it becomes normalized.
00:06:09.720 The erosion of freedom rarely announces itself as tyranny. It arrives disguised as safety, fairness, and
00:06:14.880 modernization. By the time it becomes obvious, reversing course is nearly impossible.
00:06:21.020 Alright, next up. Canada enters the USMCA renewal talks divided, strategically exposed, and buried in
00:06:27.320 tariffs. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the deal that replaced NAFTA in 2020, is heading towards a
00:06:33.320 decisive moment. On July 1st, 2026, the agreement hits its mandatory review. All three countries must agree to
00:06:39.780 extend it for another 16 years, and if they don't, the deal begins to unwind. And right now, Canada is
00:06:45.360 heading into that review from a position of utter weakness. Negotiations with the United States have
00:06:50.700 stalled, tariffs are already in place, and Washington is making it clear that renewal won't
00:06:55.200 come for free. The US wants concessions, and Canada doesn't appear to have a coherent plan for how to
00:07:00.960 respond. To no surprise, the American position isn't subtle. At the top of their list is Canada's supply
00:07:06.800 management for dairy, a system built on quotas and steep tariffs that shield domestic producers
00:07:11.220 from competition. Canada already made concessions during the original USMCA talks in 2018, but the
00:07:17.360 US officials argue those concessions were hollow. Market access, they say, exists on paper, but not
00:07:22.280 in practice, and quite honestly, they're not wrong. US Trade Representative Jameson Greer has been
00:07:26.780 explicit. Fix dairy, or expect trouble at renewal. Then there's Canada's Online Streaming Act, which we
00:07:32.760 just talked about. From Washington's perspective, this is another example of Canada using
00:07:36.700 regulation to tilt the field, forcing platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify to comply with
00:07:41.500 Canadian content rules that disproportionately hurt US companies. Add the Online News Act, which compels
00:07:47.360 tech platforms to subsidize Canadian media, and the pattern becomes hard to ignore. The US sees these
00:07:52.300 laws not as cultural protection, but as trade barriers dressed up as policy. The list of irritants
00:07:57.400 keeps growing. Provincial procurement rules that favor local firms. Retaliatory bans on US alcohol.
00:08:02.320 Each move might score points at home, but collectively, they've made Canada look fragmented and
00:08:07.160 reactive. From Washington's point of view, Canada isn't negotiating. It's improvising, and they're not wrong.
00:08:13.320 President Trump has leaned into that imbalance. He's openly used the threat of USMCA withdrawal and the blunt
00:08:18.900 instrument of tariffs as leverage. This isn't a misunderstanding. It's a pressure campaign, and so far, it's working.
00:08:25.260 Ottawa's response has been meek at best. Prime Minister Mark Carney has acknowledged that a sector-by-sector
00:08:31.920 deal to ease tariffs is now unlikely before the full USMCA review in July. And as many of you know,
00:08:37.720 talks have been effectively frozen since late October. To give you all a quick reminder, the reason we've
00:08:42.160 been stalled for months is because of an Ontario government ad campaign that was run in the United
00:08:46.780 States attacking American protectionism and tariffs by invoking Ronald Reagan. And this was just as
00:08:52.460 negotiations were nearing progress. Of course, Premier Doug Ford defended it as clever and cheap.
00:08:58.660 However, I would suggest it was neither. It dug Canada into a deeper hole with our primary trading
00:09:02.700 partner, and it cost taxpayers $75 million. The US ambassador called it unprecedented interference,
00:09:09.620 while President Trump responded by walking away from the table. Since then, provincial actions have
00:09:14.280 added heat, but not leverage. Carney has made a few concessions, like scrapping the digital service tax
00:09:19.740 and easing some retaliatory tariffs. But the larger problem remains. Canada is negotiating as a
00:09:25.420 collection of provinces and policies, not as a unified country with a clear strategy. Carney insists
00:09:31.180 supply management is never on the table. And while that may be politically safe, it also locks Canada
00:09:37.400 into a standoff with no escape route, especially when no alternative plan has been offered to offset the
00:09:42.620 economic damage. And that damage is already being felt. The US has imposed a sweeping tariff regime,
00:09:48.920 50% on steel and aluminum, 25% on automobiles, 10% on energy, critical minerals and potash, 35% on non-USMCA
00:09:56.900 compliant goods, 45% on lumber, and 25% on products like kitchen cabinets and upholstered wood furniture.
00:10:03.280 These aren't symbolic tariffs. They hit core Canadian industries, they cost jobs, they raise prices,
00:10:07.820 and they compound uncertainty. So, with the USMCA review still months away and talks suspended,
00:10:14.160 Canadian businesses are stuck in limbo. Investment decisions are delayed, supply chains are disrupted,
00:10:18.840 costs rise, and eventually consumers pay the price. Canada's competitive edge erodes quietly while our
00:10:24.280 political leaders argue about posturing. Now here's where the framing actually matters.
00:10:29.280 Much of the Canadian media has cast this as kind of a David versus Goliath story. Trump is portrayed as
00:10:34.380 the brute, the bully, the strong man, while Mark Carney is positioned as the principled underdog,
00:10:39.180 bravely standing up for Canadian values against American aggression. It's a familiar narrative,
00:10:44.220 it's emotionally satisfying. However, it's dangerously misleading because this isn't a morality
00:10:49.160 play, it's a power negotiation. That framing lowers expectations, it primes the public to accept
00:10:55.060 losses as courage, it allows concessions to be sold as victories, and it shifts the conversation away
00:11:00.060 from outcomes towards optics. If Canada loses market access, that's not failure, it's standing
00:11:06.080 tall. If tariffs bite, that's not mismanagement, it's the cost of resistance. But trade wars don't
00:11:11.500 care about narratives. They care about leverage, coordination, and outcomes. And right now, Canada
00:11:17.180 is running short on all three. So Canada doesn't need to be David in this scenario, it needs to be
00:11:21.900 serious. Because in the real world, the side that wins isn't the one with the better story,
00:11:26.040 it's the one with a plan, which we apparently don't have. All right, moving on. Made in Canada,
00:11:32.740 when killing children becomes care, society has lost its moral compass. There are moments in public
00:11:38.620 life that signal a quiet but profound shift, not because they arrive with drama, but because they're
00:11:42.880 discussed calmly, almost casually. When a society begins debating the deliberate ending of its own
00:11:47.680 children's lives, not as an unthinkable tragedy, but as a regulated option, something dramatic has
00:11:53.540 changed. And in Canada, that change didn't happen overnight. It unfolded gradually, wrapped in
00:11:58.040 professional language, and framed as compassion. That reality came into sharper focus recently when
00:12:02.880 the College of Medicine in Quebec, or the CMQ, told the Daily Mail that medical assistance in dying
00:12:08.480 may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain. The college added that parents
00:12:14.260 should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant under these well-defined circumstances.
00:12:18.960 The emphasis, they say, is on rare and severe cases, situations where suffering is considerable
00:12:23.840 and unmanageable. But infants cannot describe their pain. They cannot express fear, hope, or a desire
00:12:29.180 to continue living. They cannot consent. What qualifies as unmanageable suffering is therefore
00:12:34.280 determined entirely by others. Physicians, parents, review bodies, acting in good faith, perhaps,
00:12:39.680 but still making irreversible decisions on behalf of someone with no voice at all. That alone should
00:12:44.460 give us pause. Part of what makes this debate so difficult is the language surrounding it.
00:12:50.140 Euthanasia is consistently described as care, a term used by the college itself. Now, whatever one's
00:12:56.120 moral position, it's worth acknowledging what that language obscures. Made is not palliative care,
00:13:02.620 or counseling, or pain management. It is the intentional ending of life. As George Orwell famously
00:13:07.940 warned, political language often exists to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. In Canada,
00:13:13.860 that linguistic shift is no longer theoretical. It's now institutional. It would be easier to process
00:13:19.900 this if it were limited to a single medical body or a handful of outlier voices, but it isn't. These
00:13:25.520 ideas are now firmly embedded in Canada's political process. A joint parliamentary committee has already
00:13:30.360 been recommended expanding assisted dying to minors. Witnesses told MPs that a young person's
00:13:35.740 capacity to consent should not be determined by age or even the nature of their suffering. The committee
00:13:41.680 ultimately agreed, concluding that maid eligibility should not be denied on the basis of age alone.
00:13:46.940 So you can't vote, buy lottery tickets, cigarettes, alcohol, get a tattoo, or perhaps even drive,
00:13:52.500 but you can decide it's time to end your own life? I don't think so. Commentator Anna Farrow has noted
00:13:58.420 the uncomfortable historical echo that accompanies this logic. The first state-organized euthanasia
00:14:03.180 program targeting disabled infants began in Nazi Germany in 1939, following what was described as
00:14:08.680 a single act of mercy. That reasoning expanded to Action T4, a bureaucratic program that ultimately killed
00:14:14.260 an estimated 250,000 disabled children and adults. See, history rarely begins with atrocities. It begins with
00:14:21.700 committees, doctors, and forms, each step justified as reasonable in its time. And Canada's own numbers show how
00:14:27.860 quickly norms can shift once a system is in place. Since MAID was legalized in 2016, more than 76,000 Canadians have died
00:14:34.940 through the program. In 2024 alone, 16,499 deaths were accounted for, over 5% of all deaths nationwide,
00:14:43.240 and these were all attributed to MAID. That share grows each year as eligibility expands, particularly
00:14:48.280 under Track 2, where a patient's death does not need to be reasonably foreseeable. Jonathan Regler,
00:14:54.280 a retired Vancouver Island family physician who provided MAID, offered a candidate explanation of how he
00:14:59.100 reconciled his role in Track 2 cases. Once you accept that life is not sacred and not something
00:15:04.320 that can only be taken by God, a being I don't believe in, he said, then some of us have to go
00:15:09.740 forward and say, we will do it. That statement is striking, not because it's cruel, but because it's
00:15:15.320 clear. It reflects a philosophical shift away from the idea that life has intrinsic value, independent of
00:15:20.580 suffering, productivity, or autonomy. Many supporters have MAID sincerely believe that they are reducing harm,
00:15:25.480 but sincerity doesn't resolve the deeper question of where this logic ultimately leads.
00:15:30.280 This doesn't require panic or apocalyptic language, it requires seriousness. When a country begins
00:15:35.040 treating the death of its most vulnerable citizens, first the sick, then the disabled, now potentially
00:15:39.960 infants, as a medical solution, it owes itself an honest, careful reckoning, not with slogans or
00:15:45.140 euphemisms, but with the full moral weight of what is actually being proposed. All right, moving on.
00:15:50.540 From big cities to small towns, Canada's homelessness crisis is accelerating
00:15:54.600 fast. Homelessness in Canada is no longer a problem confined to a handful of major urban
00:16:00.620 centres. It has spread quickly into smaller cities and towns, from St. Catharines in Windsor to Barrie,
00:16:05.500 Greater Sudbury, Saskatoon, and Halifax, overwhelming communities that lack the resources and infrastructure
00:16:10.420 to respond effectively. Across the country, residences and business owners alike report rising tent
00:16:15.680 encampments, open drug use, public disorder, and growing safety concerns in downtown cores that were once
00:16:20.920 stable and accessible. And the scale of the problem is expanding faster than many realize.
00:16:25.260 The 2024 point in time count, Canada's most comprehensive homelessness snapshot, found nearly
00:16:30.500 60,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 74 communities, including 17,088
00:16:36.720 unsheltered individuals, of whom nearly 5,000 were in encampments, and another almost 7,000 in
00:16:41.980 transitional housing programs. This represented roughly a 79% rise in homelessness in just a few years,
00:16:47.740 with unsheltered homelessness more than doubling over the same period. What's crazy is that these
00:16:52.520 numbers are almost certainly an undercount. Quebec did not participate in the 2024 survey,
00:16:57.300 and the methodology itself only captures a single night, excluding transient and hidden homelessness
00:17:01.880 that occurs across weeks, months, and seasons. Using broader participation rates, homelessness very
00:17:08.060 likely exceeds 70,000 to 75,000 on any given night. Alarmingly, small urban centres are now seeing sharp
00:17:14.200 increases. In Greater Sudbury, the number of people experiencing homelessness climbed from 164
00:17:18.760 to 237 within a year, and the number of encampments quadrupled from 25 to 113. Similarly, Halifax saw
00:17:26.580 chronic homelessness surge from just over 100 people in 2019 to nearly 1,000 in 2024. Even cities like
00:17:34.040 Toronto reported more than 200 informal encampments at dozens of locations, compared with far fewer just
00:17:39.100 years earlier. In Saskatoon, the homelessness count also rose sharply. 1,499 were documented in 2024,
00:17:46.640 up markedly from the year before, while the latest 2025 count reported nearly 1,931,
00:17:52.200 including hundreds in emergency shelters and encampments, revealing this trend is not limited
00:17:56.720 to coastal cities, but spreading across the prairies. This geographic spread mirrors broader
00:18:01.840 structural pressures on housing and affordability. Vacancy rates across major markets plunged into
00:18:06.660 historic lows, often below 2%, with Vancouver dipping below 1%, while rents continue to surge,
00:18:13.240 making even modest housing unaffordable for many workers. Canada's supply of non-market or
00:18:18.020 affordable housing sits well below the OECD average, around 3.5% of total housing stock compared
00:18:23.640 to about 7.1% across OECD countries, limiting options for people priced out of the private rental
00:18:29.280 market. And these pressures are not abstract. They translate into visible strain on the social
00:18:33.580 fabric of communities, which we once insulated from urban homelessness. Shelters and encampments
00:18:38.740 fill quickly than refill after closures. Police and emergency services are stretched, trying to
00:18:43.620 balance enforcement with care and response. Businesses reported declining foot traffic and
00:18:48.480 rising incidents of theft or disorder in areas near encampments. Residents expressed a growing sense
00:18:53.800 that public spaces are less safe or welcoming. And of course, crime is up across the board.
00:18:58.580 The rise in homelessness closely tracks Canada's affordability crisis, where housing costs have
00:19:03.260 skyrocketed faster than wages, and vacancy rates have hovered near record lows. At the same time,
00:19:08.820 demographic pressures driven by population growth from immigration and interprovincial movement
00:19:12.600 have pushed demand without corresponding increase in housing supply. This has left smaller centres
00:19:17.400 serving as overflow zones for people priced out of larger markets. The result is a visible crisis in
00:19:22.580 public spaces, shelters that can't keep up, and a rising number of people living on the margins
00:19:26.860 with no clear exit to stable housing. Now, public attitudes are also shifting with the visible
00:19:32.480 crisis. Surveys show that over 65% of Canadians now support emergency measures to clear encampments
00:19:37.940 and restore order in public spaces, a reflection of both concern for the vulnerable and frustration
00:19:43.020 with the deteriorating conditions. What was once framed as a big city problem is now unmistakably
00:19:48.740 national and accelerating. As affordability deteriorates, population growth outpaces infrastructure,
00:19:53.800 and governments struggle to balance compassion with order and accountability, homelessness is
00:19:58.340 becoming a more permanent feature of Canadian life. For many communities, the looming question is not
00:20:02.840 whether conditions will worsen, but how much worse they can get, and how long residents will tolerate
00:20:07.980 the transformation of their neighbourhoods before they just decide to move away.
00:20:11.580 All right, moving on. World War Z. How Gen Z uprisings abroad are reshaping Canada's streets.
00:20:18.760 2025 showed the world just how powerful Gen Z has become. From Nepal to Peru, Indonesia to Madagascar,
00:20:24.740 young people took to the streets and online to demand change. They toppled governments, forced resignations,
00:20:29.520 and in some cases paid the ultimate price. And they did it all using the tools they know best.
00:20:34.220 Discord, TikTok, Reddit, and X. Memes, emojis, and pop culture symbols like the One Piece pirate flag
00:20:39.240 became a shared language of resistance. In Nepal, youth used a discord poll to pick an interim prime
00:20:44.260 minister after months of government corruption and social media ban. In Madagascar, students and young
00:20:48.840 workers protested water shortages, power cuts, and unemployment. And within days, the president had
00:20:53.520 fled, replaced by a military-led interim government. In Peru, citizens forced the impeachment of their
00:20:58.260 president over controversial pension reforms. Across Indonesia and the Philippines, Bulgaria, and Morocco,
00:21:04.080 the story was the same. Young people demanding accountability and systemic change.
00:21:07.840 Now, on the one hand, these are very positive movements. But on the other, they carry violence,
00:21:13.000 conflict, and division. And Canada has onshore these global crises through our open border immigration
00:21:17.940 policies and refugee programs. Canada now absorbs conflicts that erupt overseas, and it doesn't look like
00:21:24.280 it's going to be stopping anytime soon. Take Israel-Palestine, for example. Every flare-up sends waves of new
00:21:29.320 arrivals seeking safety and stability. However, what we see in many of the communities that form are protests on
00:21:34.700 Canadian streets and pressure on social services. So these aren't abstract problems. They're real,
00:21:39.360 local, and shaping Canadian society. And it's not just the Middle East. Political upheaval in Nepal,
00:21:44.480 Madagascar, or Peru reaches our cities through family sponsorships, work permits, and asylum claims.
00:21:49.460 People fleeing instability bring with them trauma, distrust of institutions, and expectations about
00:21:54.360 government accountability. Expectations shaped by governments that often fail spectacularly. Combine that
00:22:00.120 with a digital generation that's globally aware, socially networked, and politically active. And
00:22:04.340 you have a population ready to challenge the status quo the moment they land in Canada. And I'm not
00:22:08.760 saying challenging the status quo is necessarily a bad idea. But when we do challenge it with many
00:22:15.380 different expectations of outcome, i.e. no cohesive cultural narrative, we only get more division.
00:22:22.200 The bottom line is this. Gen Z is teaching the world and Canada that youth activism is fast,
00:22:26.800 smart, and relentless. But in Canada, these lessons come with consequences. By welcoming people fleeing
00:22:31.780 global instability, we've made foreign conflicts part of our domestic landscape. How we integrate,
00:22:36.600 support, and guide these arrivals will determine whether Canada's open-door policies become a source
00:22:40.420 of strength or a flashpoint for unrest in the years ahead. And for our last story of the day,
00:22:47.600 reclaiming the spirit of Christmas during hard times. Remember when Christmas actually felt like
00:22:52.300 Christmas? Snow blanketing the streets, the scent of pine in the living room, neighbors getting
00:22:56.480 together for a cookie exchange. Midnight carolers were a real thing. Unwrapping shiny new skates,
00:23:01.560 roast turkey filling the house with warmth as extended family gets together. It was a season
00:23:05.800 that even if just for a few weeks brought communities together instead of ripping them apart.
00:23:10.440 Now, those days are gone. Christmas hasn't vanished, but the world around it has. Instead of a time of
00:23:15.860 goodwill, it's become a minefield of political grievance, culture war posturing, and relentless
00:23:20.080 social division. In Canada, Christmas lights still blink on houses, but the warmth behind them is harder
00:23:25.020 to find. Our traditions, the one that used to unite us, are under assault. Not by nature, not by chance,
00:23:31.140 but by ideology, apathy, and a government that seems eager to fan the flames of division
00:23:35.160 rather than heal them. Across the country, attacks on faith have become commonplace.
00:23:40.260 In Canada, over 100 Christian churches have been vandalized or burned in recent years.
00:23:44.180 In the U.S., activist groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation target Christmas in the
00:23:48.280 public square. Everywhere, symbols of Judeo-Christian traditions that once provided a moral anchor
00:23:53.260 are being politicized, weaponized, and torn down. What should be shared experiences of joy and peace
00:23:57.680 are now battlegrounds for identity politics and social control. Meanwhile, the decay around us
00:24:02.160 doesn't stop at Christmas. Governments bloat, taxes rise, and public institutions fail to deliver
00:24:06.860 basic competence, whether it's infrastructure crumbling, health care under strain, or schools
00:24:11.600 that churn out young people more indoctrinated than educated. Crime, homelessness, and addiction fester,
00:24:16.940 while the political class lectures us about tolerance and diversity.
00:24:19.600 Our culture, our communities, and even our memories are under siege.
00:24:24.100 In fact, restoring the spirit of Christmas and its climate is a rebellious act.
00:24:28.260 It requires more than tradition. It requires reclaiming civility, generosity, and shared humanity
00:24:32.440 in a society determined to pit us against each other.
00:24:35.740 It means hosting gatherings that bridge divides, stepping away from outrage-driven social media,
00:24:40.700 and showing basic kindness in a country where compassion has become conditional.
00:24:44.420 It means volunteering, giving to shelters, and donating food to banks.
00:24:47.800 Reminding ourselves that Christmas isn't about selfies or streaming, it's about actual human
00:24:52.020 connection and care. It means reflecting on our shared experiences and stories, reading Dickens,
00:24:57.720 taking the kids' tobogganing, or simply talking to a neighbor without turning it into a debate.
00:25:02.140 In a world quick to weaponize difference, we have to choose the hard path.
00:25:06.140 Empathy.
00:25:07.140 And yes, I know, choosing goodwill won't fix every problem.
00:25:10.200 The government will still fumble, taxes will still crush families, school will still miseducate,
00:25:14.480 and cultural divisions will still persist. But it restores the one thing they cannot touch,
00:25:19.220 the warmth that once made this season truly wonderful. That warmth, the simple act of being
00:25:23.620 decent to one another, is the quiet rebellion against a society intent on eroding everything
00:25:28.240 worth cherishing. So this Christmas, don't let them steal your humanity. Reclaim it for family,
00:25:33.220 for faith, if that's your thing, for sanity, and for Canada.
00:25:36.160 Well, that's a wrap, folks. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. We'll see you next week.