Joe Oliver: Liberals on the same path of self-inflicted ruin as the Soviets

financialpost.com:

The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed from internal contradictions related to a faltering ideology, limited free speech, economic mismanagement, deteriorating international influence and an inability to deliver on promises of a better life that were painfully obvious to all but were not, for fear of brutal reprisal, discussed publicly until near the very end. Justin Trudeau’s leftist woke government is afflicted by similar if milder contradictions that in our free country the aggrieved population living under them is discussing quite openly — which suggests the government’s dissolution will come faster.

Soviet citizens used wry humour to express their dissent indirectly: “The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable.” Historical revisionism that bolsters a regime’s ideological preferences and defends its legitimacy is a deadly serious matter. As George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” The prime minister promised sunny ways, then divisively labelled Canada genocidal and systemically racist. The average Canadian is not an elitist or a progressive ideologue, however, and opposes manipulating our history and dishonouring our national heroes by tearing down statues and erasing street names.

Liberal ministers use both mis- and dis-information to mask the contradictions between government rhetoric and economic and social reality. Justice Minister Arif Virani gaslighted Canadians by implying they are delusional about rising crime, even though the violent crime severity index is up 30 per cent since the Liberals took office. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland boasted about a temporary upswing in GDP growth, ignoring