The Left, the Security State and Civil Liberties
The Freedom Convoy has shown that there is now one degree of separation between Antifa and the Security State
Three apparently disparate things, all related in one way or another to the Freedom Convoy, coincided last week with a neatness that a novelist might hesitate to invent:
Chris Carbert, one of the Coutts Four accused of conspiracy to murder police officers during the Coutts border blockade, was again denied bail after two years in remand, despite the fact that some of the evidence against him is now known to be false;
Tamara Lich reappeared on social media, having been banned under bail conditions for almost two years, reminding us once again of the state’s vindictive response to the Freedom Convoy; and
Professor Stephanie Carvin of Carleton University and two other security state academics, Leah West and Jessica Davis, published in The Globe and Mail a wonkish critique of Canada’s foreign intelligence policy.1
These three events, simultaneous by happenstance, illustrate something of the nature of power in our society: right wing or populist activists go to jail, while far left activists, even those with ties to violent movements, get tenure, publish in the paper of record, and hobnob with power.
Chris Carbert, the Coutts4, and the Dialogon Conspiracy Theory
Chris Carbert and three others were arrested at the time of the invocation of the Emergencies Act. The allegation of violent extremism was used to justify the Emergencies Act, notwithstanding that the Coutts Four were arrested under ordinary criminal law. There was no coordination or contact between the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa and the Coutts blockade in Alberta, but they shared an aim, and the state was pleased to smear the former with crimes alleged of the latter.
Details of the evidence against Carbert are under a publication ban, but at the time of his arrest, the press carried an alarming picture of a table covered with weapons. Carbert and his associates were accused of belonging to a terrorist group called “Diagolon.” Retired Toronto Police detective Donald Best has raised serious questions about the handling of the evidence against Carbert and the other three accused.2 His experienced eye sees evidentiary problems with the much reprinted photo of weapons, most of which are legal long guns.
Anyone with a modicum of skepticism knew that Diagolon was a meme, not a terrorist group. It has since emerged, thanks to the journalism of Caryma Sa’d and Elisa Hategan, that the then state-funded Canadian Anti-Hate Network constructed and circulated the conspiracy theory that the “Diagolon” meme was really a violent militia led by an ex-soldier named Jeremy MacKenzie.3 MacKenzie is an excellent speaker who, very unusually for an accused terrorist, is also hilarious. His account of Diagolon is here: https://rumble.com/v27s7be-welcome-to-diagolon.html.
The Diagolon conspiracy theory, now comprehensively destroyed, was the only element of the government’s Emergencies Act justification that involved terrorism or violent extremism. And Carbert and the Coutts Four were all working men with good jobs and solid employment histories, and no history of crime or extremism. This doesn’t disprove the charges, but it does make them improbable, and raises the question of the denial of bail. In Canada, almost everyone gets bail, except apparently critics of the regime.
Tamara Lich and Freedom Convoy Trial
Tamara Lich, better known than the Coutts Four, was also several times denied bail, arrested at one point on a cross-Canada warrant (on a charge now dropped), and banned from social media for almost two years. The ongoing trial of Lich and Chris Barber, the longest mischief trial in history, has produced numerous videos of the two calling for peaceful protest and for respectful conduct toward the police. And that is the prosecution’s evidence.
The case would have been dropped long ago were the accused leftwing protesters, or anyone other than Freedom Convoy leaders. It is an obvious attempt to criminalize the Freedom Convoy.
Prof. Carvin and the Need for Right Wing Extremism
Which brings us to Prof. Carvin, a former CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service) analyst, and now a professor of international affairs with a focus on national security and intelligence. She has built a career on finding rightwing extremists, and is quoted in Public Order Emergencies Commission (Rouleau Inquiry) documents telling senior Liberals that the Freedom Convoy was, “the work of organized Violent Right Wing Extremists.”4
The “RG” here is Ralph Goodale, former Public Safety Minister and now High Commissioner in London, writing to Dominic Leblanc, then Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. The unintroduced mention of “Stefanie Carvin” (sic) suggests that her name was familiar to cabinet ministers. The capitalized “Violent Right Wing Extremists,” sounds like a misremembered attempt at “Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism”, security agencies’ internal term of art.
Carvin was obviously telling the Liberal government what it wanted to hear. It was a point reiterated by permanent security state officials like National Security and Intelligence Advisor Jody Thomas.5 Professor Carvin had since published an essay blaming the Freedom Convoy (viewed as an event requiring blame) on right wing extremists, reiterating the line she fed to the cabinet.6
Carvin is also close to Antifa, relying on them for research assistance,7 and reposting tweets from Antifa-connected individuals with obvious approval. Below, “Tony” is well known in that corner of X/Twitter, the three oblique arrows are an Antifa symbol, and the ever-present allegation of “white nationalism” is repeated.
Nor is Carvin alone. Her co-author, law Professor and former CAF officer Leah West, has tweeted in support of Antifa protests near Atlanta, characterizing the violence as “dissent,” and has called for the Coutts Four to be charged with terrorism offences.8 The third co-author, Jessica Davis, runs a consulting company professing expertise in terrorism, and has called for the wider use of anti-terrorism laws and tactics against among others critics of Islam and opponents of gender ideology.9 There is a pattern here: an indulgence toward leftwing violence, and a desire to use the security state and anti-terrorism laws originally intended for use against Al-Qaeda and other terrorists against conservative and populist dissent.
Carvin, a former CSIS analyst, is also a prominent commentator in the mainstream media on issues related to terrorism, intelligence and the Freedom Convoy. The adjacency of those topics in the mind of the establishment is of course the problem. The idea that tens or hundreds of thousands would protest government overreach of their own accord, without being manipulated by nefarious actors, and without large elements of false consciousness, will not fit into their minds. It would require a serious rethink of the establishment worldview: a conspiracy of rightwing extremists avoids that effort. Aside from being more ideologically congenial, it has the pleasant side-effect of creating a sense of threat, in turn justifying the security state and an associated cottage industry of academics and consultants.
One Degree of Separation between Antifa and the Security State
There is now one degree of separation between Antifa and the academy, the security state and the Liberal cabinet. It has long been commonplace that academics should play at the politics of the extreme left, perhaps getting arrested at the odd demonstration. But these are not professors of English or gender theory: these professors teach the next generation of security state bureaucrats, have access to the pages of elite newspapers, take part in policy debates whose very wonkishness emphasizes their establishment character, and are treated as authoritative by Liberal Cabinet ministers.
A number of actors have shaped the narrative of the Freedom Convoy and associated protests: Cabinet ministers, professors, security state officials, consultants, lawyers, and state-funded activists, including the admirers of Antifa. The proverbial long march through the institutions has ended in the security state, which is to say in agencies with the power to imprison people they don’t like.
Discriminatory Use of the Law a Threat to Civil Liberties
The state was truly frightened by the size and spontaneity of the Freedom Convoy. The government needed to find “organized Violent Right Wing Extremists.” Security state intellectuals certified the allegation of violent extremism, even as actual leaders like Lich and Barber called for peaceful protest. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a group of state-funded Antifa-adjacent activists, came up with a suspect, however improbable. And the media, which in days of yore functioned as a check on the abuses of the security state, dislikes populism so much that it recycles state propaganda in the news pages, and allows obedient academics to hold forth on the op-ed page.
As a direct result of this discourse of extremism, there has been a discriminatory misuse of the criminal law against popular protesters: Tamara Lich jailed, until last week banned from the internet, and along with Chris Barber still facing a trial and a possible prison sentence. Chris Carbert and three other men are imprisoned already, and still denied bail nearly two years after their arrests, notwithstanding the refutation of a central part of the charge.
The leftist takeover of the security state has shown itself to be a direct threat to our civil liberties. Nor is this merely a function of the current Liberal government (but that too). The academy, permanent officialdom, an alphabet soup of agencies, and the mainstream media are also parts of the problem. The government can fire a person: it is more difficult to fire a culture, an institution, or an ideology. This will be a challenge for any future Conservative government, in the event that such a government should actually try to be conservative.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm8i2OYqNNE, 06:00ff.
If a coup has occurred that attempts to subvert our human rights, what are our options?