How Can Government Suddenly Be So Intrusive?

Why, suddenly, does it seem like government has no respect for individual freedoms? We are contacted consistently with this question, many telling us that our present world seems upside down. In our view, government has not suddenly lost respect for our freedoms, but it has often, throughout time, lacked respect for freedoms. The COVID-19 Pandemic has simply revealed this. President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Reagan’s words are equally relevant to Canadians. We have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but we are seeing in this Pandemic that the rights and freedoms referred to within it must be fought for. We must exercise and fight for our rights to freedom of expression, religion and conscience, mobility, and association. If we do not, we will see government intrusions persist and increase. It is a case of “use it or lose it.” Whatever your view on the issues on the ground, we should all deem our rights and freedoms as precious, whether we agree or disagree with the exact nature of certain restrictions and intrusions. Because one day, if we allow unbridled governmental intrusion, it will affect us all. This will affect our “children and our children’s children” and we will tell them “what it was once like” in the Canada “where men were free.”