Mr. Free Speech has issued a gag order forbidding provincial employees from speaking freely about climate change. Yes, that’s right, Doug Ford, the very same guy who’s been going on and on about the importance of free speech on Ontario campuses, has banned free speech on Ontario government websites.

As Stephen Marche sagely observed last year, Ontario politics have been something of a bellwether in the last decade (e.g., “Rob Ford was the John the Baptist of Donald Trump”).¹ Things that happen in Ontario today, tend to happen everywhere else a few years later. So libertarians of all stripes would be wise to note how shallow the new authoritarian right’s commitment to liberty really is.

If you guys think the conservative commitment to liberty is more reliable than the progressive commitment to liberty, you’ve got another thing coming. As Stephen Harper rightly maintains in Right Here, Right Now (2018), these new conservatives aren’t particularly conservative; they’re radical. These right-wing populists do not wish to preserve and conserve our democratic traditions, and their commitment to our freedom is paper thin.

—John Faithful Hamer

1. Stephen Marche, “A Tolerance for Chaos,” Likeville Podcast (April 1, 2018).