The Liberals are openly suppressing alternative views on the war in eastern Europe and ramping up dangerous rhetoric towards a nuclear-armed state. In recent days they have helped censor an anti-war film, labelled a media outlet “foreign interference,” and encouraged more missile strikes deep inside Russia.
Two weeks ago, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland boosted a campaign to cancel the screening of Russians at War at the Toronto International Film Festival. Her efforts to censor the documentary, which is directed by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, came on the heels of TV Ontario buckling to pressure by withdrawing its commitment to air the film.
Trofimova made Russians at War at great personal risk and without permission from the Kremlin, embedding herself with a disillusioned and battle-bruised battalion as it made its way across eastern Ukraine. TIFF initially paused screenings of the film over “significant threats to festival operations and public safety,” but resumed showings several days later at its Lightbox venue in downtown Toronto.
Russians at War has been described by some of Canada’s leading newspaper columnists as “the furthest thing from propaganda” on behalf of Russia’s invasion, and a film that in no way glorifies Russia or its military.
National Post columnist Chris Selley defended the film in two separate columns, writing, “The most important point is that government and government-funded entities—Ontario’s public broadcaster, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), TIFF, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and other MPs—successfully conspired to keep people from seeing the film and judging for themselves.” Selley continued:
I’m 100 per cent on Ukraine’s side in this war, and I think Canada should stand foursquare behind it. But if it’s at the cost of one of our core values, freedom of speech, then what the hell is the point?
Barely a week after Freeland’s intervention whipped up controversy around the film, Global Affairs Canada released a statement by Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly on “Russian interference,” claiming that state broadcaster RT is acting as “an extension of Russian intelligence services.” Despite being banned from Canadian airwaves following the invasion in early 2022, Joly said RT has been “relying on state-backed hacking, psychological and information operations, covert influence and military procurement.” She even claimed that RT “caused cyber incidents against Western targets, including Canadian critical infrastructure.”
The minister’s statement was released seemingly in conjunction with an appeal by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S., Canada and Britain “urge every ally, every partner, to start by treating RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders.” Blinken said the three countries were instructing their diplomats to pressure countries to target the network.
While RT (formerly Russia Today) is undoubtedly an important component of Russia’s ‘soft power’ toolkit—akin to Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Turkey’s TRT World, Iran’s Press TV, Venezuela’s Telesur, and China’s CGTN—it also engages in legitimate journalism. Why would Moscow compromise a successful media enterprise when other branches of the Russian state already engage in cybercrime and espionage activities?
What is likely is that the Blinken-Joly effort is designed to bolster the “Russiagate” narrative that Donald Trump is a tool of Moscow. Targeting RT could also be a cynical move to damage the Liberals’ major political rival, Pierre Poilievre. The Conservative Party leader’s embrace of “anti-woke” crusaders and far-right media personalities has brought him into the same orbit as some Canadian YouTubers who were recently implicated in a $10 million Russian misinformation scheme.
A CBC report on RT’s alleged “cyber capabilities” included an ominous threat from Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who stated,
Any Canadians who illegally assist in Russia’s persistent attempts to use disinformation, criminal and covert activities, and corruption to undermine our sovereignty and democratic processes will face the full force of Canadian law.
Ottawa has previously suggested that statements or commentary analyzing the role NATO expansion may have played in provoking Russia’s invasion, a pillar of Putin’s justification for the war, is “disinformation.” In other words, the Canadian government is insisting on its right to determine what is legitimate debate and what is propaganda regarding a conflict in which it is actively engaged. Where does it stop?
In a similar vein, the Globe and Mail reported in early September that “Russian propaganda in the war against Ukraine could get a boost” if Canada released the names of the 900 alleged Nazi war criminals who came to Canada after the Second World War. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is seeking to block the hitherto secret Part 2 of the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, commonly known as the Deschênes Commission, which received new attention after Parliament gave a standing ovation to Waffen-SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka last year. The UCC argues that releasing the names “could fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the invasion of Ukraine amounts to a purge of Nazis.”
Alongside this censorship push, Justin Trudeau declared his support for giving Ukraine the ability to fire long-range British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia. Less than 48 hours after Putin said this move would amount to NATO being “at war with Russia,” Trudeau stated that “Canada fully supports Ukraine using long-range weaponry to prevent and interdict Russia’s continued ability to degrade Ukrainian civilians [and] infrastructure, and mostly to kill innocent civilians in their unjust war.”
The deployment and integration of new weapons systems to the battlefield has significantly expanded the role of Western military personnel who increasingly oversee logistics and combat operations. In August, when Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region began, Canadian light armoured vehicles were videoed inside Russian territory, the Department of National Defence confirmed that “Canada places no geographic restrictions on the use of military equipment that we donate to Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s risky push into Kursk has generated a swathe of commentary suggesting there is little danger in crossing Putin’s “red lines,” since Russian territory has been occupied before without triggering a full-blown, and potentially nuclear, conflict with NATO. Yet, as Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the U.S., said to the Financial Times,
if they are confident that Putin’s bluffing, then fine. But he’s bluffing until he isn’t.
Fortunately, more sober-minded officials in the Pentagon appear to have prevailed over Blinken’s push for expanded weapons authorization for Ukraine. But no major Canadian politician or commentator seems to have publicly opposed Trudeau’s escalatory rhetoric.
The regrettable reality is that there is almost no room for an honest debate about Canada’s role in perpetuating this conflict, or on how the war can end. We are too busy banning films that dare to portray ordinary Russian soldiers as human beings.