Nearly two years after the fact, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act and freeze the bank account of Freedom Convoy truckers continues to be condemned by international voices.
In a speech before the Australian Senate on Monday, Liberal Party Senator Alex Antic compared Trudeau’s methods to quash peaceful protestors in February 2022 to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system.
Senator Antic made the comparison while discussing the dangers governments were dabbling with when considering adopting central bank digital currencies and digital identities for citizens.
“I’ve been warning about digital ID for some time, and it wasn’t so long ago that, like many of these issues which turn out to be correct, it was considered to be nothing but a conspiracy theory,” said Antic.
“You can see how it’s going to happen: we’ll get a digital currency and, once those steps are in place, a digital snare trap will have been created. We saw how that worked a couple of years ago with the financial cancellation of the Canadian truckers when they were protesting COVID lockdowns and restrictions.”
After the Freedom Convoy protests were declared illegal by the Liberal government, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the Emergencies Act would empower financial institutions to freeze bank accounts and cancel insurance for protesters.
The Act also relied on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations to target funds associated with the protest movement, which opposed the government’s draconian Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
“The advancement of technology is inevitable, but this push towards a digital ID future is another step towards a Chinese Communist Party-style social credit system, which will force you to support the current thing at the risk of total cancellation. We must reject a digital ID future, and time is running out for people in this place to understand that they are playing with fire,” explained Antic on Monday.
The Australian Senator has a history of criticizing Trudeau’s government. In March 2022, he accused the World Economic Forum of influencing global governments, including Trudeau’s cabinet, with what he described as “authoritarianism and Marxist ideology.”
Senator Antic is not alone in his criticism.
Earlier this year, Dutch MEP Marcel de Graaff raised concerns in the European Parliament, likening Trudeau’s actions to a “social credit system” and warning against potential government overreach in citizens’ financial affairs.
