The National Post reports that “Covid 19 pandemic is turning Canada into a nation of snitches” as local governments and other authorities are being flooded with complaints launched by neighbours against neighbours—some motivated by fear, others by clear ill-intent.
Even the Canadian Revenue Agency says “now is not the time to be snitching on your neighbours...Now is a time for unity and Canadians across the country are displaying their commitment to their fellow Canadians by making tremendous sacrifices to limit their contact with others. For some, this sacrifice has cost them their source of income.”
Inspector André Durocher of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal has clarified, “We’re definitely not asking people to go to their windows and start watching their neighbour from morning to night to see what they’re doing. That’s not what we want. The message we’re trying to get across is that if people are showing a total disregard for the rules, then report it. But don’t become snitches and Big Brother.”
Powerful message from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. There are many ways to share your views or information.
😈 Vilifying neighbours who disagree with you or have a different understanding or who are not, in your view, acting according to your standards—including hyperactively reporting your neighbours to authorities—is not constructive.
👮♀️ Rather, it’s a page from the playbook of tyrannical regimes. Did you know that Eastern Germany’s Communist Ministry for State Security, known as “Statsi”, maintained its tyrannical mass surveillance regime through a vast network of citizens turned informants? It destroyed all #trust in society.
🏛Let’s get through this pandemic together, without undermining the principles that make our country free and #democratic.
www.SaveYourCity.ca
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