Leftists have a decidedly utilitarian take on children.  When they wish to advance manifestly bad policies, they say, "It's for the children."  When they wish to expand their social and political reach, they use schools to indoctrinate children in leftist ideology.  And of course, leftists use children to punish parents.  They understand that parents love their children, so if you threaten to take children away from parents or parents away from children, parents will fall in line.  It's that last that is the newest idea from the fertile totalitarian mind of Justin Trudeau and his aides.  Under his new dictatorship, parents who support the truckers will be punished.

According to TheBlaze:

Canadian parents who bring their children to demonstrations the government considers to be "unlawful" can now face thousands of dollars in fines or jail time, CBC News reported.

The new power reportedly comes after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act this week, granting itself exceptional measures to address the country's ongoing Freedom Convoy trucker protests. It marked the first time the act has been invoked since its passage in 1988.

[snip]

Under the act, the federal government can restrict travel and prohibit people from bringing minors to any public assemblies that disrupt the movement of people, goods, and trade, or that support the "threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property."

Specifically, the act allows government authorities to administer fines of up to $5,000 or five years jail time for those who bring children under the age of 18 to participate in the assembly and the same penalties for anyone who participates in the blockades or brings aid — such as food or fuel — to people involved, CBC noted.

Without investigating the history of the Emergencies Act, I can think of two reasons why it would punish having children at such "unlawful" assemblies.  The first reason would be to protect the children from the type of violence at the assemblies that would justify the Emergencies Act to begin with.  The second reason would be to protect them from being used as human shields when the government is forced to stop that violence.

Image: Justin Trudeau — homewrecker.  Rumble screen grab.

In this case, though, things are bass-ackwards.  The truckers have been completely non-violent.  Thus, there is no reason to protect children from violence.  Trudeau has made it clear, though, that he intends to use violence against the truckers and their supporters.  There's the passive-aggressive violence of destroying them financially by seizing their bank accounts and trucks, and there's the implied physical violence should they dare exercise their right to speak out against Trudeau's policies.

And now Trudeau is threatening emotional violence: if your children are with you, I will use them as a financial weapon against you, and I may also send you to prison so you will go years without the ability to be there for them.

Think about this: in 2018, when Trump was following longstanding U.S. policy by keeping vulnerable illegal alien children out of adult compounds, where they could be raped and trafficked, Trudeau butted in and announced that doing so is "wrong."  He added, "I can't imagine what the families living through this are enduring.  Obviously, this is not the way we do things in Canada."

Obviously not.  The way "we do things in Canada" is to threaten to imprison legal Canadian parents for peacefully speaking out against a policy that has no basis in science and that severely impinges upon people's lives, bodily integrity, freedom to travel, and health.

As a leftist, Trudeau was always going to have a totalitarian bent.  The speed and aggression with which he has embraced his inner tyrant, though, are impressive.  Equally impressive is that, as soon as he assumed those dictatorial powers, he did what all tyrants do, which is to use his countrymen's children as a weapon against them and against liberty.