“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau’s statement in The Social Contract has perhaps never resonated as much with people as it does today. In Western civilization, slavery has been abolished. The right to be born free is constitutionally enshrined, yet many facets of our lives and so-called modern democracies enchain us. The real question is, why do we allow this?

The relationship between individuals and the State has long animated Western thought. It was explored as early as the 4^th century B.C. by Socrates, who accepted his imprisonment and death penalty. For Socrates, obeying the laws of Athens was an obligation since the State had once enabled many aspects of his life. According to Socrates, there is an implicit contract between citizens and the State. By choosing to live within a society and benefitting from its laws and protections, citizens acquire an equal duty to the State. Thomas Hobbes, an early proponent of the social contract theory, recognized that since people are reasonable, they can escape the chaos of the State of Nature by forming a civil society and adopting a social contract. In this contract, individuals collectively renounce their rights against each other and vest authority in a sovereign to enforce the initial contract. John Locke expanded on this idea by asserting that once a government fails to protect people’s property and well-being or becomes tyrannical, the social contract is broken, and the people have the right to resist the State. According to Rousseau, the social contract involves citizens relinquishing some of their natural rights in exchange for the creation of a State that guarantees the equality and liberty of all citizens.[i]

You may read these ideas and dismiss them as mere theories, but then the logical implication of that is to question why we should be bound by mere theories. The truth is, we are not forced to follow them, but our human civilization requires us to accept some basic premises, and these theories have proven themselves throughout history time and time again. Take, for example, the American Revolution, which was driven by colonial opposition to taxation without representation in the British Parliament. The French Revolution arose when the Third Estate, the only order paying taxes, was no longer represented by King Louis XVI. When the social contract had been broken, they rebelled. Similarly, the Russian Revolution, which ended the Romanov dynasty, was ultimately fueled by the struggles of the Russian working class, which was exacerbated by the country’s impoverished state. These events profoundly shaped world history for centuries to come.

Although the time of absolute monarchs and tyrants is supposedly over, and our modern Western democracies have given power to the people, in running from the tyrants of the past, we have once again created tyrants through the guise of democratically elected leaders. Abetted by technological advances, we have given these tyrants a level of control that a monarch of the past would only have dreamt of.

In Canada, our government has repeatedly failed its people. Taxes are high and rising, while restrictions on freedom of movement during the pandemic reached unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, the cost of basic necessities like housing and food continues to rise, and people’s property and well-being are no longer protected by the State. Crime has risen throughout Canadian cities and on public transportation, driven by police inaction. Everything indicates that the social contract has long been broken, and yet we repeatedly do nothing about it.

The Freedom Convoy was quickly and brutally squashed using extraordinary government powers that had never been invoked before.[ii] Bank accounts were frozen, and protestors were arrested without bail. This is even more alarming when the justice system lets violent repeat offenders out on bail. It was disheartening to see many Canadians celebrate the government’s crackdown on their fellow citizens. Not only does this reflect a divided nation, but it also demonstrates how easily some people can be manipulated by the government, failing to see the larger implications of these actions. Whether or not you agree with the Freedom Convoy is beside the point. It should never matter whether you agree with the message or not. People have the right to protest and freedom of expression. If that right is contingent on whether others agree with the content of the expression, the entire freedom is negated. Any issues with noise or disturbance could have been addressed through regular city by-laws on noise and nuisance. The government’s response was disproportionate and should have been a cause for concern for all Canadians. If a government can so easily freeze people’s bank accounts, money that people earned and was already taxed, there is no telling what the government could do. Are we going to eventually live in a country where if someone disagrees with the government, their money is taken, and they face the risk of hunger and homelessness? That is undoubtedly what happens in a State that has forgotten its duty to the people, the people it is supposed to represent. A large government, aided by laws and extraordinary powers, forgets that it is meant to serve the people, not the other way around. A State that is supposed to serve the people should never use its legislative powers to pass laws that suppress people’s rights or continuously increase their taxes. A State that is supposed to serve the people should never employ its powers of arrest to punish anyone who disagrees with its policies. A State that is supposed to serve people should never fatten itself off the backs of the people while they starve. That is what bandits and tyrants do, not a government of the people.

It is time for the government and all of us to remember the nature of our respective roles or risk facing revolutions when people become unhappy.

---

[i] To read more on the Social Contract Theory, see: https://iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/#SH2a

[ii] While the War Measures Act had been previously invoked during wartime and the 1970 October Crisis, the Emergencies Act had only ever been invoked on February 14, 2022, during the Freedom Convoy protest. It is debatable whether the government met the threshold for using the extraordinary powers it did. The final report of the Emergencies Act inquiry found that the federal government had met the threshold to use it. However, that result is open to public scrutiny. Paul Rouleau, the commissioner of the inquiry, was personally selected by Prime Minister Trudeau and was previously involved with Liberal Party leadership campaigns. In Canadian Frontline Nurses v Canada (Attorney General), 2024 FC 42, the Federal Court held that the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and unconstitutional.

---