The security theater of the Ontario government

Fascism often makes use of what we call the “security theater” and with these ads, the Ontario government hits hard.

First, they make you believe that our streets are dangerous. That criminals straight out of a Batman movie are eagerly selling drugs in children’s playground and that car theft is a rampant scourge.

This new Gotham will require more police officers, more prosecutors, more prisons.

To this effect, the Protect Ontario project is here to defend your children and your property from the addicts, the homeless and those lunatics freed too early from prison.

What the ad doesn’t say, is that Ontario’s crime rate is already the lowest in the country. At 0.06 crimes of various kinds per 100 persons.

0.06% means that every year, 99% of the population will not experience any kind of crime whatsoever.

But the ad isn’t here to reassure. Its role is to sow fear. To make you believe that right now, the streets are a dangerous place.

So, what is the Protect Ontario project?

In fact, it has little to do with what the ad portrays. The project is about building new nuclear power plants, reducing environmental norms so that new mines may open, the construction of a new transcanadian pipeline and, generally speaking, it involves generous gifts to the rich.

This is how fascism seeks to implant itself in a society. By painting a target on the back of the marginalized to make us forget that the rich are destroying the planet and enriching themselves with our taxes to do so.