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It’s a travesty that will be repeated all across the country as popular summer projects are cancelled because organizers refuse to submit to the Liberals’ intellectual bullying.

Last week, it was reported that Ottawa had received just under 43,000 applications for jobs funding. Approximately 1,600 (about 4%) had been turned down because the applicants refused to kowtow to the Trudeau government on social issues.

The Liberals revealed these numbers, I think, because they thought the stats proved this was no big deal. The government seemed to be saying, “See, see, hardly anyone objected – only 4%.”

But if 1,600 day camps have to be cancelled as a result of the Liberals’ ideological litmus test, or thousands of summer students are laid off, the impact will be significant.

If you want a glimpse of how obnoxious and undemocratic this is, consider the reverse. What would have been the Liberals’ reaction if the Harper Tories had made federal funds conditional on community groups signing “attestations” agreeing that “life begins at conception” or that marriage is “only between a man and a woman.”

The fact that the Liberals, who portray themselves as the great defenders of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, could think up this purity test and not instantly understand how it violates Canadians’ fundamental freedoms is yet another sign of their smugness and arrogance.

Modern “progressives,” who include the federal Liberal government, are full-throated in defence of rights, in theory. Yet in practice, they are usually only willing to protect the rights of people who agree with them and their worldview.