In September 2023, retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said the U.S. military owes its loyalty to the Constitution, not to a “wannabe dictator.” In the year before his death, Arizona Senator John McCain issued a warning:

We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.

According to a democracy research project based at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, 27 countries have transitioned from democracies to autocracies since 2005. Nations controlled by strongmen now outnumber those where citizens exercise control through elected representatives.

Media censorship is the most popular practice among autocratizing governments, closely followed by diminishing the free and fairness of elections and repression of civil society.

Donald Trump is following the playbook of tyrants. On May 1, the American President signed an executive order to cut funding for NPR and PBS. He accused the news outlets of producing biased coverage and “left-wing propaganda.”

Make no mistake. Controlling mass media is a fundamental objective when powerful people aim to undermine democracy. Information outlets assumed to be insufficiently loyal to the autocracy must be eliminated and replaced by reliable proxies.

Of course, right-wing forces are at work in Canada. Former CRTC regulator Peter Menzies said that Conservatives hate the CBC because it fails to further their interests exclusively. People with no respect for a free press want information streams controlled by ideologues, not trained, professional journalists.

The Atlantic’s David A. Graham issued a succinct phrase that I admire. He wrote:

The handy thing about ideology is that it effaces all the hard choices that a pragmatic approach to the world requires.

The Canadian election is over, but political conflict lies ahead. Canada’s Conservatives have seen right-wing forces growing around the world. Voter turnout in 2025 in this critically important election was below 70%. Of the votes cast, 43% favoured Conservatives.

Canadian democracy is on a knife’s edge. Those of us who respect and favour “government of the people, by the people, for the people” must fight to protect it. If we do not, it will be lost.