As Parliament returned on Monday, MPs opened their fall sitting with a standing ovation for Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who was fatally shot while speaking at a Utah university on Sept. 10.
The ovation erupted after Conservative Alberta MP Rachael Thomas stood in the House of Commons to share her reflections on Kirk’s death and her condemnation of the use of political violence.
“When has political violence ever been the solution?” she asked, speaking of the threat it poses to freedom of speech, the cornerstone of a free society. “It destroys dialogue, undermines democracy, and breeds fear instead of understanding.”
Across the political spectrum, public figures and politicians have been toeing a similar line, decrying political violence for the threat it poses to the public sphere in which people of diverging opinions feel comfortable and safe expressing them.
To say this public sphere has been under threat for some time now, especially in the U.S., would be an understatement. The rise in political violence in recent years, including the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by violent rioters, the 2024 shooting of Trump, as well as the murder of Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in June of this year, is only the most obvious evidence of this.
But this overt political violence is not the only thing threatening the viability of this public sphere. Critical to its health and survival is that the conversations hosted in this sphere are grounded in what we know to be true, and not in what we wish to be true.
Last week, we were collectively dealt the task of processing Kirk’s horrific death, the graphic video of which was broadcast around the world almost instantly by way of social media, before any information was available about who shot Kirk or what the shooter’s motives were.
But this did not prevent people from beginning to tell their own stories in an attempt to make sense of this violent act – stories about who Kirk and his alleged shooter were.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, he has been lauded by many for his willingness to engage in conversation with people who were vehemently opposed to his views. Many have praised him for his willingness to converse, to use the act of persuasion, rather than violence or force, to express his beliefs. He has somehow become an emblem of free speech.
This was reflected in Thomas’ speech on Monday, when she described Kirk as an outspoken advocate for faith, family and freedom, and said he was assassinated in an attempt to silence his voice.
These comments, and the applause that followed from Conservative and Liberal MPs alike, erase the reality of what Kirk stood for, and simultaneously uphold a reasoning of why he was killed that has yet to be confirmed.
Kirk was murdered. This is devastating and we should all be outraged. Yes, he was a father and a husband, and yes, he professed to be a man of faith, but also true is the fact that he promoted racist, hateful and violent ideology.
He suggested Black women do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously; confirmed he believes young girls, if impregnated by rape, should be forced to bear the child; and in 2023 stated he believes some gun deaths are the price the country has to pay to keep the Second Amendment.
He was not a protector of the public sphere that many are emphasizing as so critical to democracy. He did not engage in true conversation, for the purpose of understanding the other. He toured U.S. campuses generating click-bait videos of hateful statements that only further enforced and emboldened the beliefs of people in his own echo chamber, and did nothing to bridge the growing political divide that is swallowing whatever remnants of honest public discourse we have left.
There can be no justification or rationalization of his death. But this does not mean we need to rewrite who he was when he was alive.
And when some of the very people celebrating him as a martyr of free speech are simultaneously chastising and silencing anybody they determine is not adequately paying respects to Kirk, it leaves me wondering what our MPs stand for.
Sophie Kuijper Dickson
