Check It Out: Former communist shares his Easter story

By Joan Janzen

I came across a Dr. Seuss quote that asked, “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon.” I don’t know about you, but for me, time is flying by at warp speed, and I was surprised when I realized Easter was just a few days away.

On a recent podcast, Rod Taylor interviewed Roger Song, an Alberta lawyer and former communist, who shared his personal Easter story. He was born in China in 1964, two years before the Chinese Cultural Revolution. His parents were both members of the Communist Party, and Roger received a communist education with a Marxist worldview.

“I was educated to believe our mission was to put the flag of communism around the globe and to liberate people who were in the deep waters of deception, like Canadians,” he remembered.

“We were living in a type of poverty but were told we were in paradise,” he said. Each month, his family received a quota of 30 eggs, and his mother had to decide who would have the privilege of eating them.

Roger studied law at Peking University and, at the age of 20, joined the Chinese Communist Party. “We were told in law school that truth is all relative. You can do whatever you want to the enemy; they have no rights. That’s what happened in China,” he said. The party’s leader was portrayed as a saviour of the nation. Differing opinions were not allowed and were classified as a hate crime against the regime.

“Once you were convicted of a hate crime, your life was essentially over. You would be arrested, tortured and eventually executed, and no one was told about it,” he said. Their crime was hating the teachings of the Communist Party. People who belonged to the party basically lost their common sense and believed whatever they were told by the government, Roger observed.

“In 1989, there was an event, a massacre. It was a wake-up call for me. I just graduated and was the youngest faculty member of the law school,” he recalled. He witnessed a peaceful protest, where people were crying out for democracy and the rule of law.

“The result was brutal suppression by the government, who dispatched military to defend the country and opened fire on civilians for the purpose of shutting people up and staying in power,” he reported.

As a young man witnessing this, he realized he couldn’t live under that regime for the rest of his life and be enslaved to that type of ideology. He decided to leave the country and took his family to South Korea, then New York and, in 2000, arrived in Canada.

“I was an atheist when I came to Canada; I had been told there was no such thing,” he explained. But he was enjoying his newfound freedom and decided to open a Bible he had brought from China.

“My dad had a Bible he collected during the China period of destroying old culture and ideology,” he said. During this period, people collected all their old books, put them in the street and set them on fire. His dad saw a pile of old books and noticed a beautifully bound Bible, so he picked it up and took it home.

“I never had an interest in reading that book,” Roger said. “But when I came to Canada, I read the promise of God is that if I believe in Him, in His death, His resurrection, and the sacrifice He paid, I will have eternal life and all my sins are wiped out.”

He described this as a stark contrast to the oath he took when he joined the Communist Party, where he was required to sacrifice his life and everything he had for the benefit of the party.

“But in the Bible, God told me He sacrificed His only son so I could have eternal life. I think that’s such a dramatic contrast,” he reasoned.

Meanwhile, he was unemployed and couldn’t practice law in Canada, even though he had two law degrees in China and one law degree in the U.S. He ended up going back to China and working for five years to support his family. After five years, he returned to Canada and went to law school in Calgary, graduating at the age of 46 with his licence to practise law.

He’s a member of the Law Society of Alberta and continues to advocate that human dignity, freedom and the rule of law are gifts from God.

In a January 2026 article he wrote, “Under the constitution of China, the rule of law is not built upon the supremacy of God, but upon the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party or the communist ideology. When the supremacy of God is replaced by the supremacy of an ideology or a political party and ultimately men, the rule of law becomes a dictatorship of elites.” Those principles require compliance, stifle debate and enforce penalties on anyone who does not comply.

He summarized his article, saying the supremacy of God is the lifeline of the constitutional democracy of Canada, and no one in government should dictate what we believe or don’t believe or occupy the position of God.

Having experienced the brutal suppression of a communist government has motivated Roger to advocate for the continued freedom of Canadians. My Easter wish for you today is captured in this famous quote by John Diefenbaker.

“I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country.”