Another day, another eruption from Maxime Bernier, this time in advance of his party’s announcement on immigration policy, intimating that suddenly they’re interested in it now that he’s brought it up. Not actually true – rather than talk about restricting immigration levels or diversity, Michelle Rempel gave a litany of issues that the party wants to have consultations on over the coming months, some of them quite legitimate (others, less so), but in the end, Rempel noted that Bernier had not once come to talk to her about immigration issues, and that he needs to decide if he’s supporting Scheer, or if he wants to let Trudeau win again.
Amidst all of this, Ralph Goodale put an essay up on his website about some of the racist history of his province, particularly the political influence that the KKK once held, and warned about those who are playing fast and loose with pluralism in this country – which is something that I think needs to be called out, because while Rempel does have some legitimate criticisms about how this government has handled the immigration and refugee files (and it needs to be stressed that these are separate and should not be conflated), she also has a huge habit about concern trolling and then shouting that the government is undermining support for pluralism, which she is very much doing by lighting her hair on fire and declaring a crisis where one doesn’t actually exist. And when she offers cover to public racists by trying to frame their stunts as “asking a question about the budget” (which it absolutely was not), she too contributes to undermining support for pluralism – the very thing she says she’s trying to avoid. Add to that, by not explicitly condemning Maxime Bernier’s winking to white nationalists – winking that they’re picking up and amplifying – she’s further undermining the very cause she claims she’s trying to shore up.
Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert tries to divine what Maxime Bernier’s endgame is, while Andrew Coyne warns against the Conservatives using fear-mongering and soft-pedalling racists to try and score points on the immigration file. Matt Gurney sees the real crisis as falling support for immigration (if we can believe a single poll), which is exacerbated by perceived government incompetence on the file – and we can’t deny that this government’s perennial inability to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag is part of the problem.
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1032433369924227072
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1032443595486310400
Good reads:
- BC Premier John Horgan met with the federal Cabinet during their retreat, but his position on Trans Mountain hasn’t changed.
- With nobody answering questions about who knew what about the racist heckler last week, there is talk that this prefaces the narrative we’ll see next election.
- Chrystia Freeland says she’s encouraged that the US and Mexico are getting their individual issues sorted ahead of renewed NAFTA talks.
- The Infrastructure Bank has given a major loan to Montreal’s new transit project, despite the fact that they’re “arm’s length” and said they’re not up to speed.
- Dust storms are proving to be the biggest problem for our forces deployed in Mali, as their full-fledged missions get underway.
- Conservative operatives put out a robocall suggesting that Liberal MP Salma Zahid would resign following her cancer diagnosis. Scheer says a “lone actor” did it.
- Paul Wells sees warning signs in the kind of moral preening that the Liberals seem to want to engage in whenever there are difficult files.
- Murad Hemmadi is unconvinced by Scheer’s plans to go to India.
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