Roundup: On Scheer’s silence over Sloan

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau was all about science – specifically, a $1.1 billion package for research on vaccines and clinical trials, plus the launch of an immunity task force that will help to determine the spread of the virus within the population (as many may have been exposed and only ever experienced mild symptoms or had none at all), which will be necessary as we talk about re-opening the economy and how that will proceed. Trudeau also reiterated that the situation with long-term care facilities is untenable, that using soldiers to help the residents of those homes is merely a short-term solution that demands a long-term re-think. During the Q&A, Trudeau was not promising the billions of dollars that municipalities were demanding, but made some fairly vague commitments about working with provinces, given that cities are creatures of provincial legislation. He also said that provinces were going to take their own leads on re-opening their economies given that there are different epidemics playing out across the country and not just one nationally, though there is talk of federal guidelines.

The thing that had everyone talking throughout the day, however, was Conservative leadership candidate Derek Sloan making a fairly blatantly racist call for Dr. Theresa Tam to be fired while questioning her loyalty to Canada as he accuses her of following Chinese propaganda. And more to the point, that Andrew Scheer refuses to comment on what Sloan says insofar as the racism – he did say that as the opposition, they should be criticizing ministers who make decisions and not officials who give advice. Of course, this shouldn’t be too surprising as the party has already been pursuing this notion of vilifying the WHO because they were too credulous about the information coming out of China and Canada followed WHO advice, and Sloan simply took it one step further. And more to the point, under Scheer, the party has offered succour to racists on more than one occasion (most notably after the incident when Trudeau called out the racist statements of an avowedly racist woman in Quebec at an event, after which the Conservatives insisted that she was merely concerned about the economic impact of “illegal” asylum seekers and that anyone who questioned the government would be called a racist – because being labelled a racist is apparently a worse crime than actual racism). A few other Conservative MPs did denounce Sloan’s comments, and local officials within Sloan’s riding called on him to be denounced by Scheer and expelled from the party.

Ah, but that’s part of the issue. The Conservatives, if you recall, voted to adopt certain provisions of Michael Chong’s (garbage) Reform Act which ensures that the full caucus must vote to expel a member, that the leader alone can’t do it. It would be mighty awkward for Scheer to pull that trigger regardless, considering that he’s in an interim, outgoing position and not really the leader any longer, and that Sloan is vying to replace him (and it will be a doomed effort), but I will say that regardless of the circumstances, I have long been uncomfortable with both leaders expelling members, and with the more recent notion that MPs (and senators, where applicable) should be expelled at the first sign of trouble, rather than managing them better from within the fold, or leaving it up to their riding association to decide whether or not to keep them in the party, being as they are really the ones who should be deciding.

Good reads:

  • Here is a longer exploration of the issues around trying to use mobile phones for contact tracing, and issues around different apps and efficacy.
  • Two of the three slaughterhouses that produce the vast majority of Canadian beef have now been shut down because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
  • CSE is trying to use its software to help combat the rise in scam sites that are trying to take advantage of the pandemic.
  • There are calls for the RCMP to be more forthcoming about the shortcomings experienced during the shooting rampage over the weekend in Nova Scotia.
  • Here’s a look at how various governments around the world are using the pandemic to evade scrutiny or to take extreme measures.
  • The former Clerk of the Commons said that any move to “virtual” sittings should be staggered, while others want assurances these are emergency measures only.
  • Here’s a timeline of Ontario’s (dubious) responses around long-term care facilities over the past two months, up until they decided to call in the army.
  • Philippe Lagassé worries about how quickly politics and Parliament have been sidelined in the current situation, and what that bodes for our democracy.

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5 thoughts on “Roundup: On Scheer’s silence over Sloan”

  1. Mr. Sloan may find his ultimate censor to be the voters in his riding unless of course the sentiments he espouses are endemic there. Let’s face it folks, there is no doubt that many who huddle under the umbrella of the CPC are fascist, racist and just plain mean. Sloan is only one who slip out of hiding at times. What is more disturbing is that the leadership of the CPC never completely decry the actions of their members which leads me to believe in their tacit approval. The conservatives in Canada have never moved far from their roots. In Alberta, Manning’s tories were the same ones that looked the other way when their supporters met in the woods by bonfires at night wearing white hoods, while RCMP sat in their cars to make sure the mob went home after their rites were finished. Canada, for all protests to the contrary is on the conservative side a morass of hatred. This is just the tip of it. It needs to end.

  2. Don’t forget the insidious connections with Rebel and the Proud groups (Proud Boys?) which are also endemic to Canada’s media landscape. Scheer hired Rebel co-founder Hamish Marshall as his campaign manager and gave a pep talk to the Yellow Vests along with Faith Goldy. O’Toole has Jeff Ballingall at the helm and MacKay has Bernier’s team. Kevin Libin of Postmedia is a longtime acolyte of Ezra Levant’s, and the G&M gave Ezra op-ed space to whine that his free speech was being censored. Then there’s Sun Media and their stochastic incitement against refugees in hotels. This is who the Koch/Mercer I.D.U. Northern Republicans are. IDGAF about Trudeau’s yearbook and I doubt anyone else does either, especially as it’s being used as a deflective strawman to cover as an excuse for their far, far worse and much more pervasive pattern of odious behavior. The Conservatives and the rich white man’s MSM buttressing them are as racist, misogynistic, homophobic and otherwise bigoted as the day is long. The party needs to be demolished along with its propaganda mouthpieces, as the entire network serves no useful purpose to civil society and only drags the discourse down to the lowest common denominator.

  3. One of the many unfortunate consequences of the recent utterances of wing-nut Derek Sloan is the gift it gives to the Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau now gets the opportunity — and has used it — to imply that criticism of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s response to COVID-19 is racism. Nothing to see here, move along. In fact, there are serious questions to be asked about how the Agency has handled this crisis, and they need to be answered by Minister Hajdu, PHAC President Namiesniowski, and, yes, Chief Public Health Officer Tam.

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