Roundup: Bergen plagiarizes “good people on both sides” argument

Posted on by

The leaks continue to come out about interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, and it’s another one about the grifter convoy—before it turned into an occupation—where she insisted to Erin O’Toole that they should show support for it because there are “good people on both sides.” Yes, that’s right—the classic Trump line in excusing a rally that included literal neo-Nazis in attendance. I would say that this is unbelievable, but no, it’s completely believable for Bergen. She also shook up her leadership team to get rid of the more reasonable Gérard Deltell as House Leader in favour of the more bombastic John Brassard, and added Lianne Rood to the team as deputy whip. Rood has also been tweeting support for the grifter occupation, so yeah, this is going well.

If there is a silver lining to these leaks it’s that it’s a sign that there are decent people with a conscience in the upper echelons who are willing to fight back against her embrace of Trumpism, for what it’s worth. We have seen a few cracks show—Pierre Paul-Hus tweeted his condemnation of the occupation, and Senator Dennis Patterson quit the caucus and joined the Canadian Senators Group because he’s so disgusted that the party embraced an occupation where hate symbols have been openly displayed.

Grifter Occupation: Day 9

The day began with a police update, saying that they were planning on taking a more aggressive “surge and contain” stance, with a lot more police on the streets outside of just the core areas where the grifters are occupying, but further into downtown streets to deter other harassment that continues to happen. It doesn’t help that we are expecting an influx of more trucks and extremists—like, real extremists—to converge this weekend. Of course, we’ll see if they actually do anything more, given that they still haven’t dismantled the structure that has been built over by the canal, and there appears to be no real attempts to starve them out and deny them fuel transportation to make the occupation increasingly uncomfortable. But what did the police do? Hire Navigator to help them with their crisis comms, seeing as their reputation is taking a beating right now. Priorities, guys.

Something that might make them uncomfortable is the fact that GoFundMe has decided to close their account given that they have become an unlawful occupation, which has left the grifters organising the event to shift to other crowdfunding platform, or simply having people donate to them directly by way of email transfers, which should be a giant red flag that this is grift. And it’s not like the terms of service of the other platform they switched to are that much different (thread here). To add to that, a class action lawsuit is being launched by residents of the downtown core, aimed at the organizers and is aimed at close to the $10 million they raised in the GoFundMe, and they are going to court today with an injunction about the noise, with the intention that police can begin to enforce it. We’ll see what happens, but it is something.

To make this all worse, Rideau Hall is being bombarded with thousands of calls, because people are under the completely wrong impression that if enough people bug the GG, that she will swoop down and remove Trudeau from office. It doesn’t work like that, and I just cannot anymore with these people. I can not.

 

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland worries that pandemic fatigue may keep Canadians from seizing the optimism of the recovering economy.
  • Ahmed Hussen says that a new anti-hate bill is on the way.
  • Canada is looking to carve-out a role as a diplomatic bridge-builder in the Ukraine crisis, as friends of both the Americans and Europeans.
  • The Black parliamentary caucus calls the grifter occupation a venue for white supremacists, and wants parties to do more than simple denunciations.
  • Here is a fact check on that dubious Johns Hopkins University study claiming that lockdowns were ineffective, which is being cited by conservatives everywhere.
  • All eyes are on Pierre Poilievre as the next Conservative leadership race kicks off.
  • There is a lot of shock that Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe would engage in deliberate vaccine disinformation to appease his base, and yet here we are.
  • Kevin Carmichael parses the December job numbers, which were dismal because of omicron, and what effect that may have on the Bank of Canada’s thinking.
  • Michael Coren traces the insidious influence of American right-wing extremism as being a driving factor of the grifter convoy and its subsequent occupation.
  • Justin Ling calls out the reputation laundering and credibility-lending the Conservatives keep giving the grifters, which will hurt them in the long run.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks that the protests we saw against Trudeau during the election turned out to be just the preview of the occupation we’re seeing now.
  • My weekend column charts why Erin O’Toole’s demise as leader was not only inevitable, but it was overdue for anyone who paid any attention.

Odds and ends:

Sunday marks the 70th anniversary of the Queen’s ascension to the throne (though the Platinum Jubilee celebrations will be held in June).

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

2 thoughts on “Roundup: Bergen plagiarizes “good people on both sides” argument”

  1. The Kudatah Kook Klan in the CON-voy have pledged allegiance to a pretender to the throne claiming to be the queen of Canada. Absurd, when everyone knows there’s only one queen of Canada, and it’s Brooke Lynn Hytes 🙂

  2. Yes, I think O’Toole has been a dead man walking ever since the election and its entirely his own fault — he couldn’t seem to stop himself from announcing knee-jerk, poorly-considered positions and then flipping when someone disagreed with him.

Comments are closed.