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Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Globe and Mail on Bernier's 'darker vision'

Maxime Bernier goes to a dark place - The Globe and Mail - Jeffrey Ibbitson:

November 12, 2018 - "In a speech on Saturday at a conference hosted by the right-wing Rebel Media in Calgary, the leader of the new People’s Party of Canada questioned the science of climate change, pilloried the United Nations and insisted immigrants to Canada must embrace 'Western civilization values'....'

"The party, which the Beauce, Que., MP founded in September after deciding Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives had become too centrist, is making good progress.... Mr. Bernier claims to already have signed up 33,000 supporters with PPC riding associations organizing across the country.

"In some ways, Mr. Bernier is simply a Conservative in a hurry, with his proposals to lower taxes, eliminate corporate subsidies, deregulate the telecom sector, cut funding to the CBC and privatize Canada Post. But in front of a friendly crowd, his vision grows darker.

"First, he pledged, 'I am the only politician in Ottawa who promises to take Canada out of the Paris accord' to fight global warming.... Climate-change deniers will feel very much at home in the People’s Party.

"Second, Mr. Bernier is committed to 'abolishing foreign aid and saving the $5-billion that we spend every year to help Canadians instead'.... Even Mr. Trump hasn’t proposed completely eliminating foreign aid, although he would doubtless warm to the idea if he thought he could get away with it.

"Third, and darkest, 'our immigration policy should not aim to forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of our country,' he told the audience. Immigration levels should be reduced, and immigrants must 'adopt widely shared Canadian values, Western civilization values,' he maintained.

“'On issues such as immigration, multiculturalism, diversity, [the Conservatives] are simply not willing to push back against the dominant left-wing narrative,' Mr. Bernier declared, 'and they are afraid to create controversies. I’m not afraid.'

"And if there were any doubt about the buttons Mr. Bernier intends to push in the months ahead, on Sunday, he tweeted a video of crowds in Pakistan protesting the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian who had been convicted of blasphemy. 'Radical multiculturalism is the misguided belief that all values and cultures can coexist in one society,' he tweeted. 'They cannot. We must protect our society against this kind of barbarism.'”

"No credible voice in this country seeks to undermine the values and beliefs embedded in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and in the fabric of Canadian society. Immigrants and refugees come here in search of a future protected by those values and beliefs. Mr. Bernier is simply stoking irrational fears of a threat that does not exist. It is pure Trumpism."

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-maxime-bernier-goes-to-a-dark-place/
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