I’m not sure if anyone will bother reading this but it makes me feel better writing it.
PP is a far right conservative, and I am concerned, because some voters will vote for change with no insight as to what they are getting themselves (and the rest of us) into. I was listening to an interview last night with a voter that had decided to vote conservative because the “liberals had had their chance”. When I heard that voter talk, I kept thinking of an interview with a pro-Palestinian that had decided to vote for Trump because they weren’t happy with Biden’s policies on Palestine. Apparently they hadn’t considered the possibility that Trump’s policies would be much worse.
PP is a mini-Trump only in the sense that he promotes the far right (he isn’t a narcissistic sociopath). Some notes:
Trump is supported by far right media like Fox News who spread disinformation that attack people who do not support their views. PP is supported by Fox Canada and Rebel News who are busy spreading disinformation on Carney and others. Interestingly, Jagmeet Singh simply refused to answer questions from Rebel News “reporters” after the French debate, stating that he would not respond to an organization that spread disinformation. There were, of course, no questions after the English debate because of an altercation caused by those same people from Rebel News.
Note that PP has indicated that he admires and feels comfortable appearing on Jordan Peterson’s podcast. Peterson is a far-right conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer who is no longer allowed to practice psychiatry because of the harm he has caused and is likely to cause. This admiration and support for free speech for someone who spreads disinformation apparently does not extend to people that the far-right disagree with. This fits in with the support of the Freedom Convoy with no thought of the freedom of the peoples rights that group was infringing upon.
Like Trump, PP is purely partisan. He is not a great believer in consensus building and cooperation. It’s all about us versus them (winning). A recent Toronto Star article described an internal Conservative document that the Toronto Star had got their hands on that explained how conservative committee members should go about derailing committee agendas while getting positive (for them) results on social media.
Trump has no interest in the environment with his “drill baby drill” policy. PP hasn’t used those specific words but attacks other people’s environmental policies while not providing anything substantive of his own. He appears to be in complete sync with Danielle Smith, having agreed to the nine demands she has made to the federal government, including, for example, repealing the ban on single-use plastics despite the mountain of evidence on the harm that single use plastics cause the environment.
The far right is big on freedom when it is their own (such as the freedom to spread disinformation) but they are often quick to curtail the freedom of other people that disagree with them. You see that now with the recent attacks on free speech at Universities in the US. If you don’t think that would happen in Canada, look back at some of PP’s activities the last time the Conservatives were in power. Specifically he directed the CRA to go after the United Church of Canada and other charities who had been involved in any form of anti-government activism. They also muzzled federal scientists such as those in the NRC – in case some of the science disagreed with government policy.
Here in Canada we have the Charter of Right’s and Freedoms. In the US, the constitution has several clauses that are meant to protect rights and freedoms. Things get murky, though, when people start talking about tough on crime.
PP’s conservatives tend to follow US republican policies when it comes to being tough on crime although maybe they shouldn’t be using the US as their model: the US has the highest incarceration rate of all the developed countries in the world but also the poorest safety record of that same group of countries. In other words, putting more people in jail does not necessarily make people more safe.
PP recently said that he would use the notwithstanding clause to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that disallowed stacked sentences for someone that committed multiple murders. A political cartoon in the Globe and Mail described this with a picture of PP driving a steamroller named “notwithstanding clause” over a walnut. The walnut represents all those people serving sentences for multiple murders. As the cartoon correctly indicates, that number is walnut-sized (there are very few multiple murderers sitting in jail at the present time). So if this is a pillar of PP’s tough-on-crime policies, it is a very small pillar. However, here is the point: it gives the “perception” of being tough on crime while actually doing very little at all.
The second problem with this policy as Carney pointed out in the debate: using the notwithstanding clause is dangerous. In some instances it is there to protect people from politicians like them. If it is used, there should be a high bar for its use (in other words you should not use it for crushing walnuts).
Andrew Coyne put out a piece in the Globe and Mail that suggested that using the notwithstanding clause in this way (i.e. to crush a walnut) did not make sense. The only thing that makes sense is that PP intends this as a test case; once used, he will use it over and over again and this will eventually make the Charter of Rights and Freedoms meaningless. That’s the thing about people on the far right – they don’t really want to have to deal with other people’s rights and freedoms.
What does Trump do. Well he gets ICE to round up a bunch of Venezuelan gang members and has them sent to a prison in San Salvador without any due process. 8 of them were women apparently (going to a men’s prison) so had to be returned (oops). The NYT estimates that only 38 were actually associated with the gang. Who knows about the rest of them. Of course that would never happen in Canada – would it? When asked about the use of the non-withstanding clause, PP said he was more concerned about the rights of the victims. He also said he would not use the notwithstanding clause for anything else. However, one of the other pillars of his tough on crime policy is the “three times and you are out” policy but that was tried the last time the conservatives were in power and failed in the courts (so maybe PP would have to use the notwithstanding clause there too?).
There is no question that there are things that could improve the safety of Canadians and some of those things may involve longer, tougher sentences but it’s doubtful that PP’s simplistic catch phrases are going to make any significant difference and there is a chance that he will start trampling on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms along the way.
Basically: more thought is required on the subject than PP presently has to offer.
WR Foster 