The Con Debate, Kellie Leitch, and the Angry Pajamas

There were so many candidates at last night's Con leadership debate I couldn't fit them all into the picture.

Or shake the image of a bunch of crows lined up on a humming power line.

But although most of the debate was so boring I had to remember to keep breathing, near the end the feathers or the sparks started flying.

It took a while to get interesting, but sparks eventually flew in the second official Conservative leadership debate in Moncton Tuesday evening: there were accusations of race-baiting and Trump-aping, an indictment of the media elite, a lot of bad French and even a promise to eliminate the corporate income tax altogether.

And sadly for the Cons, some crows were louder than others.



Because there was the deathly Kellie Leitch, claiming that she's not race-baiting.

“The discussion of Canadian values and screening with face-to-face interviews for immigrants is not racist, or xenophobic or anti-immigrant. In fact, two-thirds of Canadians want to have this discussion. Every country in the world is having this discussion,” she said.

Suggesting that because other countries are having problems with immigration we should make it our problem. While also claiming that the "elites" and the big bad media are out to get her.

Just because the media and the elites don’t want to have this discussion, doesn’t mean we should be afraid of it. Many of my colleagues on this stage, I know, are intimidated by the media. But I’m going to continue to talk about this because this is common sense.”

Which couldn't be more absurd, or more paranoid, or more contrived.

As you could clearly see when Heather Mallick accused Leitch the other day of getting everything wrong, and pandering to bigots or Angry Pajamas 



Leitch is one of those people who always gets the tone a bit off and the timing slightly wrong. Despite my need to admire anyone who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon — those poor kidlets — I am gobsmacked by the ugliness of her campaign for the Conservative leadership. 

Her base is Angry Pajamas, who are mad at the world for their own failures, and online commenters, who hate each other on principle. It worked for Trump but Canadians don’t lash out when they vote. They purse their lips.

And ridiculed her claims about fighting the "elites."

If anyone’s elitist, it’s Leitch, who got her medical training from a tax-funded university, is paid by tax-funded medicare as a doctor, is paid by a tax-funded university to teach and by the federal government as an MP, and has a whacking federal pension.

Only to have Leitch come flying out like a bat crow out of hell, trying to use what Mallick said to raise money:

@HeatherMallick called my supporters 'Angry Pajamas'. Donate $51 Dec 6 & you'll get a 'pajamas' print signed by me. https://t.co/190UvBQOr8 pic.twitter.com/cTiDNChASC

— Kellie Leitch (@KellieLeitch) December 6, 2016

And join the Angry Pajama brigade herself...



But of course it's not funny. It's pathetic, dumb, and dangerous.

Because in these bigot times, the last thing any Canadian politician should be trying to do is stir up the Angry Pajamas, or the Crazy Brigade. 



There's already too many of them out there.

Which is why I thought that the sinister Steve Blaney, who is also playing the anti-Muslim card, summed up the sad state of his party better than any of the others did last night.

Except of course the ghastly Leitch.

By holding up what appeared to be a fuel rod from a nuclear reactor...



Because for once Blaney was right. 

The Cons are radioactive.

Kellie Leitch is playing a dangerous game.

We need her kind of dog whistle politics like we need another Trump, or a hole in the head, or a nuclear accident.

And we really won't be safe until we can destroy those Con Trumplings once and for all.

Or just can them...




Before those Angry Pajamas do something crazy.

And the Cons poison our country...