The night Andrew Scheer was elected Con leader I remember thinking how little I knew about him, and wondering why the media had failed so miserably to let us know who he really was.
I knew he was a professional politician, I knew he had been a lousy Speaker who always tilted in the same rightward direction like the leaning Tower of Pisa.
I also knew he was a hardcore social conservative, a man with a visceral hatred of gay people, and liberated women.
But one thing I could never figure out was why he was making freedom of speech his biggest or fiercest issue.
Why was a man who can't spell BELIEVE properly, trying to make it look like university students were burning down churches?
And why he was threatening to defund universities, even if that could kill research projects aimed at saving the lives of millions of Canadians?
It didn't make sense, it seemed excessive. Why would a would be prime minister threaten universities so blatantly and so brutally?
And then the other day I came across an interview Scheer had conducted with an anti-abortion activist named Ruth Shaw...
Which if you're on Facebook, you can watch here.
Where they both talked about how Shaw had been arrested at Carleton University in 2010, for what she claimed was just standing up for her beliefs...
While failing to mention that the university had offered her group a room to make a presentation.
But Shaw and her group had refused that offer, and insisted on holding a rally in the public court yard, so they could show students whether they liked it or not, what "abortion really looks like."
And shove grotesque posters like these in their faces...
Which is when I finally understood why the issue brings out the inner beast in Andrew Scheer...
Finally understood why Ezra Levant is such a good friend...
Finally understood why Scheer chose one of the Rebel's bosses to be his campaign manager.
Or why he still hasn't adequately denounced that hate mongering rag.
And why he would appoint a hardline anti-abortion activist to be his shadow "minister" for the Status of Women.
The Conservative Party’s new status of women critic gave close to $12,000 in federal grants last summer to two pregnancy care centres in her riding that refuse to refer clients to abortion providers.
Who would also try to cover her tracks.
A 2015 Lethbridge Herald article paraphrased Harder saying during a campaign trail town hall that she believed “all Canadian women should have access, regardless of where they live,” to abortion services.
However, a candidate profile compiled shortly after by the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition cast doubt on her position.
Or just lie like Cons do.
And of course finally understood what kind of Canada Scheer would have us live in if he ever became prime minister...
And all I can say is that anyone who trusts this religious fanatic with the creepy smile, should have his or her head examined...
Our useless Con media has failed to expose him.
So we will have to do it ourselves.
But we have all the ammunition we need.
Stephen Harper was able to dodge the silver bullet because everybody knew he wasn't a religious fanatic.
Andrew Scheer will not be so lucky because everybody knows he's the real thing.
And when we are finished with him and his crazed followers, there won't be much left...
Agreed. This man is a disgusting creeper.
ReplyDeletehi anon...he is a disgusting creeper, and what makes him so dangerous is that he's both evil and sneaky...
DeleteHe is worse than Harper
ReplyDeletehi anon...I think he has the potential to be worse than Harper for two reasons. One, he is a real religious fanatic not a poseur like Harper. And two, although he is as evil as Harper, he can hide it better behind his creepy smile...
DeleteA little over dramatic don't you think Simon, no university would, risk it's funding to deplatform people, so that millions of Canadians will be fine.
ReplyDeleteStill given that the excuse of many universities for allowing thugs to deplatform people with threats, is security concerns, Scheer should suggest creating a security fund for universities and other venues whose free speech rights are under attack.
And it's not just abortion activists (I'm very pro choice), it's Isreali activists, Palestian Activists, Conservative Activists, Scholars, Free Speech advocates, Classical Liberals, Moderates, Comedians, Libertarians, TERFS, SWERFs, MRAs Feminists and so many others that get silenced by one group or another.
So please toned the spin factor, the issue is much bigger then antichoice activists and Andrew Scheer.
Maybe college administrators need to step up and tell them all to just shut up and get back to class or face suspension for disruptive behavior. School was a lot simpler when it was just reading, writing and 'rithmetic. Maybe I was out of the loop, but I'm relatively young and was at uni as late as the mid-2000s, and I don't remember any of the chaos on campus that's going on now. That was the Bush era, and even still I never saw the kind of blowtorch riots like the one at Berkeley. The biggest "counterculture" organization anyone joined was a MySpace fan club for Green Day. At least where I was, nobody pulled this crap. Now you see incoherent fools calling Trudeau a "white supremacist racist" and throwing away their vote because Hillary's a "She-Wolf of Wall Street" and ending up with Trump.
DeleteSocial media is probably to blame in a big way for this, what with everyone and their brother now wanting to get their 15 megabytes of fame playing the hero for some cause or group that they probably had never heard of until they took an introductory 101 class or skimmed a Wikipedia article. While it's good that more people are getting civically engaged on issues, the way they're going about it is ridiculous. I have no patience for the Black Bloc shit disturbers who caused chaos at the WTO and 30th Anniversary Woodstock festival in 1999, any more than I do the unequivocally objectionable Nazis who ran over that poor girl in North Carolina and have been spreading Internet psyops for Russia so they can have government backing to pick on women and gays.
People did peaceful resistance movements in the '80s against apartheid and Reagan's willful ignorance of the AIDS crisis. But when you start normalizing violence and destruction of property is when you get horrors like McVeigh and disastrous retaliatory tactics like Waco. I don't care what "side" you're on. Smashing a window or blocking through-traffic in the name of Palestinians or Black Lives Matter is the same as smashing a window or blocking through-traffic in the name of gun rights or Reaganomics. The problem isn't the cause that you smashed a window or blocked through-traffic for. The problem is that you smashed a window or blocked through-traffic. Everybody just needs to chill out.
I was in university in the late 1960s and it was all going on, from riots to sit ins to people coming from labour unions in other countries looking for support and getting their message out. There were women's studies groups, feminists, pro choice groups, U.B.C. and S.F.U. were highly entertaining as were so many other universities in the west.
Delete'what we ought to ensure is keeping the violence out of universities. if people want to express views, fine, but hate speech ought to be out as should violence. If we can not tolerate the speech of others, we need to have a look at ourselves.
Maybe I was out of the loop, but I'm relatively young and was at uni as late as the mid-2000s, and I don't remember any of the chaos on campus that's going on now.
DeleteYou may not be out of the loop but you don’t know history. My impression has been that most of the 1990s and 2000s was a time of political apathy on campuses, especially in North America and Europe.
That little contra-temps in Berkley, with the exception of the incompetent alt-sludge trying to shoot the man with paint spray can, was a minor scuffle.
Have a look at the Sir George Williams University Affair (aka riot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_George_Williams_affair#Overview or the Kent State massacre where where the Ohio Natationa Guard killed four student demonstrators.
For real civil disruption see the May 1968 events in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968_events_in_France
hi Gyor...no you think what you are saying. Freedom of speech is not an absolute and doesn't include hate speech. Scheer is threatening to defund universities who will not go down on bended knee before him, and that filthy religious fanatic should keep his dirty bigot nose and his filthy posters out of university campuses.
DeleteHi anon 8:04 pm...I hear what you're saying, and I agree with you that violence shouldn't be normalized. But the issue of free speech on campuses has been wildly exaggerated by those who believe in hate speech. And the students of today are the most progressive generation in human history....
DeleteBy choosing piddlin pete, andy admitted that he expects to be in opposition for the rest of his time in parliament. This assault on women reinforces this.
ReplyDeletehi rumleyfips...sooner or later even the dumbest Cons will realize that they made a terrible mistake. Their leadership race was so awful they picked what they thought was the least worst candidate. But now Scheer's mask is falling off and they are going to pay for it big time...
DeleteSo much for Scheer and his freedom of fetus. Can you imagine what kind of attack ads the opposition is going to be able to make with those gory pictures? If I was Cheerio I'd start thinking about a new career.
ReplyDeleteHi anon 12:36 pm...I'm not only thinking about those attack ads, I'm already preparing to make a few myself. And I promise you they will be brutal...
DeleteTrust that scum bucket Levant to pose as a Jesus freak. Thank you Simon for explaining why Scheer loves The Rebel. If the Conservatives get fifty seats in the next election I'll be very surprised.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the latest poll of polls had the Liberals with more that 200 seats. When Canadians realize what he means by fetus speech Scheer will probably end up in third place after the NDP.
DeleteNo way, the connies bottom out at about 30%
Delete@Anon 5:17 -- I hope the cons end up in dead last and get fewer votes than the parody Rhino Party. If the U.S. was a multiparty system I'd hope the same of the GOP, with the rabid elephants on a stampede reduced to trailing the Harambe Party. Now that the circus has gone out of business, the cons in both countries belong in a zoo.
Deletehi anon 1:37...you're welcome. I must say I was surprised to see that Scheer and Levant have been such good buddies for such a long time. But what many Canadians don't realize thanks to our useless Con media, is that Scheer has been a right-wing extremist ever since he was in high school. And when we point that out, I also believe that his time as Con leader will be short and brutal...
Deletehi anon 5:17...it might be hard for the Cons to end up in third place, because they have such a loyal rabid base, and the NDP seems determined to get even less seats than it got last time. But the way things are looking now, the Cons will be out of power for a long long time...
DeleteSorry Eeyor. Free speech doesn't give one the right to yell Fire! in a crowded room, threaten to kill another individual. It also doesn't allow one to make declarations that certain individuals should be jailed or have less rights (persecution) than the rest of us because they have different beliefs than we do. It's called hate speech and last century we saw that taken to an extreme where 50 million people died over the conflict it brought. Those of us who wish to live their life in a peaceful and civilized manner don't want to legalize hate speech. That is what we choose in the governments we vote for.
ReplyDeleteTheir is no need for Scheer's friends to arrive in a public area known as a campus and preach their religious hate. Women who use birth control and/or may have had abortion and are attending university or an academy of higher learning shouldn't be harassed by people peddling their own brand of religion. Almost all post secondary educational institutes have a religious studies program if one want to learn about the religions Scheer's friends push. Or there are plenty of places of worship for the curious to inquire at.
All this talk by Scheer over free speech just shows he's full of it. Nowhere was he found when the government he was a part of silenced government scientists over climate change or the silencing of our diplomatic core. Free speech to Andrew Scheer is him and his kind being free to spew their religious beliefs while silencing those he doesn't agree with.
mr perfect
hi Mr Perfect...thank you for explaining the situation to Gyor, who although he supports the NDP, sometimes thinks like a Con. I wouldn't change a word you said for you summed up the situation perfectly, as I would expect Mr Perfect to do. ;) In fact as a person who receives about a dozen virulently homophobic messages a week, along with a death threat or two, I think I'm going to save your words, and use them the next time somebody needs to be taught the difference between free speech and hate speech...
DeleteYes, those grotesque posters DO show what abortion looks like!
ReplyDeleteIf a woman's belly was transparent and she could look through the skin layer and see the developing life inside her, do you think there would be more, less, or the same amount of abortions?
Freaky footage shows an unborn baby dancing inside its mother's swollen belly
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3251069/Freaky-footage-shows-unborn-baby-dancing-inside-mother-s-swollen-belly.html#ixzz4rUkl4Q3L
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3251069/Freaky-footage-shows-unborn-baby-dancing-inside-mother-s-swollen-belly.html
People like Scheer want to get their side of the story out there, but in some cases, its hate speech or contrary to the ethics of the country.
ReplyDeleteA. 9:45 p.m.'s last line says it all, they just want to spew their hate.
Most universities don't want to hear from the Christian Taliban so Scheer would like to scare universities and colleges into allowing people to spew their hatred for fear of loosing their funding if they don't. won't work. Scheer is just another harpercon and spews the same shit.
wonder if Scheer belongs to the same 'church' as harper does?
The fawning coverage in Mcleans, National Post and Globe is sick. Another person who has been a politician all their lives fighting against goverment.
ReplyDeleteA wolf in sheep's clothing comes to mind!
ReplyDeletehi anon 5:26 pm...it's true the Cons have a very loyal if rabid base, but you forget one thing. Most of them are old and they're dropping like flies. Our side has the young, and they are the future....
ReplyDelete