It's Thanksgiving Day in Canada, and in this crazy screwed up world we do have a lot of things to be thankful for.
We're a big, beautiful, still relatively young country.
At a time when the hard right-wing is on the march, and would be dictators are popping up like mushrooms, we're governed by a leader who, whatever else you might think about him, is decent, polite, and very Canadian.
And most of us can be grateful, that in a world being slowly poisoned by bigotry, or convulsed by xenophobia, we're still celebrating diversity and living together in relative harmony.
But that might be changing, in the worst possible way.
For hate crimes are growing all over Canada, and right-wing extremist groups are also popping up like fungi.
There are at minimum 130 active right-wing extremist groups across Canada according to Dr. Barbara Perry, an expert on hate crime — a 30 per cent increase from 2015.
Most of these groups are organized around ideologies against religion and race — with anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish sentiments being the most common, followed by hate against immigrants, Indigenous people, women, LGBTQ communities and other minorities.
Police are either unable or unwilling to control those violent bigots.
And to make matters worse Cons in this country are not just failing to denounce those right-wing extremist groups, they're discreetly courting them...
Andrew Scheer has been spotted in the company of members from the xenophobic Quebec group La Meute or Wolf Paw.
When the Prime Minister was heckled by a right-wing extremist at a Liberal rally in Quebec...
Scheer was quick to jump to her defence.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is defending an individual with documented links to far-right anti-immigrant extremist groups who recently disrupted a speech by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in rural Quebec.
And just this weekend, a pub night organized by Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party in Edmonton, was attended by members of another right-wing extremist group the Soldiers of Odin.
And of course Doug Ford was so attached to the white supremacist Faith Goldy and her ghastly supporters...
That they practically had to use the Jaws of Life to pry them apart.
But although it's all so ugly and disgusting, nobody should be surprised.
Not when our hate laws are so weak, thanks to Stephen Harper ...
Perry explains that Canada’s current laws don’t specify repercussions for organizing in hate groups, especially since Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Code, which pertained to hate speech, was removed by the Harper government in 2013.
Who eliminated Section 13 just to pander to people like Ezra Levant, and his bottom feeding supporters...
From whose ranks Scheer recruited Hamish Marshall to be the Con's campaign manager.
With predictable consequences...
It's a sickening situation and it can't be allowed to continue.
For the sake of all those who are threatened by those grubby racists.
For the sake of all those Canadians who gave their lives to defeat the fascists...
Let's do what we must to save our country.
By making racists and other neo-Nazi scum afraid again.
And evicting Cons from power wherever they have reared their ugly heads.
So we can keep on giving thanks for living here...
In one of the most beautiful and peaceful countries in the world.
Where we can still dream of an even better tomorrow.
Never let that dream die. Or let what's happening in the U.S. happen here.
And Happy Thanksgiving everybody !!
15 comments:
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to you too, Simon. Here in the US, we "celebrate" Columbus' genocide of the indigenous people, and go after anyone who calls for it to either be abolished or renamed to Indigenous Memorial Day as "unpatriotic" and "divisive." (Some places in the Deep South offer Robert E. Lee Day as an "alternative" to Martin Luther King Day. You can't make this shit up.) But as if that wasn't bad enough, to add insult to injury there's an NFL game on today, the New Orleans Saints (so, Christians) versus the Washington "Racist Name for Native Americans." Leave it to the NFL to impose such tone-deaf scheduling, and punish black athletes for protesting racial injustice, when orange supremacists and Confederate "patriots" demand that they shut up, dance and play ball...
As for what to do about Canada's creeping fascism, perhaps a campaign could be started asking MPs and Trudeau to reinstate section 13, and strengthening it to cover the Internet and foreign outlets in particular. In other words, if Fox News won't conform to Canadian human rights law, then Fox News gets blocked from Canadian cable systems and firewalled to oblivion by Canadian ISPs, Trump's tantrums be damned.
I'd be happy to join such a campaign except I'm here, obviously, and can't cast a ballot for the Liberals. But, something worth considering nevertheless. We'll never have such laws, period, because the First Amendment is a hill that no Democrat, however progressive they might be, would die of political suicide on.
But I can't even begin to tell you how many dissident Americans (who are going to do our damnedest to drown Trump in a Blue Wave next month) are grateful that Canada's still a bastion of sanity... and that Trudeau's still standing better than he ever did.
If the useless Con media would put a little effort into calling out these groups for what they stand for instead of ignoring it and their ties to the Harper party, maybe more people will wake up and let Scheer know that he and his hateful supporters are not welcome here.
The media is using the latest international climate report as an attack line against the Liberals.
Meanwhile the Conservatives are trying to block the most effective policy to fight climate changeo, a price on carbon, and have for years totally lied about it as a job killing carbon tax. In addition they appear to have no climate plan at all.
And Ford dismantled one of the worlds most comprehensive packages to fight climate change in Ontario, the McGuinty,Wynne multi faceted green energy plan.
And this plan had as a partner in cap and trade, one of the worlds biggest most progressive economies, California. Agreement torn up Ontario’s reputation in shatters.
Can’t wait for the Conservatives to attack the Liberals for lack of action on climate change! Media reports it with a straight face. Precious.
J. W.
Trudeau was absolutely right when, after the cons kicked Kyoto to the curb, he called Kent a pièce de merde. It might have been "impolite," but that doesn't make it any less true. All the cons ever do is point fingers and project without actually coming up with a plan. Well, a plan that would actually do something about emissions and the economy, rather than a "final solution" that scapegoats minorities and "campus snowflakes" and feminists and LGBT for manufactured crises that they and their willing propagandists love to rile up. Terrific ratings! Tastes great! Less filling!
I don't see much difference between Trudeau and Harper on the climate front. Promises and plans are great, but without action they're useless. We've waited three years for the promised carbon tax. Instead, we're now the owners of a pipeline to carbon Armageddon.
Anyone who thinks Trudeau will introduce a carbon tax a year before the next election is delusional. He may as well hand Scheer a cudgel and say "beat me."
Happy Thanksgiving Simon. We live in a dark time, but you’re right to remind us that we should give thanks for being able to live in a place like Canada. The Conservatives of today are not the ones I knew when i was young, I am very afraid that if we don’t defeat them they will destroy our country, like the Nazis tried to do.
Introduce the tax, put the rebate check in the mail and let the people decide if they want to spend it on purchasing gasoline or a more fuel efficient alternative. Trump introduced the equivalent of a gasoline tax with no rebate by tearing up the Iranian agreement and introducing a trade embargo but not a peep from the Cons. Hopefully science will find a way to convert baloney to something useful because that all we will have left when the Cons are through with us.
RT
Who sat around with their thumbs up their ass and let Kyoto be violated to begin with?? Oh right, the Liberals...
HI Jackie...Thank you, I must admit I can't remember a Thanksgiving Day with so little to give thanks for. But at least this year I didn't have to cook a turkey, my French chef got to do that. 😉 And I still believe that all the horror we are living through, will make our final victory even sweeter. I see two ways to crackdown on the neo Nazis infesting our country. One, we need to strengthen our hate laws, not just be retiring section 13, but also by drafting new laws to provide heavy prison sentences for those who violate them. And two we need to go after the hate mongers ourselves like we never have before. Progressives have been too soft on them, and the time for that is over...
Hi anon...as I told Jackie, we need to go after the hate mongers poisoning our country far more aggressively than we have done up to now. And that also means putting more pressure on our shabby media and the police to do their jobs and expose the activities of those hate mongering terrorists, and their Con enablers...
Hi J.W.... Yes, we really are living in a crazy world. The media attacks the Liberals for not doing enough to fight climate change, while refusing to denounce the Cons for waging war on carbon taxes, even though as you point out they are the best ways to green our economy. It's depressing, but at least the new IPCC report will make the Cons look even more like insane planet burners, even the Con media won't be able to cover that one up. And Justin Trudeau will be able to take advantage of the situation, and become even more popular..
Hi Jackie...you're right the Cons have got away with murder ever since they helped finish Kyoto off. And our bought media has never made them pay for all they have done to cripple the war against climate change, for the sole purpose of pleasuring their beloved Albertonia. But the new IPCC report should make the Cons look even more like an apocalypse posse, and finally force the media to demand that Scheer and his gang put their cards on the table, or shut up...
Hi anon.@9:26 PM...If you can't see the difference between Trudeau and Harper you must either be blind or a Con yourself. The reason it has taken so long to implement a carbon tax is because the provinces have been dragging their feet, or going along only to change their minds. And since the Liberals have announced they will introduce the national carbon tax in January, which will be accompanied by generous rebates, may I suggest that you are the one who is delusional. Scheer is the one who will be saying "beat me" when he tries to claim that rebates are bad. But listen if you don't want your cheque please send it to me... 😎
Hi RT...The Cons can obfuscate as long as they want, but the fact is a price on carbon is the best way to green our economy and prepare us for the challenges of the future. And if it's accompanied by a government rebate I can't see most Canadians being stupid enough to reject it. For if we don't green our economy we will end up as losers, and bake in the hell of our own making...
Hi anon@9:29 PM...Thanks, and I hope you had as good a Thanksgiving as I had. We are going through dark times, and I don't know how many people have told me they think the world is coming to an end. But I always tell them no, it's just the beginning of the Con apocalypse, and it's always darkest before the dawn...
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