Monday, January 25, 2021

Erin O'Toole's Still Massive Far Right Problem

If Erin O'Toole thought he could solve the Cons far right problem by expelling the ugly bigot Derek Sloan, he must be sorely disappointed, or seriously deluded.

For although it must have been painful to expel Sloan after having cuddled and protected him for so long.

If he thinks he can fool Canadians into believing that his ugly Trump Party is no longer a threat to this country and his values, he must be living in a fantasy world.

Or as we say in Quebec, dreaming in technicolour. 


 
For when even the Con fluffer Andrew Coyne can see the naked hypocrisy.

If Mr. Sloan is being scapegoated in the present case, he had already earned his ticket out of caucus several times over: for suggesting homosexuality was a choice, for insinuating that Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Theresa Tam, was in the pay of the Chinese government, for other public statements that were at best reckless and at worst outright bigoted.

As odious as Mr. Sloan’s views are, he is hardly alone in holding them, in caucus or among the membership. Indeed, the evidence shows extreme views are widespread among the party’s supporters, even beyond the 15 per cent who voted for Mr. Sloan on the first ballot in the recent leadership campaign. Not only has the party failed to discourage these over many years – it has actively catered to them.

When even the National Post says booting Sloan out of the party is just a start.

When voters eventually tire of the Liberals, as they always do, they’ll once again look to the Conservatives as the obvious alternative. O’Toole better have the party ready, and he won’t succeed if he persists with the dog-whistle approach that eventually spelled the end of his two most immediate predecessors. The moderate, pragmatic suburban voters he needs won’t be any more eager to ally themselves with gay-bashers, vaccine-doubters, closet Trumpites or conspiracy-mongers than they’ve ever been.

If the expulsion of Derek Sloan is a signal that O’Toole intends to clear the party, root and branch, of the bad habits of yesteryear, good on him. But he better be serious. And diligent. Backsliding will only convince more people the Conservative party is incapable of doing better.

You know that O'Toole's expulsion of Sloan is just a shallow PR exercise.

For there are so many far right extremists, religious fanatics, and just plain kooks in the Trump/Harper Party it would take forever to purge them all...

And there wouldn't be much of a party left when the purge was over.

So who can be surprised that even Susan Delacourt is now asking the obvious question: how did they all get there?

We do know that all Conservatives are not racist and many of them have a lot of trouble with intolerance in their midst. Sloan did not have any caucus support — not one MP — in his bid for the leadership. 

But it is more than a coincidence, and a disturbing one, that flirtation with racism hasn’t become a career-killing problem until very recently.

Maxime Bernier and Derek Sloan may well now belong to a select club — former Conservative leadership candidates who didn’t fit with a party shedding itself of Trump-style intolerance. But how is it that they thought they belonged there in the first place?

While I ask another obvious question: why did it take our shabby media so long to see the real Erin O'Toole?

You know, the two-faced leader of Canada's Trump party, who would say or do ANYTHING to become prime minister.

So he could privatize medicare, kill the CBC, do nothing to fight climate change, dismantle unions, cut social services, lock up even more Canadians than Stephen Harper did...

And rape our precious values over and over again.

For it is as it is, they are who they are.

And what happened at the Capitol should be a warning to all of us...

The far right is also a growing threat to our country.

And until the Cons are forced to expel ALL their unsavoury elements, and become a Canadian party again.

In a dangerous time, nobody will be safe.

And no decent Canadians should ever vote for them...

15 comments:

rumleyfips said...

Good news for Leslyn Lewis . The old tool is already tarnished with trumpaloonian bigotry and now the other darling of the right had been removed from competition.

Lewis isn't any better than Sloan but if she can keep her mouth shut voters may not see her sexist, misogenist, bigoted beliefs. Booting the old fool and rplacing him with Lewis would be bad for the reformatories bur good for the Liberals.

Jackie Blue said...

He said this morning that "he" won't "engage" with Ezra's shitpost blog anymore but he's leaving it up to of his caucus of MAGA Hatters if they still wish to do so. Spineless weasel fence-sitter. Then he said that he hadn't done a "sit down interview" with Rebel in three years. So someone on Twitter pointed out that he did one in June [standing up](https://twitter.com/gtlem/status/1353727495904894976).

I'm thinking there's a lot more that the LPC war room will be able to expose, even if the equally spineless media goes back to their old ways of sticking their heads in the sand. Bring your popcorn for the WWE Campaign Life Coalition bare-knuckle brawl -- er, policy convention!

Anonymous said...

McParland is dead wrong that the "moderate, pragmatic suburban voter" doesn't want to associate with right-wing extremists. Look at the people who carried out the insurrection in Washington, DC - lawyers, politicians, CEOs, former military and police officers, a real estate agent who flew in on a private jet, even an organic foodie. These are all quintessential suburbans.

Trump's voters, and by extension O'Toole's voters, are middle to upper-middle class suburbanites. They don't vote Con because of "economic anxiety," they vote Con because they ARE "gay-bashers, vaccine-doubters, closet Trumpites or conspiracy-mongers." That's the Con base, not some mythical Tim Hortons voter.

Jackie Blue said...

By the way Simon, here's some fodder for your next post. I believe I had mentioned this already, but with Poilievre now pushing it, the Cons' latest slogan is a pretty loud dog whistle.

The medium is the message. Check it out:

https://i.postimg.cc/jS0sjtNT/cpc-14-words-dog-whistle.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words

Do you happen to have in your blog archives anything from, I believe it was a marathon budget debate shortly after the India trip in 2018? I'd have to go back and check, but I believe it was O'Toole who said some not-nice things about traditional Punjabi garments, and might have made what looked like a Bellamy gesture -- it'd be interesting to see if that video is available on ParlVu, just to be sure.

Regardless if he did or didn't, I can't have been the only one who noticed that the curiously chosen turn of phrase being sent out now is suspicious, can I?

Anonymous said...


The Cons were always about "securing a vision of Canada's past" and projecting it into the future with minimal modification. In the past discrimination was not based on supremacist ideology but baked into society. Everyone had a place all the way from the town minority groups up to the owner of the company town and his family.The progressive Cons were the keepers of the legacy but open to slowly adapt as it became necessary. The pace of change accelerated and will continue as new technology and challenges evolve. Rather than pick up the pace they lost momentum and the conspiracy laden single issue nutbars took over the helm. Abhorred at recent Trumpian style events the old school legacy keepers have given the Tool his marching orders but the best he can do is to try and put enough lipstick on the pig in hopes it will be the first to cross the finish line. If that happens the Trumpian shit will start in earnest and the keepers will be the ones ejected. Hopefully the party will fragment first.

RT

Anonymous said...

"The hills are alive with the smell of bullshit!" Great graphic, Simon. I'm afraid that every time I see that iconic image of Julie Andrews I'll picture the tool in his flowing dress tiptoeing through the bullshit. However, it's a small price to pay for some much needed comic relief.
It's nice to hear the other side of the Coyne, so to speak, for a change. I'll give him credit for this but it's vexing as to how he pulls himself away from his usual Trudeau bashing to call out Erin O'Trump and the Trumplings. I guess we'll take what we can get. He did call out Scheer for not calling out the slaughter of innocent Muslims in NZ but other than that it's been the usual Con fluffing.
Comedic comment of the day goes to the tool for saying the liberals we're "playing fast and loose with the truth" in his counter ad to the Protecting Canada Project's ad. Judging by their twitter feed, https://twitter.com/ProtectingCana1 I'd say they were more aligned with the NDP and as for the ad, I've yet to find it online and saw it once on Global Toronto. Not a very effective way to get their message out which makes it it all very shadowy. But, they do get points for upsetting the tool and given the wounds the Cons are inflicting upon themselves, we'll have plenty of material going forward to destroy The ReTrumpliCon Party of Canada once and for all.
JD

Jackie Blue said...

BTW, I forgot to share this link with you folks though I had written about it last night. It's from Stop Racism Canada, about a group from back in the '80s called the "Northern Foundation".

Turns out Paul Fromm goes back a long ways with the Cons and could conceivably be thought of as a founding father (or uncle) of the CPC.

Guess who invited him to speak at his Nazi-adjacent university club. None other than Herr Harper himself. Aided and abetted by Conman Black, to kudatah the MSM into softpedaling coverage of the brownshirts in blue suits as little more than "moderate small-c conservatives." The "inclusive" big tent made from white sheets.

Cons pretending with an Obi-Wan hand wave "these aren't the fascists you were looking for" are being disingenuous as fuck.

https://stopracism.ca/content/stephen-harper%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cnorthern-foundation%E2%80%9D

Simon said...

Hi Rumleyfips...During the days of the Harper regime I tried to encourage the Cons to vote for the Christian Heritage Party in the hope of splitting their vote. But Leslyn Lewis sounds so good I almost feel like joining her campaign staff. I haven’t the slightest doubt that she believes she should be prime minister, and if she did become leader, she’s loony enough to tank the Cons once and for all. I may have to give this matter serious consideration..😉

Simon said...

Hi Jackie....Yes, I saw that the Rebel has an article clearly showing the O’Toole was lying about not having had an interview with the Rebel for three years. And what also shocked me is that he says he won’t do an interview with the Rebel, but I won’t stop his MPs from doing that. Which is so typical, trying to clear himself, while also trying to avoid alienating his Rebel loving base. I don’t normally quote the Rebel, but I may have to make an exception. O’Toole is turning out to be a liar just like Scheer and he can’t be allowed to get away with it...

Simon said...

Hi anon@3:03 PM....That’’s a good point, O’Toole’s supporters include more than stereotypical rubes and rednecks. They also include a lot of suburban bigots, and other white trash. Which of course explains why O’Toole is so two-faced as he tries to appeal to the different factions, only to be caught in one lie after the other. It’s not for nothing that I frequently portray O’Toole with a Pinocchio nose. I may have to make that nose even bigger....

Simon said...

Hi Jackie...O'Toole uses words carefully chosen for him by the Canada Proud gang, the now dying Trump zombies. And secure this and take Canada back are just two of them. And even before he joined up with Ballingall and company I vividly recall him taunting Harjit Singh Sajjan in a clearly racist way. Unfortunately I can't search my blog archives for what happened after the India trip since the new Blogger has made that a lot harder. But we have so much dirt on O'Toole, if he lasts just two weeks in the next election I'll be very surprised. As for the Northern Foundation, Harper's links go back to the days when he would hire some of their thugs to provide security at early Reform rallies. So nobody should be surprised at how things turned out...

Simon said...

Hi RT...From what I've heard a lot of Cons would like to get rid of Lord Tool. His attempt to appeal to all the factions in the Con coven is coming up short. The only cause he can get them to rally around is the hate Trudeau one, and the problem for him is that most Canadians don't share that hate. So he's one big confused mess, as his polls continue to tank. And of course he's deathly afraid of an early election...

Simon said...

Hi JD....I'm glad you liked my Julie Andrews O'Toole. I must say I was happy with the wig, even though I wondered whether I should have worked on a Mary Poppins version. Or an Eva Braun with Balloons. I thought Coyne was reasonably coherent for once, but his Trudeau hate is so baked in he can't be trusted to remain that way. Sooner of later he remembers that Pierre Trudeau knocked up Deborah Coyne and starts frothing again. As for the Protecting Canada Project, I don't know quite what to make of them. I like their TV ad because it reminds people that O'Toole wants to carve up medicare, but I can't find it anywhere, and their Twitter feed is all over the place. I'll just have to make my own election ads...

Jackie Blue said...

Hey Simon, I found the O'Toole ad. It's not on the Protecting Canada feed, but on their related (?) site "Worst Time O'Toole":

https://twitter.com/worsttimeotoole/status/1352649440025325568
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD5DjjmV5is

This group is going to need to up their "Shareability" metrics so that other people don't have to hunt for it. 🧐

Simon said...

Hi Jackie...Thank you. I don't know why Protecting Canada doesn't have its own YouTube channel. And I'm not sure what grouping is all about. But it's about time that Canadians found out who the real O'Toole is, and what him and his Cons might do if they ever formed a government, and the videos are a good start....