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...