Last weekend, someone in an angry crowd threw rocks (or gravel) at Justin Trudeau at an election campaign stop in London, Ontario.
Trudeau later told reporters on his field plane that someone had thrown a pumpkin seed at him. Some of the rocks “could have” hit his shoulder, he said. He quickly brushed her left shoulder to indicate. When asked by Abigail Bimman of Global News (who was seeking clarity on a troubling event) whether “there could be” or actually did hit him, he shrugged and order “Does it matter?”
“It was just a little gravel,” he said.
It is absolutely important.
It matters because it is part of a terrifying series of physical and verbal vitriol in the election campaign that has seen the signs of candidates disfigured with swastikas and obscenities, and their team members slapped and spit on.
It matters because the incident occurred in the same city that witnessed a terrorist attack that killed a Muslim family of four just three months before the election call was made.
It matters because the first thought of every BIPOC person across the country was “Imagine if it were a black, indigenous or Muslim person who tried to physically assault the Prime Minister.”
It matters because I’m about to become the mob’s next online target for calling this group of protesters what they are. They are not “anti-vaccine mobs,” as Trudeau continues to call them. Not all are people frustrated by the closures and the pandemic. They are a manifestation of white supremacist hatred.
Many of the protests that followed Justin Trudeau have been marked by the kind of extreme anger that became familiar in the United States during the presidency of Donald Trump. The protesters have shouted “Lock him up”, “Traitor” and “piece of shit”. They have asked that Trudeau be hanged. They have verbally attacked members of their team and their security team using racist and misogynistic language, reports the CBC.
“This should make us more and more convinced of the importance of choice in this election,” Trudeau said Aug. 29. “Do we fall into division, hatred, racism and violence, or do we say no”?
But it is not as simple as saying no. This did not happen in a vacuum or because of the pandemic. Hate is also a virus and grows rapidly if left untreated. And it has been left unaddressed in Canada for far too long.
There’s a Link between the anti-vaccine movement and the far-right groups that we have to talk about. (Note: the movement is separate from people who doubt vaccines and have legitimate concerns.) An upcoming study by Amarnath Amarasingam, Stephanie Carvin and Kurt Philips for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue documents the connections, finding that “anti-mask, anti-blockade and anti-vaccination movements in Canada are predominantly propagated by the far right. Some of the staunchest critics of the lockdown measures and vaccines are leaders of far-right political parties or groups, including the leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), Maxime Bernier.
“It is likely that many (if not most) of the far-right movements have latched onto the COVID-19 conspiracy movements to attract anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists to their cause. This includes adapting their propaganda and attending protests and events against the blockade, ”says the study. Emboldened by this cause, the study wonders if the movement could return to previous far-right concerns with more vigor: “promoting anti-immigrant, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views and policies.”
Purple PPC signs, for example, have been a common sight at protests. This is a party that wants to force future Canadian immigrants to answer questions about “Canadian social values and norms” in a face-to-face interview, revoke a non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia and restrict the definition of hate speech in Criminal Code. The party was founded in 2019 and on its submission to Elections Canada of 250 signatories, included former leader of a US neo-Nazi group and other extreme right-wing extremists. That same year, he overthrew a candidate who was critical of the party’s refusal to denounce far-right groups.
The party has a surprising 8 percent support for the race, according to a poll. It has recruited a nearly complete list of candidates (312 out of 338 districts). Bernier (who was also incited in the election campaign and has condemned physical violence) won 12 rounds of the 2017 Tory leadership race, narrowly losing in the 13th round to Andrew Scheer. Call for “a revolution” to defend freedom.
So, yes, it does matter. It matters a lot, and Canadian leaders must stop being so arrogant and routine in dismissing it by suggesting that it is a “minority” to whom we should not “bow down.”
These mostly white groups of protesters who have followed Trudeau have an unfair privilege that has been bestowed upon them by all aspects of society: they largely get away with their hateful rhetoric and actions, and not they are criticized or punished for it.
Convictions are not a cure for what we are seeing unfold in the election campaign. (Personally, I have seen enough hate sentences for a lifetime.) Erin O’Toole, condemned the act “disgusting” and called it “political violence” in a statement. That doesn’t address the fact that “hate” doesn’t appear once on the Conservative platform, or the fact that Conservative MPs have been stoking hate by refusing to even condemn it for a long time. (Like that time, everyone voted against a non-binding motion against Islamophobia.)
Liberals are not acquitted either. They have been in power for six years and hatred has grown under their supervision. They could have done more after the 2017 Quebec mosque, the first terrifying manifestation of hatred for white supremacy in the country. Instead, they chose to introduce legislation on hate online, the one important thing that hate-target communities have been demanding, on the day that parliament suspended its session this summer. The government just held its first anti-hate summits in July, after parliament had already ended, so any promises made there will not come to light for some time.
In the days since the stone throwing incident occurred, Trudeau has changed his mind and called it “unacceptable.” Perhaps this was a political calculation for the sympathy votes or an understanding that this was a way to differentiate his party from the conservatives. Either way, it was, once again, an unsuccessful conviction.
We need to see action, anger and arrests. (London police say they are investigating the stone throwing.) Our leaders are quick to remind us that Canada is not the United States, but the same extreme and far-right rhetoric resonates strongly here today and has for years.
Unfortunately, even under the strictest social blocks, the spread of hatred has continued.
According to Statistics Canada, there were an estimated 223,000 hate crimes in Canada in 2019, and police filed only 1,951 charges, less than one percent. This means that in Canada, you are more likely to be the victim of a hate crime in Canada than to be injured in a car accident (152,847 injuries in 2018).
We had a year of protests against racism by the black community. The Asian community was the target of the entire pandemic. There appears to be an increase in incidents against Muslim communities. And this week, Prabhjot Singh Katri, a 23-year-old Sikh international student, was killed in an apparent hate crime in Truro, NS.
Racism and hatred are serious problems in Canada, and leaders run into both in the election campaign. A plan to address racism and hatred, and eradicate them, should be on the ballot. They should have been topics of debate.
The absence of racism and hatred in the 2021 election conversation is absolutely terrifying for a country that still refuses to look in the mirror.
Reference-www.macleans.ca