National Viewpoint: Tory leadership candidate disregarding Canadian values

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This article was published 18/11/2016 (3640 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — Former British prime minister Winston Churchill supposedly said, about his postwar rival and the leader of the Labour Party, that an empty taxi arrived at the House of Commons and Clement Atlee got out.

It may be apocryphal, but good lord, it applies to the risible Kellie Leitch in nasty, right-wing spades. Sorry, Kellie — you may be making lots of noise with your vague, hysterical demand that we screen immigrants and refugees for “Canadian values” and your support for Donald Trump, but scratch away at the surface and there is simply nothing there.

The most fundamental point is that the entire premise for her Tory leadership campaign is fraudulent. Like some sort of political cotton candy, it might appear nice and tasty to people who like their ideology instantly gratifying, saccharine sweet and loudly colourful, but as soon as they take a bite, it disappears.

There are, of course, some genuine challenges facing France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Britain and other parts of Europe, but not Canada. Our terrorist attacks have, thank God, been very few and carried out not by those new to the country but by old and settled Canadians. As repugnant as is any act of terror, what characterizes this country is not its threats but its stability.

Our Muslim community is arguably the most moderate in the Islamic diaspora and while there are certainly extremists around, the notion that our way of life is under siege is grotesquely misplaced. Yet Leitch and her people are trying to pump dark toxins into the bloodstream of a society that is healthy and, by and large, elegantly successful in its multiculturalism.

If this weren’t all so unpleasant, it would be positively funny. The sight of this diminutive politician trying to summon a rough, tough, nationalistic grimace as she posed for a magazine photograph holding the Canadian flag on what appeared to be a broomstick was the closest to unintentional satire I have ever seen in Canada. Her raw, irrational statements made in — forgive me, but we have to speak truth — a high-pitched and almost cartoonish voice could make this is the stuff of helium hilarity.

Yet what makes this woman’s behaviour even more reprehensible is that I’m convinced she doesn’t actually believe it. While serving as a government minister she introduced a “tip line” where people could report “barbaric cultural practices.” Essentially an Islamophobic chat room, she later appeared on national television in tears to apologize for what she had done. Now she has reversed that position once again to come out as a miniature Trump.

Or, perhaps, more Rob Ford than The Donald. Her campaign team is composed of people who worked for Ford and sometimes decided and directed his campaign. Leitch often quotes, virtually verbatim, from the former Toronto mayor’s playbook, emphasizing the threat of the elites and the chimerical attack on Canadian values. Ford, however, did not play the race card in the same way, and in spite of what her defenders may argue, when Kellie Leitch speaks of Canadian values she is not speaking of good old white people. She and her people know exactly what their message is and whom it’s supposed to reach.

Trump is the proverbial icing on the rancid cake. If he can do it, if Brexit can triumph in Britain, then why not the pocket rocket Kellie Leitch? In fact, it is entirely possible that she may win the Conservative leadership, thus dividing the party and throwing it into the wilderness until it finally comes to its senses. The Liberals will win the next election whomever the Tories elect as leader, but a Leitch victory would do far more damage than one electoral defeat. It would create artificial divisions in the country, energize an atavistic insularity, encourage the sewers to breathe and roar and diminish the democratic conversation.

If there were still a phone number where we could call to report barbaric practices, it would surely be jammed with people telephoning to report a silly woman out of her political depth who is promoting deeply anti-Canadian values purely for her own ends and acting contrary to great Canadian virtues. It might be time to publicly weep again, Kellie, with or without that flag.

» Michael Coren’s latest book is “Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind over Same-Sex Marriage.” His column was recently published by the Winnipeg Free Press.