O’Toole’s Alt-Right Problem
Needs to be treated like a boil before it becomes a far more serious infection
Erin O’Toole’s alt-right problem is gaining strength…It’s developing into a long-term social cohesion and national stability issue for the Conservative Party of Canada. These problems created by the alt-right should be treated with opprobrium.
The issues that have these angry male alt-right activists (there are some women involved as well) are immigration, abortion, “pandering” (whatever that word means), anti-government, and medical vaccinations.
Wednesday July 1st 2020, ultra-nationalist Mark Friesen, from Saskatoon Saskatchewan acted as an unofficial “freedom rally” spokesperson in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa. The anti-masker & anti-science rally took place on Canada’s Parliament Hill during Canada Day ceremonies.
On that warm & sunny summer day, there was signs depicting Trudeau being hanged, while other signs called COVID-19 a “plandemic conspiracy theory”.
One of the talking points of many in attendance was that they wanted the number of immigrants admitted to Canada each year to be “100,000 or 150,000 at most”, if the economy and “other circumstances” allow that many.
It should be pointed out to anyone who thinks this is a reasonably good idea that 425,000 Canadians now retire every year as our population ages. An ADDITIONAL 300,000 people die every year in Canada. That means our workforce and economy is losing a lot of people. We have approximately 370,000 newborns every year.
The problem with the dumb ideas espoused by the alt-right is that Canada as we know it, would no longer exist. If Canada only allowed a maximum combination of 100,000 economic immigrants and or refugees to become Canadian citizens each year, we would be the first and only nation on planet earth advocating for population decrease.
Our cities would becomes towns. and our towns would become villages. Our villages would disappear…Canada’s entire population and society would collapse - dumb ideas can be dangerous ideas especially when embraced by radical angry males who think they have nothing to lose.
As the Canada Day event wore on, large numbers of attendees at this “freedom rally”, marched to the United States embassy in downtown Ottawa.
Chants of “lock him up,” were being bellowed at the top of the “Freedom Rally” voices; hoping to convince the general public to join along. Eventually presenting the American Embassy with legal letters to “serve” Prime Minister Trudeau. Of course the US Embassy, politely dismissed this small but organized crowd of malcontents.
The next morning on Thursday July 2nd 2020, something happened that could have shaken Canada to its core if it had been allowed to play itself out. A participant from the previous day’s event, and an active member of the Canadian Armed Forces by the name of Corey Hurren rammed his truck through the gates of the grounds where Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives.
Corey Barclay Hurren a former Canadian Ranger from Manitoba was charged with threatening to kill or injure the Prime Minister of Canada. He had an M14 rifle, a Hi-Standard revolver, a restricted firearm for which Hurren allegedly did not have a licence, a Lakefield Mossberg shotgun, and a Dominion Arms Grizzly shotgun.
Far-right infiltration of Canada’s military poses a serious threat to all Canadians and our homeland - this threat needs to be rooted out as quickly as possible.
Fast forward to 2021, and we have Jeff Gunnarson, President for the alt-right Campaign Life Coalition. An anti-abortion and sometimes anti-gay marriage organization calling on Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole to resign immediately for not being social conservative enough.
Campaign Life Coalition are a critical mass in the Conservative Party of Canada, and number in the thousands. Large numbers of their supporters have been attempting to highjack the Conservative Party of Canada riding by riding in recent months. Controlling the delegate election process for the Conservative Party policy convention. These alt-right activists appear to be doing this in order to satisfy what they think former social conservative MP Derek Sloan wants. Sloan who was recently kicked out for a “pattern of destructive behaviour" according to the party. Sloan plays coy with the media when asked if he approves of what is happening at the upcoming policy convention. Polite smiles and strange non-answers to basic questions around gay marriage, if some people are born gay, and if women should be allowed choice when it comes to abortion.
Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Theresa Tam, who was born in Hong Kong, not China, and chose to live in Canada, has been publicly questioned by Sloan if she works “for Canada or for China.” What people like Sloan and his conspiracy theory band of followers think is that China’s communist party is somehow making decisions on behalf of Canada’s public healthcare system.
Former Conservative Party leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis is another radical social conservative activist. She has been busy letting Canadian media know that she makes it clear to Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole that she remains a champion of fringe voices. When “the base has concerns I do take it to him and I say these are their concerns”. The Conservative Party is finding itself being moved further and further into the fringes. It’s ability to appeal to mainstream Canada is slipping. In order to keep what many call its “voter base” of supporters it has to keep moving in the opposite direction of where Canadians are.
Cheryl Gallant, another longtime far-right conservative MP claims Liberals want “to normalize sexual activity with children”, these Q-Anon conspiracy theories is not an electable perception Canada’s conservatives can hope to keep if they ever wish to win.
We are seeing anti-maskers who refer to COVID-19 as ‘just the flu’. We see other alt-right Canadian activists promoting ideas of vaccinations as being some evil plan. The plan it seems has to do with depopulating the planet - and of course it’s always organized by computer entrepreneur Bill Gates…Bill Gates is enemy number 1 of every member of Canada’s alt-right movement.
In a recent statement to Twitter, Alberta Conservative Premier Jason Kenney denounced the anti-maskers as “explicitly white supremacist” imagery incorporated in anti-mask & anti-lockdown protests in Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton.
The imagery from the Saturday February 20th 2021 Edmonton demonstrations appeared to be inspired by the notorious 2017 Charlottesville torch rally organized by members of the KKK. Police Officers were swarmed and punched by anti-maskers. Torch rallies have been associated with some of the most heinous displays of racism in recent years. Good for Jason Kenney for speaking up; the problem of course for Mr. Kenney in Alberta and for all of us in Canada, is that Canada’s alt-right is becoming more organized and that should worry us all.
Kenney stated: “Prominent racists promoted Saturday’s protest at the (Alberta) Legislature, and individuals attended the event from known hate groups like the ‘Soldiers of Odin’ and ‘Urban Infidels’. I condemn these voices of bigotry in the strongest possible terms.”
Monday February 22nd in British Columbia recently, Chris Ivany walked into a Canadian Tire department store insisting he didn’t need to wear a mask in order to protect other people from getting COVID19. A video indicates a Canadian Tire employee can be heard asking the man to leave for not wearing a mask. According to media reports that’s when the assault happened. A 2nd Canadian Tire employee proceeds to call the police — “Hey, you’re done! Get out of the store!” A 3rd employee is heard yelling “You don’t get to punch us, buddy!” — then chaos ensued.
Within a few hours of the Canadian Tire incident an edited video was leaked. The video showed only the melee of Mr Ivany being hauled to the ground by store employees. The video was done this way to intentionally to get the alt-right worked up and an attempt to manipulate the Canadian public at large around the issue of COVID19 mask wearing. The video began to trend on social media channels.
Turns out what actually happened was the police laid 2 counts of assault on Mr. Ivany according to his own social media channels.
Imagine if your son or daughter (like many sons & daughters across Canada) worked at a Canadian Tire store during evenings and weekends. Your child comes home from their part time job and they are bruised or cut because they were assaulted by some madman who refuses to wear a mask. A weirdo has disregarded the rules of the private property owner by not wearing a mask, created a massive public scene and was the cause of a fight according to police reports and harmed your child in the process?
Lastly we see more and more of these alt-right activists turning off news media. The news room and journalists are enemy number 1 it seems — “fake news” is the new slogan of Canada’s alt-right.
The alt-right are listening to online opinion that matches what they want to hear. Anything these so-called “freedom fighters” hear they don’t agree with is automatically dismissed as “pandering”. If governments react to the public good, and what the public want, the alt-right quickly shout it down as “pandering”.
The Conservative Party in what appears to be an attempt to bring back some form of Canadian normalcy to the party - has according to some sympathetic media begun to revoke party memberships “for 60 days without explanation” before its upcoming policy convention on March 18 2021. If the news reports are correct, this might allow normal voices to be heard from, and keep the lunatics at bay.
Canada’s Conservative Party should be distancing itself from these extreme fringe elements of society, not giving them voice. The solution is to only allow discussion on pocketbook issues, marketplace competition, economic disruption & innovation ideas, environment & pollution, community, fiscal responsibility, the economy, national defense, and good governing.
Erin O’Toole has an alt-right problem and it needs to be treated like a boil before it becomes a far more serious infection. If the boil seizes complete control of the Conservative Party of Canada it will make it unelectable…
Clinton P. Desveaux is an accredited writer for Troy Media and a former advisor to Conservative, Liberal, and New Democrat politicians.
He can be reached at ClintonDesveaux@gmail.com