Tag Archives: 2021

Decision 2021 | Day 23 | Hoodwinking Canadians on Climate Change

Decision Canada 2021, Politics, , , , , ,

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On social media the other day, Sandy Garossino — a retired Crown Counsel, national journalist and political pundit — told her readers on Twitter that this election, and for her every election going forward, would be about one thing …

All elections determine the character of a country for the next four years.

And they have a lot to say about what the world will feel like, too. But this election may determine the flavour of the next four millennia — maybe the next 40. That’s because time is the one thing we can’t recover, and time is the one thing we’ve just about run out of in the climate fight.

Electing an Erin O’Toole-led Conservative Party would push Canada backwards fast, and would cost us dearly. Writes Max Fawcett in the National Observer …

The now-defunct Northern Gateway pipeline project is both a monument to the failed Harper-era policy of petro-nationalism and a testament to the power of Indigenous communities and those fighting for their rights. It’s emblematic of a past when concerns about climate change were far less important to the government of Canada than the interests of Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

Tankers could crash off B.C.’s west coast carrying Alberta crude

And for some strange reason, Erin O’Toole wants to bring it back from the dead — which would deal a fatal blow to any hope Canada has of reaching its net-zero emissions targets by 2050. This contradiction is at the heart of the climate plan O’Toole is trying to sell to Canadians. We are well past the point where we can delude ourselves into thinking we can have our cake and eat it, too, on climate change.

Fawcett goes on to quote Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne, “The Conservatives don’t want a plan that works, still less one they might actually have to implement. They just want a plan they can wave around for a while, then discard.” If Canadian voters genuinely care about climate change, writes Fawcett, they’ll do themselves a favour and put O’Toole’s plan in the trash can — before he gets a chance to do it himself.

As respected Québec environmentalist and Liberal Party candidate in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, Steven Guilbeault, wrote recently …

“Erin O’Toole has made the Conservative party a home for dinosaurs. The following examples just barely scratch the surface of the climate change denial rampant in the Conservative Party of Canada.”

Here are a few examples of where Mr. Guilbeault’s concerns arise, that barely scratch the surface of the climate change denial rampant within the Conservative Party of Canada.

In Red Deer-Lacombe, Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party candidate Blaine Calkins was caught spreading misinformation to children, saying “whether or not you think carbon dioxide is pollution or not is, I still think, a question.”

Professor accuses Alberta MP of spreading ‘climate misinformation’

In the North Okanagan-Shuswap, Erin O’Toole’s Conservative candidate is the enthusiastically endorsed Mel Arnold, who has questioned whether humans are the main cause of climate change — arguing that there is no scientific consensus.

North Okanagan-Shuswap Tory candidate questions science on climate change

In Cariboo-Prince George, O’Toole’s candidate Todd Doherty couldn’t bring himself to say that climate change was caused by human activity and claimed it was due to “adding more and more bodies to the room.”

There’s a video very much worth watching embedded in the tweet below.

In Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Cheryl Gallant has a long history of climate change denial, including having stated that: “alarmist claims about ‘man-made’ global warming have cost the Ontario government tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs.”

Ontario Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant writes over-the-top climate change rant

In Kelowna—Lake Country, Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party candidate Tracy Gray skated and refused to give a straight answer when pushed on whether human activity is the cause of climate change, in an interview with CBC Daybreak Kelowna.

In Miramichi-Grand Lake, Erin O’Toole’s anti-choice Conservative Party candidate Jake Stewart has called environmental activists eco terrorists.

In Don Valley North, Erin O’Toole’s candidate Sabrina Zuniga has downplayed the environmental impacts of oil spills, claiming that “oil is natural … so spilling into the environment, the land will absorb it because that’s what oil is.”

Ontario Spadina-Fort York Tory candidate Sabrina Zuniga says oil is absorbed in soil, with absolutely no damage to the environment — because oil is a natural substance.

In Cloverdale—Langley City, favourite Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer candidate Tamara Jansen called reports of rising CO2 levels “scare mongering” and referred to scientists warning about climate change as pushing “climate change dogma.”

Cloverdale—Langley City Conservative Candidate Tamara Jansen Promoted The Idea That the Earth Was Created in 6 Days, Casting Doubt on Evolution and Climate Change, while others rally to express concern about Ms. Jansen’s extremist anti-choice views .

In Yorkton—Melville, Tory candidate Cathay Wagantall has suggested climate action is a conspiracy to hurt workers, while in Battlefords-Lloydminster, candidate Rosemarie Falk believes that the Tories need to think about: “Gen Z, which has grown up their whole lives being fed climate alarmism.”

In Québec, Trois-Rivieres, Conservative Party candidate Yves Levesque said the quiet part out loud, “as an elected official, as a person, that we’re going to destroy the planet, well we’re going to do it in a pragmatic way without lowering your purchasing power.”

In Shefford, Québec, Erin O’Toole’s preferred candidate, Céline Lalancette, denies the very existence of the human causes of climate change, telling the media: “humans are not responsible for climate change, it has never been proven” and “the universe will do what it has to do.”

Tory Céline Lalancette denies existence of human causes of climate change

Well, that’s it for VanRamblings for this Monday, September 6th, a hyperbole-free column (well, almost) on a few of the less savoury folks who comprise the Conservative Party of Canada candidate corral — not exactly the most progressive amalgam of candidates who you’d choose to cast a ballot for, or in this case, not cast a ballot for … but rally against, if you care at all about our world.

You do — and won’t vote Conservative in the 2021 Canadian federal election.

Decision 2021 | Day 18 | Tories | Hoodwinking Canadians | Part 1

Decision Canada 2021, Politics, , , ,

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In his column in the August 30th edition of The Georgia Straight online, Now Magazine political editor Enzo DiMatteo asks the question, “Has Erin O’Toole got Canadians hoodwinked? — as witness today’s headline above.

The sub-headline for DiMatteo’s story asks if Canadian voters aren’t being “seduced” by a more palatable, re-packaged version of Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole, reminding readers of last weekend’s violent anti-vaxx mob rallies in Bolton and Cambridge, Ontario, where Conservative party supporters and campaign workers — the base of the Tory party? — provided insight into the hate spewing values that represent the core beliefs of, perhaps, a significant contingent of Conservative party members, and what an intolerant 2021 anti-democratic Tory party really stands for.

“Mostly by flying under the radar and keeping the seamier anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers and conspiracy theorists in his base (not to mention his caucus) quiet … the party is spending lots of cash on social media polishing O’Toole’s everyman image with photo opportunities of the Conservative leader playing with Fido and feeding llamas (or were they alpacas?). It’s quite a stretch from the photoshopped images of O’Toole the party had been sharing on Twitter to make him look more buff.

The Globe and Mail's Chief Political Correspondent writes that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is

QAnon. Yellow Vesters. Flat earthers. They’re all part of the Con base (and growing) since Stephen Harper began stoking populist and Western separatist sentiment (not to mention Islamophobia) in the party more than a decade ago.

Q-Anon supporters of the Conservative Party of Canada

As Conservative poll numbers rise, many voters seem to have forgotten about the Trumpeteers that occupy the lower rungs of the party. Make no mistake. They’re the same folks who voted for “True Blue” O’Toole during the party leadership. Remember him? The campaign team behind O’Toole then are the same ones responsible for the homophobia-tinged crusade in the 2018 Ontario election against Kathleen Wynne.

While O’Toole has tried to present himself as a moderate conservative out for the little guy, it’s not the version of conservatism that the party he oversees actually stands for. There’s no progressive in this conservatism. Truth is, many don’t believe in climate change. They don’t believe in (or see) the need for mandatory vaccinations during a public health crisis. They don’t believe in gun control. They don’t really believe in LGBTQ rights. They don’t believe in a woman’s right to choose. Many of them don’t even believe the pandemic is real.

On Sunday, August 29th Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith, asked what turned out to be a provocative question, “Do you know the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world?” The answer: “Here it is: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Conservative Party of Canada election slogan, "Secure the Future, Fuck Trudeau"

Charlie Smith goes on to write that he was curious to know if the Conservative Party’s campaign slogan, “Secure the Future”, had ever been used in other political campaigns. Turns out it has. Surprise, surprise. White nationalists just love the Klan notion of “securing the future” for whites.

Enzo DiMatteo pointed out in a column published earlier this year …

“O’Toole has adopted the Trumpian language of the far-right, railing against ‘cancel culture,’ fuelling suggestions that the Liberal government’s pandemic response is part of a socialist ‘Great Reset’ and pulling out the dog whistle on China and the coronavirus every chance he gets.”

In his article, Mr. Smith references a Georgia Straight column written by academic and community activist, Stuart Parker, who is curious as to why Erin O’Toole on August 19th introduced the legalization of amyl nitrate and other “poppers” as an issue of importance in the Canadian election.

“Poppers,” Parker writes, “became known as a gay party drug in the 80s and until the past decade were primarily associated with the gay club scene and online casual sex through applications like Grindr.” Asks Parker, “Why would O’Toole get his health critic Michelle Rempel to raise the legalization of poppers in correspondence with the Minister of Health and follow up with a headline-grabbing poppers legalization announcement?”

Parker believes that Erin O’Toole is making his first intentional, programmatic, planned play for what is known in Trump world as “The Porno Right” — the Incel crowd comprised of typically single or otherwise sexually unfulfilled males whose online world focuses on hate for gender-feminists, who consume an abundance of misogynistic porn (including anal rape) on 4Chan, 8Chan, Pornhub, and XHamster, their hate fuelled by mass consumption of amyl nitrate and an assortment of other “poppers”.

End gender violence

Parker ends his article in the August 20th edition of The Straight, writing …

“But let us recognize that O’Toole’s announcement has very little to do with the health of gay men or even that of career masturbators. But it has everything to do with the Porno Right coming of age as a political constituency that, like its adversaries in the Christian Right, must mostly be courted through coded communication and dog-whistles, dog-whistles that arrived in Canadian politics in Ottawa with the announcement of the legalization of the drug of choice for the Incel Porno Right constituency within the Conservative Party of Canada.”

As we have written previously, Erin O’Toole’s Reform/Alliance Conservative Party hues closer in its leanings to the belief system espoused by QAnon conspiracy theorists, as they gain more influence with each passing day.