Without changing course, the Conservatives will split
The annual Conservative pow-wow, this year’s Manning Centre Conference, has been as good an indication as any of just how far adrift the party really is. However, its eponymous chieftain and keynote speaker, Preston Manning, the former leader of Canada’s Reform Party, dismissed the possibility of a party divide at this year’s conference, preferring instead to characterize “Trumpomania” as something needing our sympathy and understanding, something for which its “root causes” (his choice of words, not mine) must be understood (and shamelessly pandered to.)
If you’re still following, note: our national conversations have now devolved to the point that understanding the “root causes” of terrorism is folly and the butt of a joke, but understanding the “root causes” of racism, sexism and perverse demagoguery is a solemn prerequisite to running a successful Conservative campaign. There’s apparently only so much room in the Tory brain-trust for sociology.
Yet in an interview prior to the conference, Manning, sounding less optimistic, said party unity couldn’t be taken for granted, rather, he expressed his hopes “the stitching is solid stitching,” describing the Conservative party as a coalition between various kinds of conservatives, but noting the fragility and relative newness of the party: “it’s not like it’s been around for a hundred years.” Manning in that interview went as far as to liken his Manning Centre Conference as a “relief” oil well for a slick that’s about to explode; rather than suppress the rank and file, Manning would rather see the party’s grassroots let off some pressure on controversial files – and that they did…
The first seminar of the day was titled “Leading the Response to Islamist Extremism and its Ideology in Canada” – which is basically all you need to know about how the day went. Former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, a self-described “unwavering” Trump supporter, also ad libbed at the conference yesterday for “Down with the Elites?” Followed by another damn panel on Islamic extremism, the “Islamist Extremism Discussion Group,” starting at 11:15 am, followed by Canadian-born Trump speechwriter, Frank H. Buckley, wistfully musing “Can Trumpism be exported to Canada?” (A serious departure from the conventional Canadian take: “How long till the idiot’s impeached?”) Also on the agenda: gutting the CBC, carbon taxes and “campus freedom”; the latter requiring two sessions, “Stifling Dissent-Conservatism on Campus” and “Censorship on Campus” today at 9:45am.
Preston Manning says Tories will have to learn from Trumpomania.
For me at least, behind all of these ‘relief wells’, there remains the unsettling suspicion that what Manning considers a “release” of the party’s most wild notions is in fact, dog-whistling: a large ultrasonic shriek across the country to remind the country’s lowest common denominator that the Conservative party still shares their prejudices and will forgo any semblance of shame to win their vote.
Shades of this putrescent politics can be found in the Conservatives’ most recent opposition to Liberal MP Iqra Khalid’s Motion 103, an anti-Islamophobia motion, which calls for the Commons Heritage committee to research “systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The Conservatives have raised questions over the use of ‘islamophobia’ – implying it applies to the simple criticism of Islam. They would prefer, rather tragically instead, to condemn hate against “all religions,” that is, after they’ve found themselves physically unable to mutter anything less than an indirect defense of the right of Muslims to live as Muslims peacefully in Canada. Perhaps for some particularly craven Tories, all phobias aside, it’s an acknowledgement that they are afraid of Islam – and given the copious amount of time that’s been devoted to “Islamic terrorism”, “radical Islam” and “Islamist extremism” at this year’s Manning Convention, I would say that’s a fair self-assessment of the party’s grassroots.
For other conservatives, like Kellie Leitch, however, Motion 103 has been an opportunity to cynically hitch a ride on the fears and prejudices of others. Her campaign quickly set up a website, “Stopm103.ca” with the dramatic image of a woman censored by the letters, “M-103” over some rather silly sloganeering: “No religion should be singled out for special consideration.” Leitch is, of course, fully aware as a parliamentarian that the motion is directing a committee to research the subject, not gag citizens – and this is hardly the first time that Ottawa has focused on hate and discrimination within a specific context (anti-semitism, homophobia.) Indeed, the Conservatives already supported a House condemnation of islamophobia via an NDP motion in October, only to back track on that step forward without explanation several months later.
And it’s not as though anything that’s happened since October (a US Muslim travel ban and a mass shooting at a Canadian mosque) should reasonably be giving anyone second thoughts about condemning islamophobia again.
https://theribbon.net/2017/02/25/without-changing-course-the-conservatives-will-split/
The annual Conservative pow-wow, this year’s Manning Centre Conference, has been as good an indication as any of just how far adrift the party really is. However, its eponymous chieftain and keynote speaker, Preston Manning, the former leader of Canada’s Reform Party, dismissed the possibility of a party divide at this year’s conference, preferring instead to characterize “Trumpomania” as something needing our sympathy and understanding, something for which its “root causes” (his choice of words, not mine) must be understood (and shamelessly pandered to.)
If you’re still following, note: our national conversations have now devolved to the point that understanding the “root causes” of terrorism is folly and the butt of a joke, but understanding the “root causes” of racism, sexism and perverse demagoguery is a solemn prerequisite to running a successful Conservative campaign. There’s apparently only so much room in the Tory brain-trust for sociology.
Yet in an interview prior to the conference, Manning, sounding less optimistic, said party unity couldn’t be taken for granted, rather, he expressed his hopes “the stitching is solid stitching,” describing the Conservative party as a coalition between various kinds of conservatives, but noting the fragility and relative newness of the party: “it’s not like it’s been around for a hundred years.” Manning in that interview went as far as to liken his Manning Centre Conference as a “relief” oil well for a slick that’s about to explode; rather than suppress the rank and file, Manning would rather see the party’s grassroots let off some pressure on controversial files – and that they did…
The first seminar of the day was titled “Leading the Response to Islamist Extremism and its Ideology in Canada” – which is basically all you need to know about how the day went. Former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, a self-described “unwavering” Trump supporter, also ad libbed at the conference yesterday for “Down with the Elites?” Followed by another damn panel on Islamic extremism, the “Islamist Extremism Discussion Group,” starting at 11:15 am, followed by Canadian-born Trump speechwriter, Frank H. Buckley, wistfully musing “Can Trumpism be exported to Canada?” (A serious departure from the conventional Canadian take: “How long till the idiot’s impeached?”) Also on the agenda: gutting the CBC, carbon taxes and “campus freedom”; the latter requiring two sessions, “Stifling Dissent-Conservatism on Campus” and “Censorship on Campus” today at 9:45am.
Preston Manning says Tories will have to learn from Trumpomania.
For me at least, behind all of these ‘relief wells’, there remains the unsettling suspicion that what Manning considers a “release” of the party’s most wild notions is in fact, dog-whistling: a large ultrasonic shriek across the country to remind the country’s lowest common denominator that the Conservative party still shares their prejudices and will forgo any semblance of shame to win their vote.
Shades of this putrescent politics can be found in the Conservatives’ most recent opposition to Liberal MP Iqra Khalid’s Motion 103, an anti-Islamophobia motion, which calls for the Commons Heritage committee to research “systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The Conservatives have raised questions over the use of ‘islamophobia’ – implying it applies to the simple criticism of Islam. They would prefer, rather tragically instead, to condemn hate against “all religions,” that is, after they’ve found themselves physically unable to mutter anything less than an indirect defense of the right of Muslims to live as Muslims peacefully in Canada. Perhaps for some particularly craven Tories, all phobias aside, it’s an acknowledgement that they are afraid of Islam – and given the copious amount of time that’s been devoted to “Islamic terrorism”, “radical Islam” and “Islamist extremism” at this year’s Manning Convention, I would say that’s a fair self-assessment of the party’s grassroots.
For other conservatives, like Kellie Leitch, however, Motion 103 has been an opportunity to cynically hitch a ride on the fears and prejudices of others. Her campaign quickly set up a website, “Stopm103.ca” with the dramatic image of a woman censored by the letters, “M-103” over some rather silly sloganeering: “No religion should be singled out for special consideration.” Leitch is, of course, fully aware as a parliamentarian that the motion is directing a committee to research the subject, not gag citizens – and this is hardly the first time that Ottawa has focused on hate and discrimination within a specific context (anti-semitism, homophobia.) Indeed, the Conservatives already supported a House condemnation of islamophobia via an NDP motion in October, only to back track on that step forward without explanation several months later.
And it’s not as though anything that’s happened since October (a US Muslim travel ban and a mass shooting at a Canadian mosque) should reasonably be giving anyone second thoughts about condemning islamophobia again.
https://theribbon.net/2017/02/25/without-changing-course-the-conservatives-will-split/
