Politics
MacKay accused of 'dog-whistle' politics after criticizing O'Toole for supporting trans 'bathroom' bill – CBC.ca
Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay is being accused of deploying “dog whistle” political messaging after he disparaged legislation to protect transgender rights as the “bathroom bill” in a bid to attack his chief opponent.
In a letter sent to Conservative Party members Thursday night, MacKay cites the candidates’ latest fundraising totals and suggests rival Erin O’Toole has been spinning his numbers.
In the letter, he takes a shot at O’Toole for his past support for a transgender rights bill.
“While I haven’t always agreed with him, like when he voted in favour of the Transgender Rights ‘bathroom’ Bill in 2012, I’ve always respected that his motivations were positive,” he wrote. “But I’m not so sure anymore.”
Items of legislation to protect transgender Canadians in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code have been debated in Parliament for many years. An NDP private member’s bill, first tabled in 2011, made headway in Parliament but died on the order paper when the 2015 election was called.
The bill passed as government legislation in the House of Commons in November 2016 and received royal assent in June 2017. The new law made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression, extended hate speech laws to include the two terms, and made it a hate crime to target someone for being transgender.
Critics of the bill claimed it would allow men to creep into women’s change rooms and bathrooms across the country; some dubbed it the “bathroom bill,” a label considered derogatory by many in the LGBT community.
MacKay’s views have ‘evolved,’ spokesperson says
MacKay’s spokesperson Jordan Paquet said that, like many Canadians, MacKay’s views have evolved since 2009, when the issue first came up in Parliament. If MacKay had been a member of the last Parliament, he said, he would have voted in favour of the transgender rights legislation, along with many other Conservatives.
“The term ‘bathroom bill’ was a term that had been widely used by media both in Canada and the U.S., recognizing a concern that many had expressed in the debate,” he said in a statement.
“Mr. MacKay has consulted members of the LGBTQ community, including members of his team, and understands the term is narrow and carries a negative connotation. It was used in an email to members late last evening in haste as a point of reference and won’t be used again.”
Jamie Ellerton, who served as Andrew Scheer’s chief media director on the leader’s tour in fall campaign, said he believes the choice of language in the letter was a deliberate play for the party’s social conservative base.
He slammed MacKay’s letter on Twitter, saying that “bragging about opposing basic dignity and respect for trans people in an email to Conservative Party members isn’t leadership.
“It’s desperate and pathetic.”
Hey <a href=”https://twitter.com/PeterMacKay?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PeterMacKay</a>, bragging about opposing basic dignity and respect for trans people in an email to <a href=”https://twitter.com/CPC_HQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CPC_HQ</a> members isn’t leadership. It’s desperate and pathetic. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cdnpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Cdnpoli</a>
—@jellerton
Ellerton suggested MacKay was dredging up controversial legislation from the past to use it as a “badge of honour” to prove his Conservative credentials.
“For him to now strategically be using anti-trans, dog-whistle terminology to try and drum up support and use it as a wedge issue is quite frankly offensive,” he told CBC.
Ellerton said the incident is an example of the two front-runners attempting to outdo each other in demonstrating they’re the most conservative.
O’Toole, a former military member, said he wore a uniform to defend the rights of all Canadians and would take the same approach if he’s chosen to lead the party.
O’Toole proud of voting record
“I am proud of my voting record. It demonstrates my principled Conservative position of defending the rights of all Canadians, including LGBTQ rights,” he said in a statement to CBC.
“I am also a champion for the right of all MPs to have open votes on matters of conscience, because religious freedoms and freedom of speech are also rights we must defend. I believe strongly that we must be respectful of the diversity of views within our party and our country.
“Canadians expect party leaders to be clear about where they stand on issues important to them, including social issues. There is no attack the Liberals love using more than the threat of a Conservative ‘hidden agenda.’ I have been clear on where I stand: all Canadians have a place in the Conservative Party.”
MacKay’s leadership campaign website includes a section under the title “Equality Matters.”
“We live in a world where sexual orientation and gender identity are still used by tyrants and bigots to belittle and oppress. In Canada, we are lucky to have a society that has grown more tolerant, more accepting and more understanding, but there is still more work to be done,” it reads.
“As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Peter MacKay will march in Toronto’s Pride Parade.”
NDP accuses MacKay of using ‘derogatory stereotype’
NDP MP Randall Garrison, a longtime champion for transgender rights who tabled the private member’s bill in 2011, said it’s “disappointing” that a politician who aspires to lead all Canadians would re-state his opposition to equal rights for transgender Canadians.
“Mr. MacKay’s use of a derogatory stereotype in his leadership campaign letter raises real concerns about whether he understands how the law in Canada has changed during his absence from Parliament and whether he could be counted on to uphold the law when it comes to the prohibition on discrimination and hate crimes against transgender Canadians,” he said.
During last fall’s election campaign, Scheer was dogged with questions about his support for abortion rights and LGBT and same-sex marriage rights, and whether Conservatives would repeal those rights if elected.
After the Conservatives lost the election, MacKay suggested the party missed scoring “on an open net,” given the Liberal Party’s perceived vulnerabilities due to pipeline politics and Justin Trudeau’s blackface controversy.
During an Oct. 30, 2019 event at The Canada Institute in Washington, MacKay said Canadians didn’t want the campaign debate to focus on women’s reproductive rights and old political battles about LGBTQ rights, but those issues featured prominently throughout the campaign.
“That was thrust on the agenda and [it] hung around Andrew Scheer’s neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly. And he wasn’t able to deftly deal with those issues when the opportunities arose,” he said.
Watch: The National‘s At Issue panel looks at the Conservative leadership race (at the 9:35 mark)
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Politics
Florida's Bob Graham dead at 87: A leader who looked beyond politics, served ordinary folks – Toronto Star
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A leader like Bob Graham would be a unicorn in the hyper-partisan politics of today.
The former Florida governor and U.S. senator wasn’t a slick, slogan-spouting politician. He didn’t have an us-against-them mentality. Sometimes, he even came across as more of a kind-hearted professor just trying to make the world a better place.
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Six months from now Kevin Falcon is going to be staggering toward a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of the BC Liberals.
But what that will mean for the province’s political future is still up in the air, with the uncertainty increased by two shocking polls that show the Conservatives far ahead of BC United and only a few percentage points behind the NDP.
BC United is already toast, done in by self-inflicted wounds and the arrival of John Rustad and the Conservative Party of BC.
Falcon’s party has stumbled since the decision to abandon the BC Liberal brand in favour of BC United. The change, promoted by Falcon and approved by party members, took place a year ago this week. It was an immediate disaster.
That was made much worse when Rustad relaunched the B.C. Conservatives after Falcon kicked him out of caucus for doubting the basic science of climate change.
Falcon’s party had fallen from 33 per cent support to 19 per cent, trailing the Conservatives at 25 per cent. (The NDP has 42 per cent support.) That’s despite his repeated assurances that voters would quickly become familiar with the BC United brand.
BC United is left with almost no safe seats in this election based on the current polling.
Take Abbotsford West, where Mike de Jong is quitting after 30 years in the legislature to seek a federal Conservative nomination. It’s been a BC Liberal/United stronghold. In 2020 de Jong captured 46 per cent of the votes to the New Democrats’ 37 per cent and the Conservatives’ nine per cent.
But that was when the Conservatives were at about eight per cent in the polls, not 25 per cent.
Double their vote in this October’s election at the expense of the Liberals — a cautious estimate — and the NDP wins.
United’s prospects are even worse in ridings that were close in the 2020 election, like Skeena. Ellis Ross took it for the BC Liberals in 2020 with 52 per cent of the vote to the NDP’s 45 per cent.
But there was no Conservative candidate. Rustad has committed to running a candidate in every riding and the NDP can count on an easy win in Skeena.
It’s the same story across the province. The Conservatives and BC United will split the centre-right vote, handing the NDP easy wins and a big majority. And BC United will be fighting to avoid being beaten by the Conservatives in the ridings that are in play.
United’s situation became even more dire last week. A Liaison Strategies poll found the NDP at 38 per cent support, Conservatives at 34 per cent, United at 16 per cent and Greens at 11 per cent. That’s similar to a March poll from Mainstreet Research.
If those polls are accurate, BC United could end up with no seats. Voters who don’t want an NDP government will consider strategic voting based on which party has a chance of winning in their ridings.
Based on the Liaison poll, that would be the Conservatives. That’s especially true outside Vancouver and Vancouver Island, where the poll shows the Conservatives at 39 per cent, the NDP at 30 per cent and United lagging at 19 per cent. (The caveat about the polls’ accuracy is important. Curtis Fric and Philippe J. Fournier offer a useful analysis of possible factors affecting the results on Substack.)
And contributors will also be making some hard choices about which party gets their money. Until now BC United was far ahead of the Conservatives, thanks to its strong fundraising structure and the perception that it was the front-runner on the right. That’s under threat.
The polls also mark a big change in the NDP’s situation. This election looked like a cakewalk, with a divided centre-right splitting the vote and a big majority almost guaranteed. Most polls this year gave the New Democrats at least a 17 per cent lead over the Conservatives.
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