Conservative party leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre speaks to a crowd of supporters at the River Cree Resort and Casino, on the Enoch Cree Nation just west of Edmonton, on April 14, 2022. Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia News
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This is about the crowds showing up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies, and it is not about the crowds showing up at his rallies. Of their size and enthusiasm both I and others have written. The crowds, in the numbers, showing up for his events in all parts of the country — even in the heart of downtown Toronto, at an apologetic venue mere yards from the headquarters of the CBC, the Canadian temple of current wokeness and identity/race fascination — have to be alarming for the bunch who have signed up to run against him.
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Poilievre’s reception seems not to accord with the Ottawa press gallery’s professional assessment of him. And I must note as a needed caution, that whenever there is a rupture between established press opinion and the public, it is always the public that is astray. The gallery itself will confirm this view.
An aspect I’d like to touch on however is not what the crowds and enthusiasm mean for Poilievre’s leadership bid, but a curious — curious to me, anyway — and somewhat too frequent response to those crowds. There has been frequent comment on their “whiteness.”
My question, and it is a serious one, is why should anyone — opponents, critics, journalists, or even people who just dislike Poilievre on instinct — find it useful, appropriate, necessary or informative to note the skin colours of the huge numbers attending his rallies?
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Why should anyone find this useful or appropriate?
Now this “whiteness” as assumed or ascribed by those who note it — what do they intend by making this a leading characterization of a gathering?
Whiteness is a new woke word and it has emerged from, among other foundries, the gloomy attics of critical race theoretics. It is, what they could call, a “problematic” term.
In its simple and plain, non-rhetorical, non-political application, whiteness is as bland and inactive as any other abstract noun. It has no agency, anymore than blueness or pinkness or, may I suggest, an off-shade of grey has. It applies as much to the colour of a wall or a walking stick as to the epidermal shade of any given human being — it is adventitious not essential — and was not the choice of any person who carries it, just as his or her eventual height wasn’t. It is a biological inheritance not a political, moral, social, or any other kind of determinative marker.
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Just a property of colour like any other.
But political “whiteness” is not some dull and neutral description, and when it issues from the mouths of activists, in communications from the high halls of Twitter or Facebook, it is meant to be understood as a sign of inherent prejudice.
I am old-fashioned enough to hold to the belief that a person’s skin colour is not an index card to his or her character, and that who he or she is, and how he or she acts and lives, is infinitely more informative, more pleasant, and certainly more in accord with every decent understanding, than this latest folly of assigning worth, or attacking others, because of “whiteness.”
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I would like to point out that the major signifier — to play with an academic term — of any Canadian political gathering should not be the colour of the skins of those attending, but their status and concern as citizens, as Canadians engaging in their country’s public life.
I have travelled so much of this country. I have met rough people. I have met gentle people. I have met CEOs, and I have met fishermen and farmers, their wives and children. I have met people from the far North, both those who have been there from earliest days and those from other provinces who came for a year and stayed for a lifetime. I have met people from East and West. The very least experience I have had is any set of people wanting to “colour-code” whom they were meeting, and making judgments based on a glimpse of a face or wrist, and the shade of skin thus disclosed. I hold quite adamantly that Canada is overwhelmingly a tolerant, accepting country, and its citizens in the great majority are a very kind and welcoming bunch.
So we do not need, nor should we give entrance to, either the terms or fake philosophies, that we are currently giving space to. Most especially we should not build a politics around this colour-coding, and push the politics of colour as a dynamic of Canadian political life.
Let us push this attempt to push race into our politics far and fast out the door. It does not belong here.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
