On Sunday night, only a few hours after the horrific mass murder of six Muslim men and the wounding of 19 others praying in a Quebec City mosque, controversial Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch tweeted the following: “Heartbreaking news out of Quebec City tonight. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims.”
Normally this would be seen as a politician’s genuine expression of sympathy. But in Leitch’s case, there were swift angry replies on Twitter: “Don’t you dare,” said one. Another called her a “gross opportunist.” “Not another damn word saying whether or not they have Canadian values,” said a third, blaming Leitch for “fuelling hate.”
Even the satirical online magazine The Beaverton got in on the act, with a piece headlined “Kellie Leitch heartbroken that people would act on hate she’s incited.”
More details are emerging about Alexandre Bissonnette, the young white Quebecois man charged with the murders and attempted murders of the men praying in the mosque.
He was “quiet,” he played chess, he had studied at Laval University, and his social media presence included antagonism toward refugees and feminists, and admiration for the views of far right French politician Marine Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump.
There was no mention of Kellie Leitch.
But she was there all the same, in the shadows of this horrific crime, a mainstream Canadian politician who wants to be our next Prime Minister.
Leitch, a doctor and former cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s government, has called publicly for the in-person screening of immigrants, presumably like the men shot in the mosque, specifically for “non-Canadian values.” She has not explained how this could be accomplished.
She has talked enthusiastically of Trump’s victory and his “exciting message.” She regularly slams her country’s “elites” who want “open borders.”
Leitch issued a second condemnatory statement about the Quebec City shooting, referring to the “people” who were “murdered as they prayed” in a “house of worship.” She never once used the word Muslim or mosque. By not naming their faith, she slighted them.
Words — or lack of them — matter. Her campaign manager Nick Kouvalis, who was also Mayor John Tory’s chief strategist in 2014, has his own problem with words. He publicly used the word “cuck,” short for cuckold, but now part of the hateful new white supremacist and neo-Nazi vocabulary. The word is meant to emasculate people they see as too weak to accept hard right positions.
Kouvalis used it on Twitter to berate a constitutional scholar critical of Leitch. Kouvalis also accused him of “treason.”
Kouvalis has since “unreservedly” apologized, saying he used words he shouldn’t have.
But how is this word even in his head or vocabulary that in a moment of anger he can spew it out? This word connects him directly to a hate-filled group.
We need to talk about this. We need to connect all the dots. Leitch has said, emboldened by surveys, that “70 per cent of Canadians agree” with her proposal to screen for values, which while she never says it out loud, seem at every turn to be referencing Muslims.
Don’t get me wrong. There is certainly discomfort and fear out there about how our country can stay tolerant and safe and about who we let into our country and why.
But if we ran a new survey in light of Sunday’s hate-filled tragedy, I don’t believe that a majority of Canadians would ascribe to Leitch’s specific views, which, to use a buzzword, are a “dog whistle” to whip up distrust and fear of certain immigrants, especially if they knew it could lead to a man in a mask opening fire on men in a mosque.
I won’t be convinced that Leitch’s views have connected with enough Canadians until she wins Betpas not only the Conservative leadership but the country.
In fact, as thousands of Canadians join Americans in taking to the streets to passionately protest Trump’s nativist and openly bigoted policies, including his most recent fiat instituting an entry ban on Syrian refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim majority countries, the wind may not be at Leitch’s back at all.
I am not blaming Leitch directly for the mosque killings. I am simply stating that all her words and proposals matter, and those words can help incite fear, hatred and violence.
At the same time, progressive politicians have to find better words too. They can’t just talk of “love” and “tolerance” and assume these words will pull us all through a rough time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Britain’s leader Theresa May, while quick to affirm how their own countries are more tolerant than Trump’s America, need to also publicly talk about the clear sad history of what nativism and incitement of hatred toward a specific religious minority leads to. The rise of Nazi Germany and The Second World War is not such a distant memory. I also don’t believe Trump should be invited to Ottawa, but I doubt there will be that hard a line.
For the first time in the face of so much new global turmoil, I have begun to wonder whether my children’s generation may have to one day go to war. How and why, I cannot say, but certain gruesome scenes of them fleeing or fighting have flitted across my mental landscape, and I’ve actually given my head a shake. This won’t happen, this can’t happen.
Yet we didn’t see the tragic, ugly act of terrorism that just took place coming. Maybe we should have.
Leitch, however derivative — she has been called Trump Lite — and those like her should now be asked at every turn how their views differ from the ones that Alexandre Bissonnette admired.
And the rest of us? We need to challenge ourselves, too on our own words and thoughts. We need to stand up not only to obvious demagogic bullies like Donald Trump — that’s kind of the easy part — but to soft talking “otherizers” like Kellie Leitch.
The lives of our fellow citizens and maybe even our own may depend on it.
Judith Timson’s column will move to Friday’s Life section on Feb. 10. She writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson
Judith Timson’s column will move to Friday’s Life section on Feb. 10. She writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson
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