09.08.2016 02:41 PM

Not so valuable: Kellie Leitch

A snippet from next week’s column:

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch has been talking a lot about “values.” She sent out a questionnaire to Conservative partisans about it. Here’s what it said: “Should the Canadian government screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal screening for refugees and landed immigrants?”

Leitch’s question enraged the Left side of the spectrum – and her party’s acting leader, and several Conservative caucus members, and a leadership rival. (Newspaper columnists and editorial boards, too.) They were all super outraged.

That’s what Leitch wanted, of course: attention. Your average Canadian voter couldn’t pick her out of a two-person police line-up. So she and her smart circle of advisors did something to get noticed, and to get pointy-headed progressive intellectuals – who the conservative base deeply detest – to commence the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. It worked, big time.

While everyone was running around being outraged, however, no one bothered to ask any practical questions. Here’s one: how would Prime Minister Leitch’s policy actually work, in the real world? At some future border crossing, would a courteous CBSA officer lean across the counter and say: “Welcome to Canada. Are your values Canadian, or Islamic State-ish? Planning on blowing anything up? Got an tobacco or alcohol to declare? No? Well, have a good day and welcome!”

Leitch’s stunt was just that: a stunt. She’s a doctor, and she’s not particularly stupid. She knows that CBSA – and CSIS, and the RCMP, and (as we have recently learned, after the confrontation with that ISIS fanboy in London) the FBI and Homeland Security in the U.S. – already screen potential immigrants and refugees to Canada for their affinity for terror and extremism. So, knowing that, what was Kellie Leitch – she of the mid-election barbaric practices hotline stunt – hoping to achieve with her latest stunt, about “values?”

To get noticed, as noted. And to appeal, naturally, to the Conservative Party’s still-formidable red-necked, knuckle-dragging mouth-breather demographic.

19 Comments

  1. Elsie Marley says:

    Contemplating the sleazily familiar tactics of Harper’s leftovers as they jockey for any position other than irrelevant is reason enough to throw up a little bit in your mouth.

    The CPC’s toxic and lasting legacy of xenophobia and misanthropy continues to inform the sinecure of the LPC under Trudeau.

    Apparently, karma is a Leitch.

    • james elder says:

      Congratulations. you just penned the perfect slogan for all future Liberal attack ads. Harper’s leftovers. I love it.

  2. bluegreenblogger says:

    Yeah, her ten minutes of fame were barbaric cultural practices, so why not double down on the theme? Barf inducing. Her colleagues are in a cleft stick now. Should be interesting to see which way they run now she turned on the light. Some are probably thanking her as they posture and declaim.

  3. Charlie says:

    Ben Carson is doctor, and he’s a fucking idiot.

    I’d prefer not to equate an MD, JD or Ph.D with inherent sensibility and emotional intelligence. One’s education does not/should not give license to idiocy. Kellie Leitch may be a wonderful and superb health care provider, but as far as politics goes, she’s a fucking moron — with all due respect.

    After last year’s debacle of the Snitch-Line and her subsequent and contrived regret that she expressed with tears about making the announcement, she has now decided to follow it up with a double-down on the same stupidity she got ridiculed for last year.

    Everyone knows full well that during last year’s election she was foreshadowing her own leadership run; so her decision then to champion the Barbaric Tip Line and this current rendition is no surprise. She exhibits such poor political judgement. And to make things worse, she refuses to accept the fallacy of what she is proposing. All the while, she sounds like an elitist with bigoted opinions.

    One should ask Leitch what a “Canadian values” test would entail; her own ideological perspectives (abortion, namely) run contrary to generally held Canadian opinions. Plus, more than a quarter of the Conservative party opposes gay marriage, where does that leave the standard for new immigrant from socially conservative regions of the world?

    Ultimately, Kellie Leitch is an overrated, washed-up B-List Conservative. She’s an irrelevant entity desperately grasping for something that is totally and completely out of her reach. If Conservatives had any sense they’d resoundingly quash any aspirations this woman has for leadership and start moulding a party that looks something like what Lisa Raitt is selling. Because if Kellie Leitch is given any more prime-time, you can change “CPC” to “KKK” and call it a day; thats all Canadians are seeing. You can’t win with the dog-whistle and Kellie, and her group of imbecilic advisors, haven’t learned that from the previous election.

    • Lukelele says:

      I’m in the finishing stages of my PhD, and I approve this message. At least the part about being a doctor not meaning having intelligence. I’m not sure exactly what it means. Willing to take abuse?

    • Ted H says:

      I read once that doctors have the lowest average intelligence of all professionals. Scary when we all need them so much as we age. Whatever, as a doctor Ms. Leitch should know better than to propagate this sh*t.

  4. smelter rat says:

    I hope the CPC enjoy their time in the wilderness. They will be there for a very long time. And with electoral reform, maybe even longer.

  5. James Smith says:

    Bingo!
    This the Canadian “polite trump lite”
    It reminds me of John Turturro’s character in Miller’s Crossing: “I’ll just squirt a few, and you’ll let me go again.”

  6. Timothy O'Malley says:

    Indeed, this was (and remains) a stunt that swung, missed, and likely keeps Dr. Leitch from Stornoway.

    Also, it reeks of tactics used previously (and successfully) by a particular campaign operative.

    Having followed Michelle Rempel’s Twitter stream for a while last night, I believe a few very smart people are wise to the game being played – and by whom.

    So, I offer my thanks to you, Warren & Co. for helping to call out this bullshit. Forgive me if I’ve jumped the shark in the absence of the entire article.

    • james elder says:

      Ah yes Eve Adam’s worser half is her campaign manager. Quelle surprise. You get a wedge issue, you get a wedge, we all get a wedge issue. What I don’t understand is what motivates someone who would earn far more and for longer as a surgeon than as a politician to go down this bigoted road. Sure her manager is a douche and you know Adams is waiting in the wings like a Northern Palin but I still don’t get it. Is ii all Isis like ideology. Of course, it’s like Elsie said she’s one of Harper’s leftovers and the effect hasn’t worn off yet. That’s gotta be it 🙂

  7. Brace Ourselves says:

    I tend to vote conservative. However, I’m baffled by the almost wilful stupidity shown by S Harper in the last election and by the similar type of message from Leitch, as noted above. Efforts to push buttons and seek to placate those voters who will vote for you regardless is bewildering. Why not speak about the powerful work ethics and contributions to the nation from new Canadians? We might note those here for 5 or 10 years frequently become “more Canadian than Canadians”. Seems to me one wins and keeps power by drawing more voters to you, not pushing voters away…..

  8. Cory says:

    “…, however, no one bothered to ask any practical questions. Here’s one: how would Prime Minister Leitch’s policy actually work, in the real world?”

    In fairness, Maxime Bernier did and said he thought it was unworkable.

    (Though it should be noted that until 2002 all prospective immigrants received interviews to determine “personal suitability”)

  9. dean sherratt says:

    Well to begin, I don’t think potential immigrants just turn up at Canadian customs and immigration at the border. William F. Buckley famously suggested when asked by an officer what his purpose was in visiting Canada “I intend to desocialize Canada”. How long is your visit? “24 hours”. Second, since we appear to be doing so in many ways at present, the vitriol expressed by most of the present writers seems badly out of place. Do you not want CSIS to continue doing this service? Third, I do think Canada has collective and identifiable values…I might disagree with others on what they are but to imply that Canada has no values that immigrants should adhere to is rather ridiculous. Après moi le deluge…

  10. Aongasha says:

    Leitch is not wrong nor is Clements about what Canadians want. Read the Nanos Poll for the G&M. Note that besides those who favour enhanced screening, 39% also want fewer immigrants overall. Demonize these candidates all you want – many agree with them, as I do and we are not all CPC members.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/immigrant-screening-must-be-stepped-up-tory-leadership-contender-clement-says/article31768725/

  11. Lukelele says:

    I think she benefits as appearing to be the standard bearer for the retrograde portion of the CPC base, too. The others in the running, and there are many, have not opted for this distinction, so she perhaps becomes the default option for those people for at least as long as the other contenders choose not to go down that deplorable road.

  12. Bill Templeman says:

    WK, re your comment about Leitch’s stunt, can we not say that she is simply sniffing the wind? After Brexit and the continued (relative) popularity of Trump, can we not say that perhaps one of her sharp advisers advised “here’s a wedge issue. Won’t get you the into Sussex Drive but could get you into Stornoway” At this point she is not trying for a home run and is too smart to do so. She’s just trying to get on 1st, no? Her move is repugnant, of course, but smart like fox, no?

  13. bluegreenblogger says:

    Ah, it’s Kouvalis… That explains the Trump-Ford Nation fusion approach. And the consequent flow of donations, presumably from Kouvalis Ford Nation database. He has found a nobody with nothing but bigotry to peddle, and will undoubtedly refresh his database with plenty of intolerant donors. Building quite the corner in intolerance land isn’t he?

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