, 09.27.2022 10:34 AM

My latest: hate begets hate

The female Member of Parliament, a former cabinet minister, looked afraid. She was pale.

She was describing sitting alone in a Winnipeg hotel room, months earlier, reading debased threats from an animal hiding behind a fake name. She was terrified, the MP said. The man said he was going to do sickening, monstrous things to her.

“It was horrible,” she said.

We were at a Toronto restaurant, that night. It got quiet. So I recounted how, before social media really got going, I had received a message from a guy who promised one of my sons would be raped and murdered.

With us at the restaurant was someone I was then involved with. This woman and I were shortly thereafter threatened with being “bludgeoned to death” by a Toronto-based neo-Nazi.
So, the three of us talked about the social media-based hate. We shook our heads.

We said something needed to be done about it.

Whenever you pursue these threats, whenever you do something about it – these dark words about rape and hangings and murder – it doesn’t always turn out the way you’d like. The police, the prosecutors, they say they can’t do much. They’re too busy. Or whatever.

For example: when I found the guy who threatened my nine-year-old son, the police visited him, but they didn’t charge him. I don’t know why. In the case of the neo-Nazi, the one who wanted us bludgeoned to death, I had to privately prosecute the case, because the police and the Crown wouldn’t do anything.

When it finally got before a judge – Ontario Court judge Dan Moore, remember that name, because I sure do – the neo-Nazi was let go, scot-free. (The neo-Nazi was later convicted of promoting hate against women and Jews by another judge, however.)

Sometimes, you win against the monsters. But those wins are few and far between. In the case of the MP, the man who had made the threats – a man who had once tweeted at my colleague and friend Lorrie Goldstein, “get in the oven, @sunlorrie Nazi Jew” – was convicted of criminal harassment and uttering threats. But those sorts of results seem to be the exception, not the rule.

Which leads us to Pierre Poilievre, and the clear threat recently made against his family. A white supremacist in Nova Scotia said he wanted to sexually assault Poilievre’s wife, Anaida. He now says he was “joking,” but that’s how these extremists operate now – when they go too far, they claim they were “joking.”

I won’t name the white supremacist, because that’s one of the things he wants. Diagolon, the group this man leads, favours creating a homeland for the like-minded, stretching from Florida to Alaska, in a diagonal line (thus the name). Diagolon is anti-Semitic, white supremacist, and militant. It is called “accelerationist” — meaning, it wants accelerate a race war and anarchy.

Diagolon promotes the Great Replacement Theory, which mainly asserts that there is a Satanic conspiracy to replace whites with non-whites. It also promotes material that served as the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, when a neo-Nazi slaughtered 168 men, women and children. And some of its members were arrested in Coutts, Alberta in February, and charged with plotting to kill police.

We know all this stuff about Diagolon and its leader, mainly, because Poilievre has been photographed with him, and has marched in Ottawa with Diagolon enthusiasts. When those things happened, Poilievre attracted a lot of unhelpful news coverage, but it certainly didn’t impede his march towards the Conservative Party leadership.

The Poilievres have been obliged to hire security because of past threats. And the Mounties are now reportedly looking at the vile threat against Anaida Poilievre.

In a statement, Pierre Poilievre denied knowing anything about Diagolon until “about a month ago.” That’s a little hard to believe, because he and his campaign were questioned by the media about the Diagolon dalliances as far back as July. That’s important, but certainly not as important as the hatred to which Anaida Poilievre has now been exposed.

So, the RCMP will investigate. Maybe they’ll charge this despicable bastard, maybe they won’t.

In the meantime, our downward descent into the abyss will continue. The death threats, the promises to rape, the urgings to kill oneself. Nothing will change.

Not until police and prosecutors get better training, and more resources. Not until social media owners decide to join the human race, and turn off anonymous accounts.

Wonder why our politics has become so ugly? Wonder why we are getting fewer and fewer good people to run for office? Wonder why society is getting more and more divided?

Ask the MP. She’ll tell you.

39 Comments

  1. Warren,

    Is it possible in Ontario to bring private prosecutions without having to resort to using a lawyer? In other words, would the average Joe and Jane have legal standing without counsel?

    • Pipes says:

      Mr. O’Dowd, sadly I think resorting to not use a lawyer may be similar to Do It Yourself Home Dentistry.

      • Pipes,

        Good point. Here in Quebec litigants can get help for free before they appear in Small Claims Court but that’s about it. That’s why judges in higher courts tend to give the non-represented more leeway, especially regarding procedural matters. Sadly, the cost of representation is too high these days for so many. It’s either charge in on your own or forget it in so many instances.

        • Pipes says:

          Mr. O’Dowd, if I had one of your brain cells and one from Warren, well, I could take over. I’m not sure exactly what I’d take over, but for the first time in my life I’d take over something.

          • Robert White says:

            You’d be the brightest virus in the lab, Pipes. You could take over the whole lab at that juncture.

            :)’

            RW

  2. Robert White says:

    Two mayoral candidates in the Ottawa election have been threatened lately. Mark Suttcliffe & Catherine McKenny have reported harassing individuals to police and media just this week. The conundrum was discussed on the 6:00pm newscast for CTV.

    When Jagmeet Singh was threatened this summer I wrote to him to lend support via informing him that the individuals in question are uneducated in the extreme. Educated people don’t do these things in real life or on social media.

    Yesterday I was lambasting the white supremacists on ZH that seem to relish their racist beliefs when it comes to people of colour & Jews. ZH does their level best to oust the racists & white supremacist hate, but even they have a difficult time of it these days.

    I’ll always believe that racism is domain of the ignorant uneducated flotsam & jetsam of society.

    It bothers me no end when I encounter it and that’s one of the reasons why I follow you as a researcher of racism & hate. And I thank you for the research you do too.

    RW

    • Mark D says:

      “I’ll always believe that racism is domain of the ignorant uneducated flotsam & jetsam of society.”

      I’m pretty much a lifelong Christian and conservative.

      Sadly, I must disagree with you. I am increasingly encountering racism and dehumanizing language among the educated who should know better. Not just the right, but the left too, and among both believers and nonbelievers.

      Speaking of Mr Singh, there are many areas where he and I would disagree. Yet he will forever have my respect for not taking the easy out when confronted by anti-Muslim activists who had mistaken his religious practice.

      Instead of pointing out he was Sikh and not Muslim, Mr Singh defended Canadian religious diversity. Although I am not Muslim myself, many of my friends are Muslim. I deeply appreciate Mr Singh standing up for them.

      • Robert White says:

        Singh is a stellar politician and I really respect him too. He stands up for all Canadians when he stands up against racism. Lawyers are the best politcians IMHO.
        They get the rights paradigm and what needs to be done to maintain it.

        Kinsella is the same and so is O’Dowd.

        Lawyers are smart IMHO. Drama teachers not so much.

        • Robert,

          I’m not that smart. After all, I fell for the Trudeau BS right up until SNC. It was only then that I finally bailed on the Liberals.

          But thanks.

          • You know how lawyers prove they are MENSA calibre? By no longer being lawyers ASAP.

          • Robert White says:

            I fell for Trudeau’s rhetoric too so don’t single yourself out.
            Warren didn’t fall for it so he gets points for not being naive.

            And you are smart, Ronald. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention to being duped by the rhetoric & theatrics of skilled actors that teach Drama, eh. I got suckered too.

            :-)’

            RW

  3. Jason says:

    The abuse toward Mrs. P. is inexcusable.

    Yet… after months and years of listening to Poilievre supporters (occasionally egged on by their oily-nerd-in-chief) mocking and laughing at any liberal (or “not conservative enough”) personality who endured similar or worse abuses, I find it seriously difficult to give a shit.

    When you party in the pigsty, you don’t get to whine when some of the mud flies back in your face.

    Maybe that makes me an asshole. Whatever. These are the people that made me burn my CPC membership, never to return.

  4. Martin Dixon says:

    Could I please see the source of your comments where you say Pierre(I assume that is who the “oily nerd in chief” is?) was egging on his supporters to laugh at any liberal threatened with rape or worse? I honestly would like to know. Thanks in advance.

  5. western view says:

    I detect a subtle “blame the victim” here, due to dubious links of Poilievre to Diagolon, that he flirts with extremists so he has it coming to him.
    I find the level of animosity, bigotry and dangerous vitriol leveled at ALL politicians disgusting. When the vitriol crosses over toward spouses and children a line is crossed and unequivocal support is required.

  6. Warren,

    Speaking of hate, and a surprise to no one, COVID-19 Wave Eight is now underway here in Quebec…hope they don’t drop like flies.

  7. Lee Hill says:

    One of your best pieces…and sadly too timely. This is an all too real 21st Century problem that liberal democracies seem either ill equipped or reluctant to confront. In the UK alone, two MPs, one Labour and the other Conservative, have died as a consequence of such threats becoming all too real.

    There is much that disturbs me about various Conservative governments in the UK over the last decade, who have become like Stalinists in their determination to pursue ideology at the cost of achieving slow and steady growth and consensus across everything from social and economic equality to our relationship with our allies in Europe, the US and the world at large. However, I think the best way to change things for the better is still through our political institutions, open and respectful debate, a free press and yes, always voting and doing my best – the pressures of the 9 to 5, life/balance, etc. taken into account – to be a participant in my local community. Threats and violence are for assholes, creeps and scary monsters in general.

  8. Warren,

    Racism is learned behaviour and usually comes from our nearest and dearest. None of us are born racist. On Mom’s side, Grandad’s family were antisemites. But not my Mom.

  9. Warren,

    I hope this wakes the party up. It’s bad enough when politicians are threatened but way beyond the pale when family members are put in danger. Fuckers are fuckers and yes they can quite easily be found among those who purport to be “natural” allies.

  10. Warren,

    Wow, just wow. Looks like momentum to me.

    https://338canada.com/

  11. Mark McInnis says:

    “We know all this stuff about Diagolon and its leader, mainly, because Poilievre has been photographed with him, and has marched in Ottawa with Diagolon enthusiasts.”

    The entire article is excellent, save this one sentence. Please, Warren, take it down a notch.

    Cheers!

  12. PJH says:

    With Mr. Kinsella’s kind indulgence, I would like to post this, and wish President Carter a Happy 98th Birthday. He sets the standard for elected officials. He is, and always will be, a class act. I often wonder how our Neighbour to the South would look today if not for a major recession, an energy crisis, and a failed rescue of American hostages held in Iran had finished his Presidency. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/jimmy-carter-sets-new-record-for-longest-living-president-as-he-turns-98-years-old/ar-AA12tMDt?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=77e194c193e24131a450308abc032b91

    • PJH,

      The Iranians were really shit faces: they quite deliberately stalled negotiations and did everything they could to make sure that the hostages were not released until Reagan was being sworn in.

      I won’t shed any tears for this murderous regime now that it’s finally starting to be on the ropes.

  13. Phil in London says:

    There is no question my biggest reservation with the current Conservative party leader is his association with the extremes leading up to his election.

    To my knowledge he has not been filmed in black face on multiple occasions, he has not meddled in the judiciary by trying to influence an outcome in SNC Lavalin. He has not thrown multiple women under his party’s big red bus.

    Here is the reality of the next election.

    1) you have a liberal leader who is arrogant to a degree he considers himself immune to laws of this country and similarly to social norms like fondling a woman’s butt. (he actually defended himself by saying he could see how others interpreted things differently than he did).

    2) you have a mouthy rhetoric spewing right wing hot head leader who is abrasive to some but who has had little chance to demonstrate his governing skills.

    3) you have a third party leader that talks a big game but views 1) to be better than 2) even as he finds 1) to be offensive personally because 2) is ideologically opposite of his party.

    4) you have separatist and racist parties and a hopelessly suicidal environmental party.

    There is not a good choice in the lot so I think we have to put all else aside and decide if 1) or 2) is least objectionable and live with our choice and push for that choice to represent all Canadians.

    Good luck to us all!

  14. Phil,

    The Liberals in the end won’t have to show HimselfTM the door because this Prime Minister is all about ego and pride. He sticks around only in hope that the polls will show the trail toward a second majority mandate. Once it becomes demonstrable that the chances are little to nil, Mister will take his walk in the snow, before the party can do it for him.

    So…Poilièvre has learned a valuable lesson about right-wing extremists when his own family was threatened. It took THAT for him to finally get it. You won’t see him directly or indirectly coddling up to those types in the future. He would have to be a blithering idiot to do that going forward. Short of that, the next election is PP’s to lose. Hope he ultimately doesn’t blow all of us out of the water in mid-campaign just like O’Toole did. I doubt he will but you never know. After all, none of us are in his head.

  15. Phil in London says:

    With Due respect Ron, let’s be honest, the party we oppose is entrenched. There is rarely a case where they don’t have at least a ghost of a chance of winning.

    These are not direct quotes from you but as long as we have debated here I think you would at the time have agreed with most of these sentiments;

    1) The CPC leadership was Peter MacKay’s to loose (and before him Max Bernier’s message had some traction.)
    2) Andrew Scheer’s loss was an own goal score.
    3) Erin O’Toole debated well and had a good platform but as soon as he farted out one or two nods to the right wing his ship sank.

    Excepting Mad Max, all of these involved some degree of strategy to convince Liberals that Conservatives were better at being Liberal.

    Last week I spoke to a Liberal friend of mine in Ottawa who does not like spawn of Castro but still counters with why would anyone turn back and support an extreme when the “centrist” party has their back?

    In short if I can provide 42 X’s against that idiot, he can come up with 43 check marks (many beginning with unlike the conservatives we….) Yet to be played to discredit PP is the hidden agenda card.

    No most in that party believe that they are the only natural governing alternative and their support is generational.

    Most who will abandon them already have. I might go so far as to say that their floor support is currently enough to get them another minority government mandate or at worst they will be a government in waiting in a highly volatile conservative minority.

    Ron, today we are on the eve of results in one of the most racially charged elections in the most racially charged province in Canada. The CAQ may not be separatist but they are Quebec Nationalist no doubt. THOSE supporters are some of the one’s that a Conservative opposition needs to woo to secure a governing majority.

    Those are extremists (at least enough are) just like the trucker convoy western Canada extremists.

    PP needs to make the PPC even more irrelevant while trying to make truckers and sovereignists unite with a fringe of PC type centrists out east, all the while preserving a small c type of rural Ontario conservative happy. THAT is like trying to order a healthy meal at McDonald’s three times a day and wishing you can come back tomorrow.

    IF you can do all that, you still have to hold this coalition together through two mandates – long enough that the Reform and Bloc types don’t start following the shampoo bottle instructions (lather, rinse repeat)

    Three things have to happen for the Liberal support to erode enough for PP to win.

    1) the CAQ has to lose a lot of support to some entity fairly federalist and left of centre, while the moderate premiers in most PC lead provinces have to loose to Liberals who quickly develop tin ears with the electorate.

    2) the BLOC must hold no mor than 4th place in Quebec elected MPs in Ottawa.

    3) Singh has to convince enough Liberals (and his own party) that he is Jack Layton reincarnated and that liberals are now far to the left of him.

    Basically there has to be so little support for a right of centre option at every other level that die hard Conservatives unite federally.

    I guess what I am saying – it is one MF’ng tall order.

  16. Phil,

    I’ve enjoyed reading this. I’ve taken post leadership a few sips of the BlueKoolAidTM but it won’t be me that tries to counter such solid arguments.

    • Martin Dixon says:

      We’ll see. That likely rich Ottawa Laurentian elite type in Ottawa has no clue what is going on in flyover country. No question, they very likely have HIS back but, as I have said, that is the dirty little secret. Financially, in the short term, the worst thing that could happen to me is to have PP win.

  17. Martin Dixon says:

    I covered the hidden agenda issue on another thread. Anyone who falls for that is a moron who is not paying attention. That certainly doesn’t mean it won’t work.

    “I had a conversation with a couple of retired MPs today that pretty well couldn’t stand PP but have come around(a precursor of things to come) and we basically agreed that if the Liberals are already going to drop the abortion card, that is a good thing. It is a sign of desperation. PP is supposed to be Harper’s boy and if you believed the hysterical media, if you gave Harper a dreaded majority, we would be living in Gilead. After a 4 year majority, the death penalty never got revisited, a woman’s right to choose is alive and well(and just for the record, why are Biden and JT allowed to “evolve” and PP can’t) and the CBC was still around.”

    • Robert White says:

      You have to be joking if you think that the left will allow Poilievre to ‘evolve’ given he’s the leader of the Harper one hit wonder Conservative Party which is not exactly hip to Darwinian Evolution as are the NDP & Liberal Party left-of-center adherents who do believe in Darwinian Evolution.

      Fuck me I don’t think the theists in the Conservative Party have ever reven read Darwin’s theory of evolution given that they tend to adhere to the rhetoric of religion first and foremost via the drunken meandering via Canadian values.

      Who in Hell would allow a Neanderthal with hairy knuckles to ‘evolve’ in a democracy?

      Warren advises us to hurt candidates via Opposition Research and hairy knuckled one hit wonder Conservatives will never ‘evolve’ amidst their collective penchant for dogmatism over evidenced based science.

      All the right-wing nuts in Canada are about to align with Mr. hairy knuckle-dragger Poilievre just as they aligned myopically with Harper and his neocons ahead of the Bush terror regime that Harper supported.

      Screw the Cons and Warren is right that we should never let opposition have a break.

      In the imortal words of W.C. Fields…”Never give a sucker an even break.”

      And for God’s sake don’t ever let them evolve. Hell no.

      RW

      • Martin Dixon says:

        I laughed at that but wasn’t sure if I was supposed to!

        • Robert White says:

          Laughter is the best educational tool in the toolbox bar none IMHO.

          ” Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry all by yourself.” Bing Crosby
          ;-)’

          RW

    • Martin,

      Sure, I agree with you and would never put him in the O’Toole category. Poilièvre won the leadership without resorting to false pretenses. So, he has a perfect right to evolve on a few issues and he’ll still look credible. He’s smart enough not to pull an absolute about face à la Truss. What she did on tax cuts has pretty much finished her politically. Sparks will start flying in caucus as of tomorrow. What an incredible idiot. Tax cuts are far too stimulative, especially when you’ve already got 20%+ inflation like they’ve got in the UK…

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