Nobody knows a lot about Martin Niemöller, probably, but they certainly know about the Lutheran pastor’s most famous statement.

You know it, too.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

“Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Niemöller’s truism goes back to 1946, and was about the cowardice of German clergy and academics as the conflagration of the Holocaust grew and grew, consuming millions of innocent lives.

But his words have been applied to many other injustices in the intervening years.

Because there have been too many other instances of repression and bigotry.

One such case of repression and bigotry is underway, right now, right here, in the province of Quebec.

In Quebec, two pieces of legislation have been conjured up by that province’s crypto-separatist regime, like a witches’ unholy spell.

One, Bill 21, targets what minorities wear.

The other, Bill 96, targets the language that minorities speak.

They’re like demonic twins, Bill 21 and Bill 96 are.

Using the bland Kafkaesque prose of government apparatchiks, the first one expresses hatred for Muslim women, mainly, and tells them what they can wear.

Using the same sort of bloodless idiom, the second one expresses hatred for English-speaking people.

It’s no surprise that Quebec’s intolerant government disgorged these two bills during the pandemic, when they knew the majority would be distracted by its own problems.

What is a surprise is that the son of Pierre Trudeau — and the leader of the party once led by the likes of Jean Chretien and Mike Pearson — would go along with Quebec’s evisceration of human rights in Canada.

Quoting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Quebeckers is a bit of a waste of time.

But their own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms — which actually predates Canada’s, by almost a decade — is very important in Quebec. It’s a matter of pride.

And those two bills, 21 and 96, violate the Quebec Charter in 38 separate ways.

This week, this writer had the great honour of being on a panel with Clifford Lincoln, a former Quebec MNA and a fierce fighter for Canada.

No longer as young as he used to be, the intensity of Lincoln’s passion for human rights — and Canada — were undimmed.

Speaking to the Quebec Community Groups Network conference, Lincoln noted that no less than Nelson Mandela said that the majority always owe a debt to the minority. And that the strong owe a debt to those who are not as strong.

Where, then, are those who would defend minorities in Quebec? Where are the rest of us? Why are not more Canadians speaking up?

There is plenty of reason to do so. Bill 96 actually gives the French language police the power to seize and break into people’s personal phones – to see if they are speaking enough French. And Bill 21 actually goes after Muslim women who wear a simple veil – or Jews who wear a Star of David – when they work in government.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Canada is being unravelled, quietly, right now in the province of Quebec.

Our “leaders” in Ottawa are silent. They’re eunuchs.

But where are the rest of us? Why aren’t other Canadians also raising their voices in protest?

Because history shows one unvarnished truth:

When they come for me, they may someday also come for thee.

— Warren Kinsella was special assistant to Jean Chretien.

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The job of the media is to come down from the hills to shoot the politically wounded.

So, let’s put a few rounds in the carcass of the Green Party, shall we?

Let’s start by telling a tale. But full disclosure first: My political consulting firm has acted for every single federal political party. All of them.

(One exception: We haven’t represented the political party led by Maxime Bernier, who was last seen wearing handcuffs in the backseat of an RCMP cruiser, arrested for violating Manitoba public health laws.)

But we’ve worked for everyone else. The Green Party included.

I first met with Elizabeth May, then the Green leader, in Ottawa in the summer of 2019. Some of her senior staff were there, too. We talked about my firm running the Green Party war room in the election.

May eyed me warily. “You make me a bit nervous,” she said.

Recalling that unfortunate time in 2015 when May appeared at a press gallery dinner (see photo above), I replied: “Likewise.”

Anyway, we agreed my firm would be hired. I warned her that, when that news leaked out — because everything leaks in Ottawa, eventually — it would attract controversy. She assured me that she could handle it.

She couldn’t.

Fast-forward to July 2019. May is at a pre-election rally in Guelph, and someone stands up to ask her a question about me. The questioner is distressed. She says I’m nasty (guilty) and she’s upset (good). In front of several hundred people, May insists she said this to me: “What you did in politics previously was despicable, and he said, ‘Yeah.’”

This wasn’t just false. It was a whopping whopper. It was fabulist fiction. It was a bald-faced lie.

She didn’t say that. I didn’t say that.

I fired off an email to all of the senior Green staff who had been at the same meeting, gently reminding them I am a lawyer, and that I planned to publicly repudiate May unless she did so herself, govern yourself accordingly, etc.

May issued a grovelling tweet hours later, in which she whimpered that “some past campaigns had been despicable — not Warren.”

Long story short: A couple of my staff dealt with the Greens thereafter, but not me. I’m old enough to know a clown show when I see it.

Fast forward to 2021, now. The Green Party has an impressive new leader who happens to be (a) female, (b) Black, (c) Jewish, and (d) not Elizabeth May. I note this only because I think (b), (c) and (d) are relevant.

Hamas starts firing rockets into Israel, and Israel properly acts in self-defence. The rest of the planet descends into paroxysms of “anti-Zionism” (read: Anti-Semitism). The Green Party joins in.

One of their MPs, a non-entity from New Brunswick, tweets that Israel is a state that practices “apartheid.” Last time I checked, “apartheid” is the whites-only system of laws promulgated by South Africa. Israel, meanwhile, has two million Arab citizens, some of whom are members of the national Knesset legislature, the civil service, the judiciary, and the army.

If that’s apartheid, it doesn’t sound like it’s very effective apartheid.

Anyway. The new Green leader — who is, as noted, Jewish and Black — declines to agree with the “apartheid” blood libel. The MP non-entity thereupon defects to the Trudeau Liberals, who the MP says share her “apartheid” defamation. Senior Greenies start demanding the new leader be fired for being moderate.

Elizabeth May, still regrettably an MP, is heard from. She chastises her successor, and says she wants the anti-Israel defector back.

Had enough? Me too. And I don’t think, anymore, that we need to come down from the hills and shoot the wounded Green Party people.

They’re pretty good at shooting themselves.

— Warren Kinsella was special assistant to Jean Chretien

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