One of the first things François Legault said, after he won the Quebec election, was this:

François Legault, the premier-designate of Quebec, says he will invoke the notwithstanding clause to work around the Charter of Rights and Freedoms so that his government can ban people in positions of authority in the province from wearing religious symbols.

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) Leader said on Tuesday the plan would prevent public servants, including teachers, police officers and judges, from wearing religious garments such as the Muslim hijab and Jewish kippa while performing their public functions. He would also amend Quebec’s charter of rights to impose the ban, which is long-standing party policy, but barely came up on the campaign trail.

I’ve written a lot on this subject, some of which you can see here and here. Basically, my view (as a church-going Catholic, no less) is that the secular State should never interfere with the peaceful, divine Church (and synagogue, temple and mosque).  Nor the reverse.  Neither should be dictating to the other.

But the worst thing about Legault’s bigoted, unconstitutional declaration – in these ugly and brutish times – is this, of course: his rank hypocrisy.

This guy wants to ban “religious symbols” where Quebec public servants can be found, and use the notwithstanding clause to ram through his law, does he?  Except, what about this, found on the big wall where he works, and where he does his work as a public servant?

 Pictured: law-breaking in Quebec.

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The first indication that the far Right was back was right there, right in front. Right outside the glass doors of the Corus studios in Toronto.

I stepped outside of the building, past a worried-looking pair of security guards. There they were: the ones who are neo-Nazi, white supremacist, Holocaust-denying Hitlerian InfoWars freaks. And the ones who have been “shadowbanned” on Twitter. And the birthers, the truthers, the losers. And the ones who love guns and hate people with darker skin.

The Faith Goldy herd. More than a hundred of them, at least.

They were there to protest the absence of their She-Wolf of the Clueless,Fräulein Faith, from the Global TV Toronto mayoral debate. I was there because I am helping Toronto Mayor John Tory in his re-election campaign.

When I stepped onto the sidewalk, the Goldy mob erupted in screeches and booing. They don’t like me much, apparently. A couple Toronto police officers approached as some of Faith’s flock started to follow.

“We think we should escort you to your car,” one of the cops said, and the Goldy goons peeled away. I told the cop I didn’t think that was necessary.

“We think it is,” he said. “We will escort you to your car.”

Welcome to Toronto’s 2018 mayoral campaign, folks. It’s been something.

Everywhere you look, Faith Goldy can be seen, like some foul, unkillable virus you can’t remove from your computer. There she is, slithering onto the stage at the Arts debate, her rightist goons chanting for “free speech” for them (but not for anyone else), and then calling everyone present “communists.” Goldy got led out by the police at that one. But she also got what she wanted most: the bulk of the news coverage that night.

There she is at Ford Fest – and not for the first time, either – posing for that now-infamous photo with Ontario’s Premier. Only after being pressured by the Opposition and anti-hate groups does Doug Ford tweet out his condemnation of bigotry – and, sort of, Faith Goldy.

Goldy is undeterred. She cheerily tweets back at him: “Proud to stand up for all Canadians alongside ya, Doug!”

There she is at the transit debate – or her goons, at least – doing their utmost to disrupt the proceedings. Shouting at those who are present.

I’ve been writing about the racist Right – and the anti-Semites and women-haters and the National Socialist types – for three decades. What Faith Goldy has on offer isn’t particularly new.

It’s all been done before: the plan to restrict immigration to white Europeans (as she does). The promotion of a book calling for “the elimination” of Jews (as she did). The willingness to suggest that the Nazis had “robust ideas” (as she did, too). The recitation of “the fourteen words” – the neo-Nazi pledge that was pioneered by a founder of The Order, after he helped murder a Jewish talk show host.

All of Faith Goldy’s hate and bigotry has been done before. It isn’t new. What’s different, what’s new, is what she is doing down here in Toronto – and how she is doing it.

Goldy, you see, is following in the footsteps of former Knights of the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke – who retweets Faith’s stuff, by the by – and presenting a kinder, gentler face of hate. You’ll never catch her, then, at a cross-burning or in a Klansman’s robes. She’s too clever for that.

Goldy does what Duke did – and what Donald Trump’s acolytes do. She spews hatred and division, sure. But she does so in pithy soundbites, using code words, and the practiced smile of a telegenic panellist on Fox news. She’s good at it.

The results can’t be disputed: she’s running third in the mayoralty race, she’s raising money, she’s got plenty of followers, and she’s even doing robocalls and TV ads. Debates or not, she is making her loathsome presence felt.

Anyway. I got to my car, and I drove slowly away, a few haters hollering at me as I did.

The beast of hate is awake, folks, and he is slouching our way, too. Not just in the States, not just here and there in Europe. Here.

Faith Goldy isn’t going to win the Toronto mayor’s race. She never expected to. She had her sights set on something else.

Watching her mob in my rear view mirror, I reckon she’s already got it.

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Here:

Clow would not speak for this story.

But someone who trained him in working war rooms was happy to share some thoughts about him and the job. It was Warren Kinsella who brought the modern campaign war room to Canada in 1993, modelled on Bill Clinton’s 1992 run, and who also authored, “Kicking Ass In Canadian Politics.”

Kinsella demands three attributes from war-room staff: Keeping your mouth shut about the war room. Working fast. Doing thorough research.

These campaign operations shape news coverage by providing key components of a story, quickly, to journalists operating in a tougher environment of 24-hour news and declining research budgets: quotes, facts, and people willing to be interviewed.

“(Clinton aide James) Carville told me, ‘The media atom has split.’… You can’t just take (reporters) out to lunch and spin them and the story appears two days later,”‘ Kinsella said.

“(A war room is) basically a newsroom.”

It also provides a central hub so different offices are in contact, and don’t contradict each other. The Canada-U.S. unit includes the PMO’s Butts and Telford, Freeland, ambassador to Washington David MacNaughton, and writer Michael Den Tandt.

Kinsella was impressed with Clow’s speed, cool, and ability to pump out video content while he worked on the 2007 and 2011 Ontario Liberal campaigns.

The Trump mission is infinitely harder, Kinsella said.

Kinsella joked that in elections all his job entailed was pulling pins from grenades and lobbing them. This team must prevent explosions, while working with thousands of officials, multiple government departments, two countries, industry groups, one global economic superpower, and an unpredictable president.

The unit got to conduct early test runs.

When Trump complained about Canadian dairy and lumber, and threatened a NAFTA pullout, it handled the response. The Canadian side kept the temperature down; it responded to heated rhetoric with statistics and telephone calls, and things quickly cooled down.

“They can’t declare war on Trump,” Kinsella said. “In this situation you can’t throw hand grenades — we’re David, they’re Goliath.”

NAFTA negotiations last week offered a glimpse of the unit’s work.

The U.S. government began by complaining about Canada’s historic trade surpluses. Canadian officials were later in the lobby, handing out fact sheets showing a trade deficit.

“We used to call those ‘heat sheets,” Kinsella explained. He’d have his team slip them under hotel-room doors while reporters were sleeping, so they might shape the next day’s news.

“You build an incremental case,” Kinsella said.

“That’s how you win a campaign.”

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