Tag Archive: jagmeet singh

My latest in the Sun: when they came for the Jews/Sikhs/Muslims, they said nothing

Silence.

That’s all that could be heard from the federal party leaders, essentially: silence, or something approaching that.

The occasion: the decision of assorted Quebec politicians to pass a law telling religious people what they can wear. Jews, Sikhs, but mainly Muslims.

The law, formerly called Bill 21, was passed last weekend in a special sitting of the so-called National Assembly. It makes it illegal to wear religious symbols at work if you’re a teacher, a bus driver, a cop, a nurse, or even a day care worker. It applies to everyone who gets a stipend from the province, basically.

The law is illegal. It is wildly unconstitutional, for all the reasons you’d expect: it stomps all over freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equality rights. It giddily shreds the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The law is against the law. So, Quebec’s ruling class – who have never been particularly fussy about Jews, Sikhs or Muslims, truth be told – also stipulated that their law would operate “notwithstanding” the Charter.

In Quebec, now, you’ve theoretically got freedom of speech and religion. Except, say, when the chauvinists in the National Assembly say you don’t.

Stick that yarmulke in your pocket, Jew. Remove that turban your faith requires you to wear, Sikh. Put it away.

As history has shown us, freedoms rarely get swept away with dramatic decrees. Instead, we lose freedoms by degrees. In bits and pieces. Fascism typically slips into our lives without a sound, like a snake slithering into the kitchen, unseen.

This week, the snake curled around the ankles of Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh. All of them pretended that the snake was not there.

Justin Trudeau, in his teeny-tiniest mouse voice, suggested that no one should “tell a woman what she can and cannot wear.” That’s all we got from him, pretty much.

Andrew Scheer, for his part, said he “would never present a bill like that at the federal level.” But, he hastily added, he would also leave the whole messy business to the “elected members in Quebec.”

Jagmeet Singh, who now couldn’t get a provincial job in Quebec because he wears a turban himself, said this about the law when it was tabled: “I think it’s hurtful, because I remember what it’s like to grow up and not feel like I belong.”

Words.

But action? Actually, you know, doing something to protect minority rights and religious freedoms in Quebec?

Not on your life. It’s an election year, pal.

During one of the many, many debates Quebec has had about this legislated intolerance – when controversy was raging about the then-Liberal government’s bill that would force women to remove veils when, say, getting on a city bus – Francois Legault, then an Opposition leader, was asked about the crucifix hanging in the National Assembly.

It should stay, he said. “We have a Christian heritage in Quebec,” he said. “I don’t see any problem keeping it.”

That’s when Francois Legault’s veil slipped, as it were. That’s when we got to see who he really represents.

At his very first press conference after the Quebec election, Legault dispensed with any notion that he would be the Premier to all. To the Muslims (with their headscarves), and the Jews (with their kippahs), and the Hindus (with their markings on their faces), Legault’s message was plain: I don’t represent you. I don’t care about you. You are lower-class.

And, now, from our federal leaders: a shrug. Indifference.

Jesus, from that spot He long had above the National Assembly, is (as always) needed. Right about now, Jesus could remind our politicians, federal and provincial, what he said in Matthew 23:3. You know:

“Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”


My latest: Trudeau, Liberals, and the inevitable sinking ship metaphor

Cue the soundtrack from Titanic.

Once upon a time, Andrew Leslie was a star Liberal Party candidate. A decorated former commander of the Canadian Armed Forces, Leslie was hailed by Justin Trudeau as proof the Liberals were pro-military.

Way back in 2013, when Trudeau named the 35-year veteran to an advisory committee on international affairs, he said as much.

Having Leslie around showed “a tremendous amount of support and pride for our Canadian Forces,” Trudeau said.

Well, that was then, this is now.

Lots of people thought Leslie was a shoo-in for a senior cabinet post. But it was not to be. Trudeau made Leslie whip, which is the Parliamentary equivalent of a hall monitor. But he never bestowed on Leslie a senior cabinet minister post.

Now we may have learned why.

On Friday, CTV revealed that Leslie is readying to testify in the sensational trial of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman — and against the Trudeau government, no less.

The shocking revelation is bad, bad news for the Trudeau regime. But it’s good news for those of us who still believe in the Rule of Law. And it certainly suggests that Andrew Leslie deserved to be a minister.

Adam Vaughan probably felt he deserved one, too. The former Toronto city councillor was recruited by Trudeau with great fanfare back in 2014. It was a big deal.

Trudeau’s factotums even leaked news of Vaughan’s candidacy to the Toronto Star, which dutifully ran it on the front page like it was a moon landing.

“Adam Vaughan’s decision to seek the Liberal nomination in the Trinity-Spadina by-election was sealed with a handshake over lunch at Le Select Bistro!” the Star gushed. “There’s no question (recruiting Vaughan) is a coup for Justin Trudeau!”

After reading that, Adam Vaughan could be forgiven for thinking he was destined for ministerial limousines and a “P.C.” appended to his surname. But, like Andrew Leslie, it was not to be.

The closest Vaughan ever got to the big leagues was “Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs.” Which, as we say back home in Calgary, is a title that is all hat but no cattle. It’s the square root of diddly.

Bill Blair too. Recruited with fanfare by Trudeau and his fart-catchers, then dropped into the anonymity of the Liberal backbench for years.

A former Toronto Police chief, Blair achieved distinction for overseeing the largest abridgement of civil rights in modern Canadian history, during the G20 summit in 2010. Trudeau — whose family had hands-on experience with abridging civil rights, too — was unperturbed.

“Mr. Blair was a first responder for over 39 years and having him by my side…emphasizes how seriously we take the responsibility of service in this party,” Trudeau said.

And, then, poof! Bill Blair disappeared.

Along with Leslie, other Liberal MPs are disappearing, too. At the moment, a total of 18 ridings won’t have an incumbent Liberal on the ballot in the Fall.

Scott Brison, whose sudden resignation gave Trudeau the pretext to jettison Jody Wilson-Raybould, has decided to spend more time with his family back in Nova Scotia. Same with Bill Casey, Mark Eyking, Colin Fraser and Rodger Cuzner — all Nova Scotia Liberal MPs, all choosing discretion over valour.

Thunder Bay Liberal MP Don Rusnak. Newmarket’s Kyle Peterson. Quebec’s invisible Grit MP, Nicola Di Iorio. The fearless and principled Celina Caesar-Chavannes, who was rightly disgusted by Trudeau’s grubby efforts to secure a sweetheart deal for SNC-Lavalin in court. She’s leaving, too.

Oh, and Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott — the two ministers who resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet because they could no longer abide the corruption and cronyism. And who were later kicked out of caucus by Trudeau for telling the truth to power. Liberals no more.

Trudeau’s spinners, naturally, are all insisting the departures are natural and normal.

The rest of us, meanwhile, can be forgiven for wondering whether the S.S. Trudeau is cruising towards the proverbial iceberg.

And whether those 18 Liberal MPs have decided, wisely, to abandon ship.


My latest in the Sun: the Trudeau cult

Dear Liberals:

This is an open letter to all of you. I want to start it by telling you why I became a lawyer. 

It was a movie, called The Oxbow Incident. It was a Western, released some 75 years ago, and it starred Henry Fonda. It was about how a mob hanged a man. The wrong man. 

At the end, the lynch mob all gather in a bar, and Henry Fonda reads a letter the dead man wrote to his wife. Here is some of it. 

“Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It’s everything people ever have found out about justice and what’s right and wrong,” Fonda says, reading the dead man’s letter. “It’s the very conscience of humanity. There can’t be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody’s conscience, except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?”

That speech is why I became a lawyer. What Henry Fonda said,  in a long-ago Western. What he said about justice, and how it is the thing that makes us human. 

Jody Wilson-Raybould, who I have never met – and Jane Philpott, who I have – remind me a little bit of Henry Fonda, reading that dead man’s letter. They seem to believe, as I do, that if we do not have justice, we have not much left. They proudly gave up everything for it, after all.  

After what you Liberals did, I suppose you are expecting me to liken you to a lynch mob. And, it is true: you were a bit like that. 

Hell, you expelled Jody Wilson-Raybould on the pretext of a making a tape on which a powerful man threatens her. When, a few days later, the Prime Minister of Canada spoke to Wilson-Raybould about why she’d been demoted – and he didn’t bother to tell her his Principal Secretary was secretly listening in. Keeping a record of what was said. 

To use against her. 

But, still, I will not call you a lynch mob. What you are, more accurately, is a group of people who belong to a cult. It is not a political party anymore. It is a cult. 

It’s kind of understandable, although not ever forgivable. Justin Trudeau, to most of you, is the Liberal Party. He lifted the party from third place to first, and he propelled most of you into power. He made three big promises. 

He said he’d be a feminist. He said he’d reconcile with indigenous people. And he said he’d bring back ethical government. 

Well, he lied. His willingness to brutalize Wilson-Raybould, Philpott and Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes – and to cut a sweetheart deal for a sleazy donor – showed him to be none of those things. It showed him to be what this newspaper memorably called him this week: the fake feminist.

But still you follow him. Still you belong to his cult. Even when you know he has done wrong.

And so, you will end like all cults do: you will go down with your leader. You will perish with him, and you all richly deserve it.

Because voters understand – as they did at the end of The Oxbow Incident – that justice is all that keeps us from devolving into a lynch mob.

Which, as I say, you all resemble quite a bit. 

And for which you will all pay. 

Sincerely,

Warren


The fake feminist, exposed

…and this is just the start, you phony SOB.


A reminder of what #LavScam is all about

This.



As we enter the week in which Justin Trudeau will almost certainly expel two women who stood up for the principle of prosecutorial independence, here is what the prosecutors themselves had to say about that – and on the very day Trudeau refused to apologize for #LavScam.

They did not issue that tweet by accident. They were not unaware of the impact it would have, coming – as it did – a couple hours after Justin Trudeau angrily refused to apologize for possibly obstructing justice.

It was Canada’s Public Prosecution Service sending up a flare. It was a warning, from those who would know, that something critically important is at risk.

And that is this: the constitutional principle that our criminal justice system needs to be free and fair. The notion that serious cases of corporate corruption, as SNC-Lavalin is, needs to be fought in open court, with lawyers – not in backrooms, with lobbyists.

“Free from political influence.” That is what motivated Jody Wilson-Raybould to do what she did – and, later, for Jane Philpott and Celina Caesar-Chavannes, to do what they did. They lost their careers to that. They have been defamed and demeaned for that.

We must have a criminal justice system that is free from political influence. We must ensure that justice is free and fair, and not for sale to the wealthy.

That is what this scandal is all about. And that is how history will tell it, too.


What #LavScam means, in five points

It’s been going on for more than a week, now, and the outlines of it are already seen.  Five ways in which it is leaving, and will leave, an impact:

  1.  Indigenous people.  I am the proud father to an amazing indigenous young woman; I work with First Nations across Canada.  I am disgusted by what Justin Trudeau did, and is doing, to the amazing indigenous leader named Jody Wilson-Raybould.  Indigenous people do not trust Trudeau, now, and they’re saying so.
  2. Women.  The sexist and condescending way in which Jody has been treated – and still continues to be, as seen in this morning’s Star, and last week in the Canadian Press and Global News – is repellant.  It is noteworthy that the Liberals who are paying tribute to Jody are almost all women – include ones in Trudeau’s cabinet.
  3. The Liberal Party.  This web site attracts four million visitors a year.  On social media, like Twitter, I get about a half-million “impressions” daily.  That’s a fair number of people – and I can tell you that many of my readers are Liberals.  They are telling me they are disgusted by Trudeau and his PMO – and shocked by how badly they have handled this mess (eg. sending out the clueless Justice Committee chair to say Jody didn’t deserve to be in cabinet because she didn’t speak French – which will be a big hit in English Canada).
  4. The Conservatives.  Andrew Scheer knows this is his moment, and he has seized it.  The Tory leader hasn’t looked this determined, this focussed – and frankly this Prime Ministerial – since he became his party’s leader.  Gone is the smirk, and there’s an undeniable gravitas to the guy, now.  For his party, PMO’s attempts to destroy Jody Wilson-Raybould represents an opportunity, too – it allows them to address the allegation that they are indifferent to women and indigenous people.
  5. The New Democrats.  Jagmeet Singh is going to win that by-election in B.C. – because B.C. is sickened by what has been done to Jody.  Meanwhile, his colleague Nathan Cullen has been simply extraordinary in prosecuting the case against the Liberal government – and it will reveal itself in the polls, soon enough. And a rise in NDP fortunes means a drop in Liberal support, always.

Will Justin Trudeau lose the election? It’s too soon to tell.  But the poll I’ve heard about suggests strongly the answer is this:

Yes.