Tag Archive: Racism

Breaking news: opposition research firm does opposition research

— 10.26.2019 07:40 AM

From CBC, earlier today:

On his Kinsellacast podcast, an unapologetic Kinsella said the campaign to spotlight racists who attached themselves to the fledgling party was not supposed to extend into the period covered by election spending rules. 

“Our efforts would strictly adhere to Canadian election law and cease all operations on June 29,” he said. 

He also said Daisy Group’s work was “subject to full public disclosure. It would all be disclosed.”

Nor would the client be exempt from criticism, Kinsella said.

“We would reserve the right to vigorously criticize the client itself, publicly and in the media, if the client’s own members were found to be espousing racism,” he said, adding that there were times when he criticized the client in the media…

In his podcast, Kinsella defended Daisy Group’s work to undermine Bernier’s party, saying its work over the years to fight racism and white supremacy has set it aside from other companies that do similar communications and opposition research work.

“Daisy Group staff have worked for, or with, every single mainstream political party or their candidates to research, expose and oppose racist elements. Those have included the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, the Green Party and the now-defunct Progressive Conservative and Reform parties,” he said. 

Kinsella said years ago he helped Stephen Harper, prior to his time with the Conservatives, root out and expel Heritage Front members from the Reform Party.

Kinsella said he has not worked with Bernier’s party because of some of the people it has attracted.

“He has attracted the support and involvement of myriad racists, anti-Semites and bigots,” said Kinsella.

Among those who signed registration papers for the People’s Party were members of the Soldiers of Odin and other white supremacist, anti-immigration groups, Kinsella said.

Kinsella said Daisy was approached because of its reputation. “Daisy fights racism and hate. That’s what we do. That’s why we were approached to assist in exposing and opposing racist elements within the ranks of the People’s Party.”

Kinsella said Daisy Group felt it was important for Canadians to know more about the People’s Party and who it was attracting.

“We had been going after racists in other parties too, but Bernier had more than all the others put together.”

Kinsella said he has no regrets about waging the campaign against Bernier’s party.

“Will I apologize for opposing racism and homophobia and anti-Semitism and misogyny? No. Never. Will I apologize for opposing extremists and haters in Bernier’s People’s Party? No. Never.”


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My latest: Trump trumps Trudeau, and why

— 10.17.2019 09:36 AM

Justin Trudeau is less popular than Donald Trump.

Say it aloud, so that those still considering voting for Trudeau can hear you.

Because, you know, Donald Trump. The most sexist, most racist, most dishonest US president is more highly regarded than the Canadian Prime Minister. That’s hard to do, but Justin Trudeau has done it.

As far back as March, Trump was doing better than Trudeau. In that month, Ipsos found Trump’s approval rating was 43 per cent. Trudeau’s was 40.

In August, it got even worse. Zogby Analytics revealed that Trump had an approval rating of 51 per cent. Trudeau was “underwater,” Zogby reported, at 43 per cent.

And Toronto Sun pollster John Wright, of DART, has analyzed the data, and come up with the same conclusion as the others. “Trudeau’s personal approval numbers are below Trump’s,” says Wright. “So more selfies won’t help.”

And therein lies the rub. Wright has put his finger on the zeitgeist: this election isn’t remotely about issues. It’s a referendum on Justin Trudeau. And he’s been losing it.

What went wrong? How is Justin Trudeau – once the darling of international media, the beneficiary of Trudeaumania II, and the guy who propelled his party from a Parliamentary third place to first – now facing what HuffPo’s Althia Raj, no less, has declared the “possibility he won’t be Prime Minister much longer.” How did that happen?

Three reasons. The first: he over-promised and under-delivered.

Trudeau did that a lot. On electoral reform, on balanced budgets, on ethical reform, on being the feminist champion and the Indigenous reconciler: in every case, he promised the Earth but delivered only dust.

Trudeau’s true legacy is seen in the LavScam scandal, where he obliterated his credentials as the ethical paragon and liberator of women and Indigenous peoples. There, he cravenly tried to rescue a Quebec-based Liberal Party donor facing a corruption trial – and, along the way, revealed himself more than willing to brutalize two women, one Indigenous, who bravely stood up for the Rule of Law.

Second reason: he thinks he’s far more charming and entertaining than he actually is.

Some time ago, a member of Trudeau’s insular inner circle told this writer that one of their biggest problems was Trudeau’s unshakeable belief that he is funny. “He thinks he’s a comedian,” said this man. “He isn’t.”

Thus, making blackface his go-to party favour. Thus, his puerile penchant for dress-up, even when it humiliates Canadians, as in the infamous Griswolds-style Indian vacation. Thus, his utterly bizarre penchant for making jokes – remember “peoplekind?” – that aren’t merely jokes. They’re jokes that render him one.

Recently, this writer was told by a very senior Grit that Trudeau referred to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh as “Marge Simpson” – presumably a reference to Singh’s turban. (A Liberal campaign spokesman declined to comment about the allegation; an NDP war room member said they were aware of the “joke.”)

Why, why would Trudeau say such a thing? “Because he thought it was funny,” said this Parliamentarian.

The third and final reason that Justin Trudeau is less popular than Donald Trump is neatly, and expertly, mirrored in the Conservative Party’s shrewd attack ad slogan: “Justin Trudeau. Not as advertised.”

That pithy catchphrase, more than anything else, is why Trudeau is plumbing the polling depths, even more than Trump. Canadians have grown to believe that the former drama teacher is, indeed, just an actor.

Donald Trump, as detestable as he is to so many, is at least truthful about who he is. He doesn’t hide it.

Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, wears blackface to parties.

Because he’s never as comfortable as when he is wearing a mask.


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The rumours about Justin Trudeau

— 10.09.2019 12:22 PM

Rumours. It’s more than a Fleetwood Mac album.

Rumours about Justin Trudeau have littered Canadian newsrooms like confetti since the start of this election. Rumours about Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada.

As we now know, some of the rumours about the Liberal leader turned out to be true.

So, in 2014, this writer was told there were affidavits detailing inappropriate conduct between Trudeau and various young people. I simply did not believe it, but I raised the allegation directly with Trudeau’s most-senior adviser.

To my surprise, he acknowledged the allegations had been made in affidavits, but said that Trudeau’s insular inner circle were not worried. They had rebutting affidavits of their own to respond.

Subsequently, a female parliamentarian sent me an editorial written by a B.C. reporter in which she alleged that Trudeau had groped her, quote unquote, at a beer festival. While Trudeau said he did not act inappropriately, he apologized, saying “people can experience interactions differently.”

In 2016 and again in 2017, this writer was told by a senior Liberal that photos existed of Trudeau wearing blackface, dating back to his time as a teacher at a private school in Vancouver. The Liberal war room knew about the photos, he said.

Efforts to find any proof, however, were unsuccessful. It did not occur to us to simply check the private school’s year books. I — and others, as it turned out — did not believe Trudeau could be that stupid. To pose for photographers wearing blackface.

But it was true: At the age of 29, while a teacher and in a position of responsibility with children, Trudeau had indeed partied in racist blackface. Turned out he had done it several times, too.

Did the blackface rumour — now the blackface fact — mean that Trudeau was a racist? In no time, several non-white Liberal MPs hustled to microphones to say that, sure, the blackface incidents had happened. But Trudeau wasn’t a closeted drawing-room bigot, they insisted.

And then Omer Aziz, a former Trudeau government aide, authored a scalding op-ed in the Globe and Mail. He wrote about Trudeau and his inner circle, and their attitudes towards minorities: “Condescending attitudes were regularly revealed. Minorities were undermined, ghettoized. The casual disregard of the privileged was systemic. I felt like I could not breathe.” Aziz quit.

Those are just some of the rumours. Some turned out to be true, others are just false, or without a shred of proof. One is presently making the rounds on a fake-news website that has fooled many in the past, this writer included. It should not be taken seriously, in any way.

But those of us privileged to hold positions in the news media, whether we admire Trudeau or not, have an obligation to investigate and report. When the subject-matter is the prime minister of Canada — a man who has repeatedly held himself out as a feminist and anti-racist and a family man — we in the media owe our readers and our listeners the truth.

On a segment on a Toronto radio program this week, and in an opinion piece on Canadaland, this writer was criticized for wondering, in a single tweet, why a Globe and Mail reporter asked Trudeau about why he abruptly left the aforementioned Vancouver private school. My answer: Because it is relevant. Because it is newsworthy. Because it is important.

When the media start acting as an extension of any political party’s war room — when we proactively self-censor — we do our readers and listeners a grave disservice. We work for them, after all.

Rumours may be just rumours. But with Justin Trudeau, as we have seen, oftentimes the rumours turn out to be the truth.


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Trump and Trudeau: brothers of another mother

— 09.27.2019 06:44 AM

Trump and Trudeau: They’re not that different, really.

Sons of millionaires. Never had to worry about a hydro bill, never needed to fret about a mortgage payment. Never experienced the pocketbook terror that is everyday existence for lesser mortals.

Bodyguards, maids, chauffeurs, private jets: These were the emblems of the lives that Trudeau and Trump led and lead. They breathed the same rarefied air as other millionaires and billionaires. They got invited to all the right parties. We in the media hung on their every utterance, stupidly believing that being born rich renders someone worth listening to.

No military service for either. No involvement in government before they both somehow seized the top job. No known ideas or policies. But models, yes. Lots.

And famous. Trump became famous for The Apprentice, and for his expert manipulation of New York City’s viciously competitive media. He’s the assignment editor for all journalists, and he bragged about it in his various ghosted books. Said he in The Art of the Deal: “Most reporters, I find, have very little interest in exploring the substance of a detailed proposal for a development. They look instead for the sensational angle.”

Trudeau gets that, too. He became famous because of the sensational eulogy he gave to his father — the one that his pal, Gerald Butts, told everyone that he wrote — and he became even more famous when he sensationally beat up an indigenous man.

He actually bragged about that. Trudeau actually crowed that he consciously targeted an indigenous man for a public beating. Said Trudeau to Rolling Stone: “I wanted someone who would be a good foil, and we stumbled upon the scrappy, tough-guy senator from an indigenous community. He fit the bill. I saw it as the right kind of narrative, the right story to tell.”

So: Rich, privileged, famous. There’s a reason why Trump and Trudeau have mostly gotten along so well: They both are charter members of the lucky sperm club.

But there is one characteristic that they share above all others. There is one thing, in government and out, that makes them brothers of another mother.

They believe the rules don’t apply to them.

This week, Trump reminded us of that. This week, we learned that he really, truly had called the newly minted president of Ukraine, and requested, seven times, that Ukraine investigate a U.S. citizen, one Joe Biden. Conservatives may not regard that as a “high crime,” but it sure as hell is at least a “misdemeanour” — and, therefore, an impeachable offence.

And how did we get the evidence that Democrats are now relying upon to impeach Trump? Well, they got it from Trump himself. He provided his political executioners with the rope they needed to fashion a noose.

Because he doesn’t think the law should apply to him.

Ditto Trudeau. He can brag about beating up someone who is indigenous (Patrick Brazeau), he can try and destroy an indigenous woman who refused to break the law for him (Jody Wilson-Raybould), he can wear racist blackface to mock others (black Canadians) — and then brazenly claim he isn’t racist.

(Oh, and he and his cabal can come up with a racist name for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, too. More on that in my next column.)

Trudeau can do all those racist things, and then insist he believes in tolerance and diversity. Which is standard operating procedure for someone who believes the rules don’t apply to him.

Only one thing differentiates the two leaders right now: Donald Trump is facing impeachment for his sins, and Justin Trudeau isn’t.

Shame, that.


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My latest: the speech Justin Trudeau should have given, but won’t

— 09.24.2019 07:17 AM

My fellow Liberals, my fellow Canadians.

Last week, I spoke about the scandal that has hit my campaign. I didn’t do it right, so I’m now going to try again.

First things first: over and over, I used the wrong pronoun. I talked about how “we,” as a country, need to do better. How “we” need to be less racist.

I got that wrong. I shouldn’t have said “we.” I should have said “I.” Because I – not we – was the one who smeared stuff all over my face and my body and mocked black people.

It was I – not we – who was racist. Me. Repeatedly – as a high school student in Montreal, and then as a teacher of high school students in Vancouver.

When I was thirty years old. When I was a man, not a boy. When I was supposed to know better.

In the video that came out, everyone focussed on the blackface-style racism, and they should have. But they missed something, maybe because the video was grainy.

In it, I’m wearing a T-shirt with bananas on the front. I’ve stuffed something down the front of my jeans. And I jump around like an ape.

I did all of that to communicate something that I’m amazed so many of you missed. I did it to suggest that blacks are apes. Which was the worst kind of racism.

Oh, in case you are wondering if I did blackface more than those three times, the answer is yes: I did. I repeatedly, and gleefully, acted like a racist. I can’t remember every detail because I was wasted.

The people who work for me have all forgiven me, of course. What do you expect? When the boss asks people for forgiveness, they will always give it.

But I must say that Liberal MPs of colour – Navdeep Bains, Omar Alghabra, Greg Fergus – surprised even me with how speedily they pronounced me without sin. I think we all know that if Andrew Scheer had done blackface on Halloween at the age of five, Navdeep, Omar and Greg would be convening a Human Rights Tribunal right now to have Scheer thrown in a gulag in Nunavut for the rest his life.

Because black face is racist. What I did was racist. I wanted to communicate that black people are worthy of mockery. That they are apes. That they belong in cages. That’s as racist as it gets.

Now, last week, I tried to excuse away my racism by saying I was a child of privilege. That I had grown up with a “blind spot” about such things. But we all know that’s a lie.

Growing up rich, and going to the best schools – being a child of privilege – doesn’t excuse my racism. In fact, it’s the reverse: it makes my racism all the more wrong. I, growing up in the house of the man who gave Canada a Charter of Rights, should have known better.

Anyway, words are cheap. I apologize for stuff all the time, to the point where the apologies have no meaning anymore. All that matters is actions, not words.

So, I will now do what I should’ve done last week. I intend to resign the office of the Prime Minister soon after the election, win or lose. And, by the way, I’m amazed I could still win it. That says a lot more about Canadians that it does about me, frankly.

So, there you go. I need time to get away and learn to be a better Dad, a better husband, a better man. I can’t do that as Prime Minister of Canada.

Because words can’t excuse what I did.

Because what I did was racist.

Thank you.


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My latest: Justin Trudeau likens black people to apes. Don’t let him get away with that.

— 09.19.2019 09:30 AM

An ape?

The video is grainy. It’s blurry, and it’s hard to make out who is in it.

But we don’t have to guess. The Liberal Party of Canada has confirmed to Global News – which released the video on Thursday morning – that it depicts Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister of Canada.

Acting like an ape.

In the video, he’s covered (again) in blackface. He really worked at it, too: he made certain to smear dark make-up on his face, neck, ears, arms. Even his legs. We can see through the holes in his jeans that he did that.

There are three photographs, now, of Trudeau in blackface. One from his high school days in Montreal, and two from a party at the high school he taught at in Vancouver. With his hand on an unidentified young woman’s chest.

He was about thirty in that last photo. He was someone who taught kids – who was supposed to be setting an example for kids.

But we digress. Back to the video.

In the video, Justin Trudeau is seen for only a few fleeting seconds. There’s no sound. But it is unmistakable what the future Prime Minister of Canada and his pals are doing.

Trudeau’s acting like an ape. Sticking out his tongue, waving around his arms, shuffling around like a simian would, in a zoo or a jungle or something.

I showed the video to my shocked colleagues when they came into the office. Two of them are card-carrying Liberals. They agree with me: Justin Trudeau was in blackface, acting like an ape.

Now, why would he do that?

Brent Staples is a member of the editorial board of the New York Times. Around the time Roseanne Barr called an advisor to Barack Obama the progeny of an ape, Staples wrote an extensive study about that. About how racists like to depict black people as apes.

Like Justin Trudeau did.

Here’s Staples: “[It’s] one of the oldest and most profoundly racist slanders in American history…This depiction — promoted by slave traders, historians and practitioners of “scientific” racism — was used to justify slavery, lynching and the creation of the Jim Crow state…[It’s] the ape caricature.”

Throwing bananas at black public figures. Making noises like apes at public events. Calling Michelle Obama “an ape in heels.” It’s all aimed at one simple, incontrovertible message: that black people are animals. That they are less than whites. That they belong in cages.

At this point – and with the Trudeau in blackface leading newscasts around the planet – the evidence cannot be rebutted: the Prime Minister of Canada, as man and not just a boy, traded in the foulest racist stereotypes. He thought it was funny. He thought he could get away with it.

So, that’s him: he’s the scum of the Earth. He doesn’t deserve to be elected dogcatcher, let alone a Prime Minister of a G7 country.

Oddly, the issue isn’t him. It’s now the members of the Liberal Party. It’s us.

Will Liberal MPs now publicly condemn their “leader,” as I counselled two distressed Grit MPs to do this morning? They must.

And, Canadians, too, have a decision to make. Will we let him get away with it? Trudeau and his loathsome coterie are laying low, clearly believing this all will blow over in time. And it might, you know.

It is up to us – Canadians – to say: not good enough. Not on. Not this time.

Justin Trudeau – the goddamned Prime Minister of Canada – is on a video, this morning, joking that black people are, you know, apes.

This man is unfit. We, Canadians, must line up on October 21 and reject him and his ways.

We must.


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My latest: Scheer, Trudeau and racism

— 05.29.2019 09:27 AM

When everyone is a Nazi, no one is a Nazi.

When you falsely insinuate your principal opponent is a Klansman – as Justin Trudeau’s party has done, repeatedly and recklessly, with Andrew Scheer – it fosters cynicism and disbelief.

Most of all – and I say this as someone who has researched, opposed and written about organized hate groups for more than three decades, and has received innumerable death threats along the way – likening a partisan adversary to a white supremacist makes it impossible for activists like me to sound the alarm about real white supremacists.

Despite all that, for many months, Justin Trudeau and his Liberal echo chamber have hissed that the Conservative Party leader is a far-Right racist. It has been despicable and dangerous.

The experts agree, too. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is professor of History at Fairfield University, and he’s the author of The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present.

Says Rosenfeld, who knows more about this subject than anyone alive: “Too many hyperbolic comparisons – for example, between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler – dulls the power of historical analogies and risks crying wolf.”

Crying wolf: that is what Trudeau and his party have been doing. So desperate are they to be re-elected, they have been prepared to imply that Scheer is the worst thing that one can say about anyone: that he is a fascist. That he is an adherent of the ideology of murder.

Last night, Scheer – finally, firmly – slammed the door on Trudeau’s slur, and strongly condemned organized hate. It was overdue.

“There is absolutely no room in a peaceful and free country like Canada for intolerance, racism and extremism of any kind. And the Conservative Party of Canada will always make that absolutely clear,” Scheer thundered in a Toronto speech.

“I find the notion that one’s race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation would make anyone in any way superior or inferior to anyone else absolutely repugnant. And if there’s anyone who disagrees with that, there’s the door. You are not welcome here.”

For weeks, Scheer had been dogged by an allegation that he willingly appeared onstage at a February “United We Roll” protest in Ottawa with a notorious white supremacist, Faith Goldy. In fact, Goldy was nowhere near Scheer. She wasn’t even in the permitted area, she wasn’t invited to speak, and she was later condemned by official organizers.

Scheer – who, like Justin Trudeau, has had past media encounters with Goldy, before she went full-blown bigot – should have denounced Goldy’s ilk sooner. But this week’s speech has now left no doubt about his views. Haters have no place in his Conservative Party, he said, in the important speech titled “Unity in Diversity.”

Said Scheer: ”We should be able to have an immigration debate in this country without the government calling its critics racists and bigots,” he said. Trudeau’s willingness to to do so, Scheer added, amounts to “cheap partisanship” and it hurts our collective ability to oppose the very real threats of racism, bigotry and extremism.

If Trudeau wants to denounce real bigotry – and he, and all of us, should – he should train his sights on Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party. Bernier and his cabal have devolved into the porch-light of Canadian politics, attracting all the bugs and the creepy-crawlies. (Which should make it easier to deploy the necessary political insecticide.)

But this dishonest Justin Trudeau campaign against Andrew Scheer? It must stop. It has engendered cynicism and distrust, and that’s the last thing any democracy needs in the Trump era.

Andrew Scheer has told us where he stands on one of the crucial issues of our time.

Will Justin Trudeau finally heed what he says?


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Kevin J. Johnston’s hate tour – let’s cancel it

— 03.07.2018 08:50 AM

Late yesterday, I was sent this:

The piece of human garbage pictured, on the right, is Kevin J. Johnson. (That’s a swastika on his poster, to the left.)  Lately, he’s been showing up at Doug Ford events. Johnston was charged in July with wilful promotion of hatred, mostly against Muslims.  A condition of his bail was that he stay away from any Muslim mosque or community centre.

That bail condition is why I was suspicious by Johnston’s apparent intention to speak at the Brampton Islamic Centre on March 21.

But better safe than sorry.  So, we got word out to our contacts nationally in the Muslim, Jewish, LGBT and other communities.  We needed those centres/locations contacted, as soon as possible, to shut this bastard down.

So my online friends got to work.  Here’s the latest:

  • Simcoe County District School Board investigated and said no way.  Thank you to them.
  • Sudbury – the good folks there have told us no such event is taking place at a Greater Sudbury library or City facility.  Here.
  • Cornwall Collegiate – likewise.  The advertised hate fest “will not take place,” they told us.
  • Barrie’s Mayor, the terrific Jeff Lehman, also made clear this racist thug wouldn’t be welcome in his town, as seen here.

The Sleeping Giants approach works, folks.  Contact the people in charge at the locations listed on the poster.  Be factual, polite and make the direct request: that (a) they confirm no such event is taking place under his or some other name and (b) that, if it is, they shut it down.  That’s it.

Need your help, folks.  Please get involved.  Thanks.


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