I have the odd “cracker” friend, most of whom “love” to tell jokes expressing a dislike of anything – and I do mean “anything” even moderately progressive. For instance, a true friend, now deceased, once asked me if I “knew” the name of the river running along the border between India and China. There isn’t one, but I should have seen this coming; sensing my silence, he answered “the Fraser” – as in the one flowing through British Columbia.
Is this joke really “racist”? I just love driving people nuts arguing the negativity of such utterances by our redneck brethren; to me, that “joke” is nothing more than an offsided and rather envious compliment to two of our major immigrant source nations who’ve successfully settled in Canada, then combined their purchase of fertile lands with a capacity to utilize learned food sustainability skills to provide us with – what? One thing I do know about such provision is that every March you’ll be passing a local gas station somewhere in small town Saskatchewan and there in plain sight is a 5 tonne boxed-up truck selling fresh fruit and vegetables – LONG before most of us have even put away their snowmobiles.
Unfortunately, most “jokes” repeated within the extreme right’s sphere of influence demonstrate fundamental weaknesses in their knowledge, especially when it comes to sexual function or even male-female relationship. For instance, Scott Moe’s original Bill 137 that would have our schools impose restriction of washrooms to the sex student differentiated at birth was just a piece of legislative nonsense. Obviously, everyone in the Sask Party ruling cabal firmly believes that women cannot “father” children, which means that they’ve definitely never heard of Guevedoces, a condition where a human child having a 5-alpha-reductase deficiency is “born female”, but develops male genitalia at puberty – that work, by the way.
The people we now have representing conservative “values” no longer embracing the true conservatism of a George Will. Instead, it is their intent to humiliate those who disagree with them that binds them in opposition to even the least argumentative of progressive principles such as women’s rights, same-sex marriage, or racial equality. To them, Donald Trump is “correct” in not bothering to argue political semantics; it’s easier for him to simply tarnish his opponent’s reputation through ridicule and bullying.
Our own Conservative MP’s are starting to catch onto this tactic, with as an example our own Randy Hobach’s “Hoback Herald” now regularly leads with NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s name, followed by Justin Trudeau as our public “enemies” destroying Canada’s international reputation. He can do this simply because few Saskatchewanians will vote “Liberal” and react to Justin as though he were his father, still tossing that “You’re Number One” salute to Prairie farmers. As for the mere mentioning of an NDP-Liberal “conspiratorial government, Conservatives conveniently ignore the fact the NDP’s agreement to cooperate with the Liberals to make Parliament work resulted in the passage of DentaCare, PharmaCare, CERB-related relief programs, and the creation of a national Day of Reconciliation – all very much appreciated by Canada’s voters.
However, if conservatives have to consider contributions to government made by the NDP, their more bellicose right resort to their traditional racist approach, reminding Canadians that that Mr. Singh is a Sikh; so must – somehow – be tied to that group of “terrorists” who’d planted the bomb that destroyed Air India Flight 182 in June of 1985. As for their further destroying the reputation of Justin Trudeau, their approach is even more explicit: since the PM was once a drama teacher at an all-girls’ school, maybe those stories of his “admiring” young women students are true, so they’ll just call him “the Gatineau groper”.
These sordid attempts by the political right to “authenticate” these images through disinformation campaigns are every bit as sickening as the antics of the Carbon Convoy leadership. However, Trump’s “concerns” regarding Canada are as phony as the man’s own persona. He is threatening to apply a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods by embellishing concerns such as illegal immigrants and drugs (fentanyl) entering the USA – items that our government addressed with former President Biden some time ago. The “Team Canada” that the PM took on these two points gave us a 30 day grace period to prepare for the inevitable, namely the dropping of the second shoe that has already signalled the start of Round Two and tariffs about to become our next reality.
We’re spending way too much time believing we can’t restart negotiations with Trump until the Liberals choose our next PM, probably Mark Carney. Unfortunately, Carney has indicated that he will FIRST dissolve Parliament, win that contest as well, and only then turn to repudiate Trump’s MAGA agenda. BUT – what IF Carney’s gamble results in a Liberal loss, or Conservatives and Liberals having the face the possibility of leading minority governments, or one of them is replaced as the official Opposition by an NDP buoyed by the leadership of Timmins MP Charlie Angus and Jagmeet Singh taking our fight to the American media, and engendering considerable sympathy from its public, irrespective of party affiliation?
In the absence of an identifiable federal leadership, Canadian voters are quickly reassessing Poilievre as Trudeau’s replacement, as the Conservative campaign message, now called “Canada First”, too eerily mimics Trump’s Project 2025-leaning agenda. As well, Doug Ford, Scott Moe and Danielle Smith continue to fray the fabric of a Team Canada alliance by seeking at least partial exemption of Trump’s tariff plans, only to be ridiculed before their flights home even become airborne.
What Canada needs now is leadership based not upon ideology or distrust, but rather democratic principles. Anything less, and we become enslaved by a Trump administration that didn’t even have to fire a shot before we capitulated to his demands.
Sad, isn’t it, that we may again have to go into a federal election cycle where our various platforms will still be based upon our hatred of the ideas of other Canadians with the same concerns as us?
