In today’s Big Story Podcast, we have Justin Ling interviewing Erin O’Toole.
Like many places across the world, politics in Canada has become increasingly polarized. Long gone are the days of trying to appeal to the majority of voters – now some parties have gone to their most extreme constituents for support.
Probably the best example of this was the election of Pierre Poilievre as the new Conservative Party leader. Regardless of how you feel about Poilievre, there’s little doubt that he’s a sign of a new era of political polarization within Canada.
Last month, former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole resigned his seat in the House of Commons and delivered an emotional goodbye to his colleagues. He made an appeal to everybody in politics to make Ottawa less combative, less toxic, and less polarized.
“We’re now framing our political impact by the number of likes we get on social media, not the number of lives we change in the real world,” says O’Toole.
So, what exactly can Ottawa do better? And how?
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It isn’t like O’Toole spoonfed the asylum and dipped when the asylum took over.
O’Toole is half the reason we have what we have.
O’Toole didn’t want to piss off the far right viewpoint that was growing, Poilievre actively panders and encourages them.
Ever increasing tolerance of fascist ideas … nationalism, victim identity, homophobia, racism and creating bogey men that are out to take over everything … Enemies that are simultaneously powerful and must be stopped and weaker than their all powerful group
It’s a party of idiots … and when they’re allowed to go to far … behind a party of fear, control and destruction
It’s like my FIL (an old guard Conservative member/voter) says: Poilievre just guarantees that we are stuck with Trudeau. He’s a fucking hack.
The Cons gotta ditch the reform party shit, if they ever want to rule again. This isn’t the United States, no matter how hard they are trying to make it so. It’s time for a divorce to this messy marriage. 20 years ago, conservatives and Liberal leaders were just basically two bumbling different versions of each other, and everyone was generally satisfied in the mushy middle. But we went from there to here, and now we are stuck with this uneasy alliance between Jagmeet and Trudeau.
Which to be fair, has generally worked out fairly well for us, considering that the current state of the economy/inflation is a world wide trend and would be just as high under a conservative government (who also can’t control the BoC and Monetary policy, no matter how hard they try to convince you otherwise). But our country has historically (arguably) benefited from both sides ruling at different times, it’s just this new breed of conservatives are next level gross. Which also isn’t helped by the fact that Trudeau is just pretty aggrevating in his manner, in the way he carries himself and how he talks to Joe Public as well. Which is a trait he shares with his father.
Yeah, I have a Grandpa in the same boat - older “conservative”, but is disgusted by what the party has decided to embrace: climate change denialism, fear-mongering, rage-baiting, anti-LGBTQ, anti-science, weirdly pro-Russia for some reason? etc.
Not trying to view the past with rose-coloured glasses, but even looking at the past 10 years you can see and feel a sharp directional shift of the CPC towards regression.
I am a Liberal through and through, but it would honestly be refreshing if Conservatives just wanted to debate tax policy, spending, and free market economics instead of actively spreading misinformation and hate.
We need a sort of “internet enlightenment” era where we re-calibrate humanity back towards reason and empathy.
You need to go back a bit further than 10 years. The directional shift started with the Canadian Alliance, which was (my memory is a bit foggy here) 2001-2002 era. That forced a shotgun marriage between the reform party and the PC party to fight off the challenge. Even though the PC party members vastly outnumbered the Reformers, reform core influencers like Preston Manning and Stephen Harper quickly took advantage of said marriage from the ever growing steam the Alliance started to gather in that era, and well here we are. A bunch of weirdo alt right bullshit and populist anger.
I’m personally a lost soul. I voted liberal in the last election, but in all honesty I’m closest to a Red Tory of the 1990s, in that I believe in social liberalism (stuff like gay rights, entrenched women’s rights and the rights to an abortion, etc.). But economically I’m a bit more on the conservative side, I’d say right smack dab in the centre honestly. But that’s also hypocritical sometimes, because there’s been Liberal finance ministers I’ve liked. Paul Martin did a good job in the early aughts, and I think the Trudeau government generally did the best anyone could have been expected to do through the COVID era. But I don’t like my finances to get too loosy goosey. I’m a CPA, so I mean, I’m generally almost always going to be a bit more conservative than most when it comes to the economy and fiscal policy. But I also believe this country needs better consumer protections and needs to quit pandering to big business every single time, in every single fight. So yeah…
Yes, if you don’t want to “piss off” the extremists in your wing, you are still fueling extremism. I don’t care if you don’t want polarization and want to work together, if Nazis feel comfortable in your presence, you are doing something wrong.
Three excellent points.
He ran for leader of the CPC twice. He was trounced as a moderate the first time. He learned to win you have to court the crazies to win, and he did. The problem is that once you’re done, you have a bunch of backstabbing crazies in your tent.
Well, whatever O’Toole wants is far beyond his control, at this point. Maybe if he ran a better campaign he could have nipped this problem in the bud, or maybe he could have entirely empowered the crazies, but that’s neither here nor there. He lost, he’s resigning, and the problem is beyond his fixing now - who knows if his appeal will even reach the ears that it needs to.
This is going to be a Canadian problem as a whole to resolve, and it’s a simple solution: if you do not want radicalized politics to take over, do not vote for the radicals to take over your party or Parliament. Say what you will of the other parties, but radicalism and reactionism are largely a Conservative issue, and I imagine the voters will more than kindly respond to the idea of trying to turn things up a notch.
I am noticing a strange trend of conservative defeated candidates who have left politics suddenly starting to talk about reducing polarization and being more honest and open. Are they trying a new angle now that they have nothing to lose? Why didn’t they talk like that during their elections?
Jeromy Farkas (Calgary mayoral election) has been on CBC and the Calgary community on read-it, with our previous mayor suddenly singing a completely different tune.
I want politics to be less polarized too, but the train is off the tracks. The majority of people don’t believe in compromise anymore. They believe they are right, and everyone else are communists/nazis who must be destroyed.
I’m a healthcare professional who believes in trans rights. I also think hormone treatments and gender affirming surgery should be illegal to give to minors. The left will say I’m transphobic. The right will say I shouldn’t support these interventions at any age.
The reality is that both sides are blinded by ideology. The left has become just as intolerant and aggressive as the right used to be. They believe gender affirmation is more important than allowing a patient’s body to develop in a healthy way with natural hormone levels. They believe hormone blockers or replacement therapy given to young people have no lasting side effects. They seem to be under the impression that it isn’t abnormal to fast-track patients to gender affirming care rather than trying to reduce dysphoria through therapy. But if you bring this up, even as an educated professional, you’re an evil bigot conspiracy theorist who hates trans people.
You can’t find a middle ground with people like this. They aren’t open to discussion, and they certainly don’t care to understand where you’re coming from. It’s their way or the highway.
The trans healthcare debate should be based in science not ideology. It just happens to be the case that the science overwhelmingly favours the left’s position.
You’re probably getting pushback because concepts like “just therapy them out of it” or “developing with cis hormones is natural and thus healthier” are contradicted by the consensus of scientific research.
