Something that has gone largely unnoticed has been Conservative MP Jamil Jivani’s campus tours, modelled after the late fascist Charlie Kirk’s campus tours that were deemed essential to youth outreach for Trump’s MAGA movement. There has been some acknowledgement that under Poilievre, the Conservatives have been attracting a lot of disaffected young men, but as Jivani’s little campus tour is showing, this is much more explicitly about disaffected young white men, who are tired of being confronted about the concept of toxic masculinity, who don’t think that they can speak freely, and who can’t find jobs.
If anything, there is some bitter irony in Jivani cultivating this particular demographic because he has been beating the anti-DEI drum that Poilievre has appropriated from the MAGA cult, but part of this tour is about getting these young white men to present themselves as the real victims. To suggest that they need special policies to address their needs is pretty hard to square with the whole cry about “merit” that is supposed to replace DEI. If they need special programs, then they are not able to get ahead by merit alone, no? Of course, we know that the real reason why they want to eliminate DEI is precisely because they can’t compete based on merit, so they want to return to a system that systemically discriminates against those who are deserving but can’t get a fair shake.
This of course gets to the real issue in play—that these rallies are attracting groups who are Diagolon-aligned, and whose talk about “remigration” is code for ethnic cleansing. Sure, Jivani can tell them that it’s “complicated,” but this is not a group that believes in nuance. The fact that Jivani can’t denounce that kind of rhetoric but instead tries to mollify it is an indictment about where the Conservative party is headed in this country. Someone remarked that this is no longer the party of Stephen Harper. Unfortunately, it’s becoming the party of Donald Trump, whether they want to believe it or not, and that’s a very terrifying prospect for where things could be headed in this country, because there is no “good parts only” version that they think they can achieve.
Ukraine Dispatch
An attack on Kyiv overnight Wednesday wounded nine people. Two Ukrainian journalists were killed by a Russian drone in Kramatorsk, while an investigation has been launched into Russian soldiers killing five civilians in a village in the Donetsk region.
Good reads:
- Mark Carney announced federal buy-in to the Darlington Small Nuclear Reactor project, talked up port expansions, and then went to the Blue Jays’ practice.
- Carney is departing for the APEC summit today, and he hopes to meet with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the conference.
- Trump has terminated trade talks because he was offended by Ontario’s Reagan-talking-down-tariffs ad (but there was never a deal to be had anyway).
- The government has announced that Stellantis and GM will have to start paying counter-tariffs for importing vehicles after they closed those two auto plants.
- Anita Anand says China is a “strategic partner” and that we need to “recalibrate the relationship” in light of changing global trade.
- Sean Fraser tabled his bail and sentencing reform bill (which won’t do what he thinks it’s going to do, and will only make things worse).
- Joël Lightbound says lifting the moratorium on closing rural post offices is about places that are no longer considered rural where other services now exist.
- Evan Solomon says that if the Americans won’t regulate digital asbestos, then we shouldn’t bother either. (What a profile in courage he is!)
- Canadian ranchers are throwing a tantrum about trade with the UK because meat exports are being blocked to that country.
- Oil company ConocoPhillips plans to cut its Canadian workforce to cut costs as oil prices weaken (but watch this get blamed on Carney and the government).
- Danielle Smith appeared at the environment committee, said she doesn’t think humans drive climate change, but swears she’s serious about net-zero by 2050.
- Alberta’s attempts to attract data centres with “bring your own” power requirements will still have an impact on their grids in peak usage periods.
- Jennifer Robson has a few thoughts about Carney’s pre-budget speech, and the message of “sacrifice” therein.
- Jamie Carroll points out that Carney will need to offer more immediate hope for youth rather than just promises of long-term gain for that sacrifice.
- Susan Delacourt also noted the things that Carney didn’t say in his speech (and the oddity of telling university students to get into skilled trades).
- Emmett Macfarlane analyses the Charter implications of the new hate crime bill.
- Supriya Dwivedi boggles at the lack of response to the Indian High Commissioner claiming that the credible allegations of transnational repression were fabricated.
- Paul Wells recalls the lead-up to the 1995 Quebec referendum, and what it was like reporting on it for the Montreal Gazette.
Odds and ends:
For National Magazine, I took a deep dive into the bail reform legislation and why it’s not going to work the way the government thinks it will.
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