Teen politician debuts as a pawn in Ontario’s culture wars.
Den Tandt, A10
Poor Sam Oosterhoff. Here he is just 19, a home- schooled farm kid from Ontario wine country, newly landed in The Big Smoke and keen to make his mark as the province’s youngest- ever MPP. But his political career is already doomed. He’s the only one in the Legislature who doesn’t appear to see it.
Reason: Oosterhoff is an orthodox Christian and a social conservative, in an era when being such is tantamount to thought crime, punishable by revulsion, penalty to be administered by flash mob on social media. This is the new face of tolerance in liberal Ontario.
The MPP f or Niagara West– Glanbrook is, of course, a pawn in a larger game; the tortuous effort by Ontario’s chronically selfdefeating Progressive Conservatives, now beginning its third Biblical epoch ( if we posit seven years as one epoch), to replace the catastrophically incompetent Dalton-McGuinty- Kathleen-Wynne Liberals.
You have to sympathize some with leader Patrick Brown. So desperate are his troops for a win in 2018, having fired the puck repeatedly into their own net in three successive Ontario elections — 2007, 2011 and 2014 — that any hint of a possible game- changing strategic blunder causes him to recoil as t hough poked in the kidney with a stick, then sprint for his life in the opposite direction.
Allowing his party to be aligned with social conservatism — whether through opposition to abortion rights, opposition to equal marriage or parenting rights for gays and lesbians, belief in creationism, opposition to sex education or any other religious- inspired view that smacks of fundamentalism — would be just such a blunder. Indeed it is the one thing, based on recent history, that could torpedo Brown’s chances of becoming premier.
As a former federal Conservative MP in Ottawa and veteran of the culture wars in the Harper years — back when the national party still had what could be described as a so- con wing — Brown knows what’s at stake. Based on his voting record he was a so- con himself, as Ontario Liberals adore pointing out. To the teensy extent Stephen Harper allowed formal expressions of social conservatism within the federal party, Brown as an MP joined them. In campaigning for the Ontario PC leadership, and again during the byelection fight in September in Scarborough- Rouge River, he aligned himself with opponents of sex education — though in the latter case he famously recanted.
Brown is now quashing any so-con tendencies within his ranks, clearly for the same reason Harper did a decade ago: He understands this will be the surest weapon in the Liberals’ arsenal as they seek to shift attention away from their grotesque mismanagement of the energy file, among other items. That is presumably why Brown whipped the vote last week on Bill 28, the Wynne government’s All Families Are Equal Act.
Though nearly half the 29- member PC caucus were sorting their sock drawers during the vote ( including Oosterhoff, whose swearing- in was unaccountably delayed until the next day) none voted against. Bill 28, which enshrines equal parenting rights for LGBTQ Ontarians, passed unanimously. As Obi-Wan tells Anakin in Revenge of the Sith: “Another happy landing.”
But this decisive victory for social progressives, of whom I happen to be one, wasn’t enough, apparently. We now return to Young Oosterhoff, who had Tweeted a critique of the bill on voting day, and on the morning of his swearing- in was led out — by his own handlers, mind you — to face a media grilling so feverishly hostile, it was a thing to behold.
Oosterhoff was unprepared for what awaited him under the hot lights, and that is a strange failure of his staff. More bizarre still, though, was the tone of many of the reporters’ questions, which were framed as accusations, with nary a cursory effort to mask the questioners’ contempt. Later, as the video made the rounds on social media, the Greek Chorus of revulsion chimed in: “This guy is an ignorant f---!” read one Facebook post. “Scum,” wrote another. “Seriously f--- this little shit,” wrote a third. “Somebody buy the little twerp an hour at a massage parlour,” ventured a fourth. “Maybe then he’ll shut up.”
Oosterhoff ’s criticism of Bill 28? It was, in his opinion, “disrespectful to mothers and fathers,” in removing the terms “mother” and “father” from the legalities of parental status.
The PCs had proposed allowing these to co- exist within the legislation and were overruled. For publicly voicing his objection, Oosterhoff got the modern- day equivalent of a tarring and feathering.
So, this is the question raised for progressives who gleefully joined in the flashmobbing: What part does a contrary opinion, civilly expressed, play in your understanding of pluralism and tolerance?
It was voters who sent Oosterhoff to Queen’s Park. Contempt for him is contempt for those who elected him. Less- than- urbane social conservatives could, one supposes, be dismissed en masse as a “basket of deplorables.” But this approach has not al ways worked out wonderfully well for the progressive side.
WHAT PART DOES A CONTRARY OPINION, CIVILLY EXPRESSED, PLAY? — DEN TANDT