Immigration is dangerous ground

Iwant to believe the Conservatives did not know who Diane Blain was or what she stood for when they rallied to her side after her infamous corn-roast contretemps with Justin Trudeau last week in Sabrevois, Que.

In the aftermath of the event, in which Trudeau called the woman intolerant and racist after she heckled him with demands to know whether he would reimburse the government of Quebec for the cost of looking after “your illegal immigrants,” Conservative MPS assailed the prime minister for, as Leader Andrew Scheer put it, “sweeping away legitimate questions on his failed border policy with vile personal insults.” The questions Blain was asking, wrote immigration critic Michelle Rempel, were “the exact questions we have been asking him.”

But just as Conservatives were working themselves into a lather over the incident as an example of the prime minister’s habit of demonizing critics, it emerged that Blain was in fact an activist in the far-right groups Storm Alliance and Front Patriotique du Québec, last in the news for refusing to be served by a Muslim at a Université de Montréal dental clinic.

No doubt the Liberals are too quick to assume the worst of their critics, inhabiting as they do a milieu in which the possibility that sentient adults might hold views contrary to their own is regarded as so improbable as to be explicable only by ignorance, malice or worse. The prime minister’s declared intent to make “divisiveness” the central issue of the next election — to emphasize, as it were, the stark contrast between his own party and the polarizers opposite — is revealing in its irony.

But to call out a demonstrably racist and intolerant person as racist and intolerant is hardly demonizing. It’s just accurate.

It would not have taken much research for the Conservatives to have unearthed Blain’s background, but it should not have required even that. Her followup question, whether the prime minister was tolerant of “Québécois de souche,” or the descendants of the original French settlers, should have been enough.

For that matter, so should the single-minded fixation that would lead her to travel some distance to a Liberal rally just to scream at the prime minister over the “illegal” immigrant question. People of goodwill can be concerned that admission to Canada should be by lawful and regular means, as they may criticize the Liberal government for its handling of the issue. It is the elevation of what remains a comparatively minor issue — we are talking about fewer than 60 asylum seekers a day — into a frothing obsession that should set off alarm bells.

But then, that would require the Conservatives to take a hard look at their own persistent fearmongering on the matter. Legitimate questions are one thing. But Conservative rhetoric on what they insist is a “crisis” is so monomaniacal, so out of proportion to its actual significance, that no one should be fooled. It is wrong to tar legitimate critics as racist or intolerant, but it is just as wrong to try to pass off calculated appeals to xenophobia as just “asking questions.”

Which brings us to Maxime Bernier. The Conservatives’ efforts to paint Trudeau as intolerant of dissent might have had more traction had they not spent the better part of the last week in a fairly concerted attempt to marginalize the MP from the Beauce over a series of tweets attacking the Liberals’ alleged “extreme multiculturalism” and “cult of diversity.”

If some of the reaction was over the top, nevertheless their discomfort was understandable. Debates over immigration are legitimate, important and necessary. But they are also inevitably emotional and fraught with potential for misunderstanding. In this context Bernier’s comments are not just simplistic and off-message, but reckless.

Part of the problem is the ambiguity of some of the terms he tosses about. At times Bernier seems to be referring to “multiculturalism” as policy, the merits of which may certainly be debated, as his defenders have pointed out; likewise for “diversity,” where this is interpreted to mean policies rooted in the primacy of racial and other group identities, rather than the equality of every individual.

At other times he seems to have an issue with multiculturalism and diversity, not as policies, but as sociological facts, or at least with “more” of these. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that you are pandering to racial and cultural resentments when you use phrases such as “where do we draw the line” or warn against attempts to “forcibly change the cultural character” of Canada through “too high” immigration, even if that were not your intent.

It isn’t just the content of one’s remarks that matter in this regard: it’s also the tone, emphasis and timing. There is nothing wrong with the desire that a society should have some common ideals, ambitions and yes, values to hold it together. But when this is bound up in conspiratorial suggestions that certain parties are attempting to subvert or destroy these, and even more when this is attached to immigration, as the instrument of this supposed campaign, the argument veers onto dangerous ground.

Had Bernier wished to open a serious debate on multiculturalism, he might have delivered a major speech on the subject, issued a position paper, offered evidence of having given the matter the careful thought it deserves. He might have spelled out, in specific terms, just how Canada suffers from “too much” diversity, if it does, or at what point we might, or why the issue should be of such urgency at this moment.

As it is, with nothing but a series of inflammatory tweets in support, it looks like a stunt — at best aimed at grabbing attention, at worst at harnessing the worst elements of the Conservative coalition in support of his obviously unslaked leadership ambitions. It’s not courageous or politically incorrect to do this. It’s just sloppy and dumb.