Bernier launches People’s Party of Canada
Racists not wanted, former Tory says
OTTAWA — Quebec MP Maxime Bernier says those who hold racist views toward immigration do not have a place in his new party.
Bernier held a news conference Friday to unveil the name and logo of his new political venture — the People’s Party of Canada. But one of his first orders of business was to defend his new party in the wake of support from a fringe political group.
“They don’t have a place in our party. I don’t share these values,” said Bernier.
He said he would screen potential candidates interested in running for his party and that xenophobic individuals will not be allowed to run.
Bernier himself was criticized in August for a series of tweets which argued “too much diversity” erodes Canada’s identity and destroys what makes it great. He said immigration shouldn’t be open to those who don’t share Canadian values of freedom and equality.
This week, Bernier tweeted in response to a story about the surge in asylum seekers at the U.S.-Canada border, “If you can buy a plane ticket from Nigeria to N.Y., you’re not a real refugee. How long will this costly farce continue to destabilize our refugee system? The solution is to close the loophole in the treaty and immediately return these false refugees to the U.S.”
He said Friday he’s very open to immigration, but wants to look at the levels and wants people who come to Canada to be able to have a job and “share our Canadian values. So let’s have a real debate about that.”
Bernier’s championing of the immigration debate seems to be rallying some people he says he does not want in his party.
Bernier confirmed this week that he took a phone call from Travis Patron, the leader of the Canadian Nationalist Party, who proposes banning burkas, deporting asylum seekers and lowering immigration levels to between 20,0000 and 100,000 a year.
Bernier reportedly told Patron that those numbers were too low, but he would like to see immigration levels decrease to 250,000 per year. He told reporters to “stay tuned” for his party’s concrete proposal.
Patron told the Canadian Press that he was attracted to Bernier’s leadership because Bernier is willing to debate multiculturalism, but a spokesman for Bernier said there will be no more contact with Patron.
Immigration is also a politically hot issue in the Quebec election. During Thursday night’s debate, Coalition Avenir Quebec Leader François Legault defended his proposal to expel immigrants who fail a French test after three years in the province.
Bernier, who has spent much of the last year fighting with his former colleagues in the Conservative Party over supply management, made the bombshell announcement in August that he’s ditching the Conservative party to form his own. He called his former colleagues “intellectually and morally corrupt.”
He said Friday he has raised $140,000 thus far and that thousands of people have reached out to him but he is not quite ready to register his party with Elections Canada. That step will happen over the next several weeks, he said, adding that the party will be ready with 338 candidates on the ballot in the October 2019 federal election.