Lock it out of Canada

If there is any American import that should be stopped at the Canadian border today, it is the hate-fuelled politics of Donald Trump.

Canadians may assure themselves they’re immune to the vicious, divide-and-conquer populism that made Trump the next U.S. president, but a rally in Edmonton last weekend shows how wrong that assumption is.

As federal Conservative leadership hopeful Chris Alexander slammed the record of Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, the crowd of 1,000 outside the provincial legislature chanted loudly and clearly, “Lock her up.”

This was, of course, the infamous cry heard at so many pro-Trump Republican rallies in the recent presidential election race. And it was always directed at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom an obliging Trump vowed to have formally investigated if he won.

As a former federal cabinet minister in a country with less extreme, dare we say more polite, politics, Alexander might have been expected to denounce the repeated demands to “lock … up” the premier.

Not only did he, unfortunately, fail to do this, video footage shows him smiling and nodding as the words were being screamed.

While Alexander later said the chant made him uncomfortable and that he disagreed with its sentiment, it would have been better if he had told this to the crowd and asked them to cease and desist. The chant was anti-democratic as well as a challenge to the rule of law.

The Edmonton protesters were literally demanding the arrest and incarceration of Alberta’s duly elected leader and chief lawmaker. Even if they thought their words were satirical or funny — yet what sick humour it would have been — “lock her up” sounds like a serious threat.

While Notley, like every other politician, is not beyond criticism, she surely doesn’t deserve this.

Of course, it was the echoes of the mob that elected Trump that made it even more chilling.

In their reckless grab for power, Trump and his campaign enlisted the sinister forces of extreme, rightwing America — the racists, the misogynists, the nativists, the anti-immigration lobby, the bigots for whom government of the people means only people like them.

And because this is how Trump won, America is today is a collection of angry, uneasy, disunited states. Canadians don’t want that to happen here. Yet, in addition to the chants against Premier Notley on the weekend, flyers were circulated at the Edmonton rally with the title, “Unnecessary Immigration is Destroying Canada.”

And another speaker at the event called for hackers to “dig up” what’s going on in the provincial legislature. It sounded far too close to the call made by Trump during the election campaign in response to the missing emails of his rival, Hillary Clinton.

Although Chris Alexander was painfully slow in distancing himself from the Edmonton protesters, two other contenders in the federal Conservative leadership race, MP Michael Chong and MP Deepak Obhrai, forcefully rejected the message. Good for them.

The misguided ways of a Donald Trump should have no place in their party — or in Canada.