O’Toole is wise to steer toward the centre
The past four years have taught us, among many other things, just how wide the gap has grown between culture and politics in the United States and in Canada, and how very different the countries are.
But one of those important “other things” is the object lesson we have been offered in how virally, violently and destructively the consequences of demagoguery, populism and white nationalism can spread, how no nation is immune.
It would seem, happily, that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has been paying attention.
By now, O’Toole may well regret the “Take Back Canada” slogan he used in his leadership campaign. We don’t know exactly what was in his mind, but in the era of “Make America Great Again,” it amounted at the very least to a dog-whistle to elements of the far right, the bigots and bringers of extremism.
If he hopes ever to be elected, O’Toole was going to have to ditch that sort of divisive message and steer his party back toward the mainstream of political debate.
That correction appeared to be underway this past week with O’Toole’s description of former Conservative MP Derek Sloan as an agent of “destructive behaviour” and with the vote by the party’s caucus to expel Sloan from their ranks.
Sloan, who represents the Ontario riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington, was ousted for having accepted a donation from Paul Fromm, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, in his failed leadership bid.
But O’Toole said it resulted “not from one specific event, but because of a pattern of destructive behaviour involving multiple incidents and disrespect toward the Conservative team for over a year.”
Among those incidents were Sloan’s suggestion that homosexuality could be a choice and his questioning of chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam’s loyalty to Canada.
After his expulsion, Sloan expressed no regrets about anything he has said or done. But rumblings were reported from within the Conservative caucus suggesting displeasure with the leader’s handling of the matter and how their former colleague had been allowed for too long to attract those of extreme views to the party.
Perhaps O’Toole was slow to deal with Sloan because he had been all too happy to send accommodating signals to the same cohort and court the support of the right in his own bid to succeed Andrew Scheer as leader last year.
O’Toole’s campaign slogan was far too close in word and implication to the “Make America Great Again” mantra of the now-former president Donald Trump.
Any political leader promising a return to some imagined bygone golden era can easily be interpreted as encouraging an aggrieved portion of the white population to hanker for the “good old days” when it enjoyed unquestioned dominance.
O’Toole hardly helped himself by musing in December about the merits of Canada’s original intentions on residential schools for Indigenous peoples.
They were “meant to try and provide education,” he said. When, as their supporters made clear, their intent was to “kill the Indian in the child.”
What the past four years in America have taught us — especially the assault on the U.S. Capitol — is that words matter, slogans are too often taken literally, and what leaders say has real consequences.
The sort of insurrection witnessed in Washington won’t come to Canada anytime soon. But extremism has existed in this country, pockets of grievance certainly exist, and such tinder can be fanned into greater threat by malicious or reckless politics.
The events in Washington showed that it’s important to take the agents of grievance and resentment seriously, not merely as cartoon characters who can be safely laughed off. It taught us the perils of weaponizing the most emotional of issues to divide.
So before O’Toole can move ahead, he has some work to do and some self-inflicted wounds to heal.
He has properly started on the business of ridding himself of the worst elements in his caucus. The Conservative party of “old-stock Canadians” and “barbaric cultural practices” hotlines should be interred once and for all.
O’Toole must make plain, consistently and in blunt language, that extremists are not welcome in his party and their views are anathema to its best traditions.
He must begin redefining himself and the party he leads, ridding himself of the anti-science, anti-gay, anti-vaccine fringe, presenting a more moderate option acceptable to the suburban electorates of Ontario and Quebec that are the key to electoral success.
As pollster Michael Adams wrote shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, the global rise of populism in the past decade was marked by “fear, economic uncertainty and shopping lists of resentments directed at others.”
He said countries — including Canada — that had managed, by intention or good fortune, to foster social resilience, reduce inequality, provide collective health insurance and unemployment support were less susceptible to the seductions of populism.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. O’Toole was sensible to get rid of Sloan.
He would be wiser still to take note of the qualities Adams outlined as vaccines that help to keep societies safe from the worst impulses of human nature.