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The Niagara Independent, April 19, 2019 \u2014 <\/em>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was having great fun addressing his supporters at the Liberal Party of Canada convention in Mississauga last weekend. The PM was mocking his opponent, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, suggesting he and Ontario Premier Doug Ford were populist rubes dangerously appealing to the lowest common denominator of the Canadian public.<\/p>\n In his campaign-like speech, the PM revealed the Liberals\u2019 electioneering tact to galvanize their support: dish out a hefty dose of \u201cfear and smear\u201d and label the opponent as \u201cpopulists,\u201d \u201cclimate change deniers,\u201d and \u201ctolerant of alt-right, white nationalists.\u201d In his bid to be re-elected, Justin Trudeau is going toxic. His provocation suggests Canadians should brace for an election campaign of divisive debates and coarser, uncompromising public discourse.<\/p>\n Consider this statement: \u201cWhy worry about climate change, they say, when immigrants are taking your jobs. Andrew Scheer conveniently fails to call out alt-right conspiracy theories. Andrew Scheer fought against a non-binding motion to denounce Islamophobia. Andrew Scheer has proudly spoken at the same rallies as white nationalists. Is that someone who will govern for all Canadians?\u00a0I don’t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n The PM followed that inflammatory rhetoric this week with a jeering tweet: \u201cWhite supremacy has no place in Canada. It\u2019s time for all parties, including Andrew Scheer\u2019s Conservative Party, to stand together in denouncing hatred in all its forms.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Trudeau\u2019s Border Security Minister Bill Blair piled on with a tweet of his own: \u201cWhite nationalism is a threat to Canada and the safety of our communities. Andrew Scheer panders to people promoting these hateful views. This isn\u2019t leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n This type of grisly mud-slinging is something Canadians have not experienced before and, it appears, the Liberals\u2019 insinuations are being challenged by political commentators from all sides.<\/p>\n Conservative Senator Leo Housakos took offence to the PM\u2019s suggestion that Conservative supporters of Andrew Scheer are in allegiance with white supremacists. The Senator took to Twitter to hit back at the PM and Minister Blair. He tweeted: \u201cTRUDEAU-born into 24 Sussex and raised in Westmount with trust funds. Calls HOUSAKOS-(a son of immigrants) born and raised in Park-Extension a racist\/white supremacist. The desperation of this PM is pathetic and disgusting.\u201d He continued: \u201c@JustinTrudeau, who compared my Greek immigrant parents to returning ISIS fighters, wants to lecture me on confronting racism. I’ll take no lessons from you, sir. Where was your father when my grandfathers were fighting Nazis in WW2?\u201d<\/p>\n Western newsman Lorne Gunter suggests the Liberals are testing out a 21st-Century version of McCarthyism to see whether that might get them \u201cout of the SNC-Lavalin bog.\u201d Gunter observed: \u00a0\u201cAccording to Trudeau, Scheer doesn\u2019t do enough to denounce white supremacists and once shared a speaking platform with people who were later banned by Facebook for their hateful messages. It is a very low-class, anti-intellectual and desperate ploy.\u201d<\/p>\n Liberal backroom operative Warren Kinsella agrees that this latest Liberal tactic is a \u201crepellant strategy\u201d by a PM and Party \u201cdesperate to move on from the Lavscam scandal.\u201d Kinsella wrote in an editorial piece: \u201cIt\u2019s dishonest and it\u2019s despicable, but Trudeau is also undeterred. The Liberal leader is double-digits behind the Tory leader, some polls suggest. He is frantically attempting to change the channel from Lavscam. So, what Justin Trudeau is doing is more than disgusting. It is disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the arraigned Conservative Leader, on Wednesday Scheer emphatically stated that he \u201c100 per cent denounces anyone who promotes white nationalism, promotes any type of extremism.\u201d He too took to Twitter to defend himself: \u201cRacism and white supremacy are threats in Canada and I condemn them unequivocally,\u201d and then added, \u201cIt is pathetic and disgusting that Liberals are inflaming these threats to divide Canadians and score cheap points.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole ugly exchange this week was, perhaps, summed up best in a Sun Media editorial: \u201cLiberals are treating racism like an electoral prop \u2013 that\u2019s wrong.\u201d What is disheartening for most Canadians is that this sordid exchange is only the Liberals\u2019 first salvo. We can expect that, as the politicians hit the campaign trail, there will be plenty more of this combative rhetoric. Though their accusations are completely groundless, our politicians make them anyway. The uglier, the better. Plant the seed. Look to reap the harvest at the ballot box.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris George<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of\u00a0CG&A COMMUNICATIONS<\/a>. Contact:\u00a0ChrisG.George@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n