Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner:
A duty to reject conspiracy theories about white replacement
Special to National Post -
While campaigning in the greater Toronto area in the lead up to the 2015 election, I knocked on a door and an older white woman opened. After my opening spiel, she looked for confirmation, “so you’re with the Tories?”
Mourners gather two days after a shooting in Buffalo, New York, U.S. May 16, 2022. Picture taken May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Jeffrey T. Barnes N
After I answered in the affirmative, she let me have it. “Harper let so many brown people in around here that none of you deserve to win. You’ve replaced us with them. Canada is ruined.”
That was not the first or the last time I have had to counter that particular racist diatribe. It is a core tenet of so-called “great replacement theory”; an anti-Semitic white-nationalist conspiracy theory involving a supposed plot to replace white people with non-whites.
The narrative it usually follows is that the immigration policy of western countries is designed to replace whites, or to “out breed them,” in order to prevent whites from getting jobs, dominating culture, or electing a “pro-white” government. It is racism built on longstanding colonial and white nationalist dogma that never truly has been erased, even after decades spent building pluralistic policy
And this dangerous sentiment is mainstreamed.
Having proliferated in online forums, a poll released this month by the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research showed that 32 per cent of Americans believe that “a group of people is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.” Nearly one in three respondents also agreed that, “an increase in immigration is leading to native-born Americans losing economic, political and cultural influence.”
Those numbers have significance for politicians. In the wake of white replacement rhetoric being found in what appears to be the manifesto of the suspected perpetrator of Saturday’s Buffalo murders — of which a majority of the victims were black — on Monday, prominent Republican Elise Stefanik leaned into replacement theory. Instead of being introspective about the actual reasons why new immigrants may not want vote for her party, she instead pointed to the replacement theory and wrote, “Democrats desperately want wide open border and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote.”
It is pure ignorance to believe that white replacement dogma doesn’t exist in Canada.
In a wink to this sentiment, some right leaning political candidates in recent years, both at the federal and provincial levels, have promised to “lower immigration levels” without explaining what benefit this would bring to Canada.
Long before the blockade in Ottawa happened, organizer Pat King, who rose to mainstream prominence during the occupation, posted a video stating that, “And that’s what the goal is, is to depopulate the Anglo-Saxon race because they are the ones with the strongest bloodlines … It’s a depopulation of race, okay, that’s what they want to do.”
And white replacement dogma has fuelled murder in Canada, having been cited as motivation for acts of terrorism that slaughtered people at a Quebec City mosque and mowed down a Muslim family in London, Ontario.
There is no justification for this murderous garbage. The assumption that white Canadians are more hard done by than immigrants is rooted in the racist notion that the right to basic dignities and equality of opportunity is predicated on someone’s skin colour as opposed to shared humanity, not fact.
The proof of this is a lived reality for many racialized Canadians. During the pandemic, new Canadians were significantly more likely to be affected by pandemic related job losses than Canadian-born workers. The first year of the pandemic also saw police reported hate crimes in Canada increase by an alarming 37 per cent. New immigrants are far more likely to work in low-income jobs than Canadian born-workers. Non-white Canadians are still far more likely to experience discrimination, hate crimes, and have less representation at the senior levels of power than whites. A significant portion of Canada’s agricultural labour is provided by non-Canadians who are afforded precious few opportunities to permanently reside in our country.
Beyond the fear, murder and destructive power white replacement dogma brings to Canada’s pluralism, it also cripples action from occurring on issues that need to be addressed. How can we truly address inequality if we believe some are more worthy of equality than others? How can we address First Nations and Indigenous reconciliation if there are those who still hold fast to white entitlement beliefs? How can we address the lack of focus on integration supports that belies most of Canada’s current immigration policy? How can women become more equal if the act of childbearing is reduced a notion of “breeding” solely to maintain the numbers one racial group or another?
With Canadian politics becoming more divisive and polarized every day, this dogma can’t be ignored. It must be vehemently, and proactively, denounced and stopped. This is particularly true for leaders in right leaning political movements where this sentiment may be more pervasive, and the temptation to mainstream it for political gain is greater. Promoting it or being silent when it occurs in the ranks amounts to the same thing.
The freedom of our nation exists only as long as we are willing to fight for the dignity and rights of every human, no matter what, skin colour be damned.
Michelle Rempel Garner is the Member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill and the co-chair of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party of Canada.
(PROGRESSIVE) CONSERVATIVE MP
WHO SUPPORTS WICCA
Ahead of a rare Halloween full moon, she told all the witches out there to “keep rockin’ it.”
By Mel Woods
Oct. 30, 2020,
Must be the season of the witch on Parliament Hill.
At the very least, it is for Calgary Nosehill MP Michelle Rempel Garner.
The Tory health critic marked Halloween weekend Friday with a tribute to the witches of the past and the present.
“Throughout the course of history, women have been burned at the stake and tortured for being witches,” Rempel Garner said. “In reality they were herbalists, midwives or just too independent for the patriarchy’s liking.”
According to the rules of the House of Commons, MPs may take one minute to give a statement on whatever they want. Rempel Garner used the time to make a seasonally appropriate and expansive statement on women and Halloween.
She also specifically shouted out independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was booted from the Liberal caucus in 2019 after speaking out during the SNC-Lavalin affair.
“Today we might not literally burn women at the stake, but we still don’t believe them when they’re abused, we still punish them when they speak truth to power,” Rempel Garner said.
The speech was timed not only with Halloween, but Samhain, a traditional festival marking the end of the harvest and beginning of the dark winter. It’s traditionally observed starting on Halloween night and rolling into Nov. 1. The festival is marked annually by neo-pagans and wiccans as a religious holiday.
This weekend will be extra special, as it’s the first full moon visible across North America on Halloween in 76 years. It’s also a rare Halloween “Blue Moon,” meaning the second full moon of the month. October is the only month with a Blue Moon in 2020, according to NASA.
Conservative Party investigating racist email sent to Brown campaign
Richard Raycraft -
The Conservative Party of Canada says it's investigating a complaint from the Patrick Brown campaign about a racist email which expressed support for Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
© Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Richard Raycraft -
The Conservative Party of Canada says it's investigating a complaint from the Patrick Brown campaign about a racist email which expressed support for Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
© Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Workers prepare the room before the opening of the Conservative Party's national convention in Halifax on Thursday, August 23, 2018. The party is investigating a racist email sent to leadership candidate Patrick Brown's campaign.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, co-chair of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown's campaign for the Conservative leadership, posted the text of the email Wednesday on her Twitter account.
In it, the sender expresses support for Hitler and Nazism and makes hateful and racist remarks about a number of ethnic groups. The sender goes on to say they support Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative MP who is one of Brown's rivals in the Conservative leadership campaign.
Rempel Garner said the message was sent to the Brown campaign after the campaign sent en email denouncing the "white replacement" conspiracy theory, which has been a source of tension in the leadership race since a shooter killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, N.Y. last weekend.
She added the Brown campaign had confirmed the message came from an active Conservative Party member.
"The campaign has forwarded this email to the party's Executive Director and have asked that this membership be revoked. We expect all campaigns will support this call," Rempel Garner said in a follow-up tweet.
"No person who holds these vile beliefs should have a home in the Conservative Party of Canada."
In a tweet, the Conservative Party said it will investigate the complaint under the party's Membership Revocation Bylaw.
"The Conservative Party of Canada condemns racism in all its forms. We take any and all allegations of racism seriously," the party said in a tweet.
In a statement sent to CBC News, Poilievre denounced racism.
"I reject all racism. If you are a racist, I don't want your vote. Anyone promoting racism has no place in our party and should lose their membership," he said.
Brown campaign email attacks Poilievre
The email and investigation follow a campaign email the Brown team sent out earlier Wednesday which implied that Poilievre was trying to appeal to racists.
The email says a supporter of Poilievre said Brown's strategy in the race is to "replace the CPC membership with ethnic and religious minorities," but the email does not name the alleged Poilievre supporter or go into further detail.
"If that kind of alarming language about "replacing" people sounds familiar to you, it may be because it closely resembles the racist rants of Pat King, one of the organizers of the illegal blockades that took place across our country a few months back," Brown says in the email.
Brown has attacked Poilievre over his vocal support for the protest convoy.
The email mentions comments King made in a video about a conspiracy to "depopulate" the "Anglo-Saxon race."
Earlier this week, in an interview with psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, Poilievre said in response to a question about his political appeal that he speaks in "clear, plain language that makes sense to people" and uses "simple, Anglo-Saxon words" that don't obscure what he's trying to say.
Brown said in the email that while he doesn't believe Poilievre is racist, he draws a link between King's beliefs and Poilievre's words.
"Before I make my next point, let me just say there are things being said about Pierre Poilievre online that simply aren't true. For one, I do not believe Pierre Poilievre holds racist views," Brown says in the email.
"But when Pierre Poilievre says things like, 'I'm a believer in using simple, Anglo-Saxon words,' who does he think he's appealing to? Who is he trying to bring into the Conservative Party?"
Brown ends the email by denouncing the white replacement conspiracy theory, saying he'll never allow it "to flourish in the Conservative Party."
Poilievre and Brown have traded barbs throughout the campaign. Poilievre's gone after Brown over passages in his book that are critical of social conservatives and has accused him more than once of making misleading statements
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, co-chair of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown's campaign for the Conservative leadership, posted the text of the email Wednesday on her Twitter account.
In it, the sender expresses support for Hitler and Nazism and makes hateful and racist remarks about a number of ethnic groups. The sender goes on to say they support Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative MP who is one of Brown's rivals in the Conservative leadership campaign.
Rempel Garner said the message was sent to the Brown campaign after the campaign sent en email denouncing the "white replacement" conspiracy theory, which has been a source of tension in the leadership race since a shooter killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, N.Y. last weekend.
She added the Brown campaign had confirmed the message came from an active Conservative Party member.
"The campaign has forwarded this email to the party's Executive Director and have asked that this membership be revoked. We expect all campaigns will support this call," Rempel Garner said in a follow-up tweet.
"No person who holds these vile beliefs should have a home in the Conservative Party of Canada."
In a tweet, the Conservative Party said it will investigate the complaint under the party's Membership Revocation Bylaw.
"The Conservative Party of Canada condemns racism in all its forms. We take any and all allegations of racism seriously," the party said in a tweet.
In a statement sent to CBC News, Poilievre denounced racism.
"I reject all racism. If you are a racist, I don't want your vote. Anyone promoting racism has no place in our party and should lose their membership," he said.
Brown campaign email attacks Poilievre
The email and investigation follow a campaign email the Brown team sent out earlier Wednesday which implied that Poilievre was trying to appeal to racists.
The email says a supporter of Poilievre said Brown's strategy in the race is to "replace the CPC membership with ethnic and religious minorities," but the email does not name the alleged Poilievre supporter or go into further detail.
"If that kind of alarming language about "replacing" people sounds familiar to you, it may be because it closely resembles the racist rants of Pat King, one of the organizers of the illegal blockades that took place across our country a few months back," Brown says in the email.
Brown has attacked Poilievre over his vocal support for the protest convoy.
The email mentions comments King made in a video about a conspiracy to "depopulate" the "Anglo-Saxon race."
Earlier this week, in an interview with psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, Poilievre said in response to a question about his political appeal that he speaks in "clear, plain language that makes sense to people" and uses "simple, Anglo-Saxon words" that don't obscure what he's trying to say.
Brown said in the email that while he doesn't believe Poilievre is racist, he draws a link between King's beliefs and Poilievre's words.
"Before I make my next point, let me just say there are things being said about Pierre Poilievre online that simply aren't true. For one, I do not believe Pierre Poilievre holds racist views," Brown says in the email.
"But when Pierre Poilievre says things like, 'I'm a believer in using simple, Anglo-Saxon words,' who does he think he's appealing to? Who is he trying to bring into the Conservative Party?"
Brown ends the email by denouncing the white replacement conspiracy theory, saying he'll never allow it "to flourish in the Conservative Party."
Poilievre and Brown have traded barbs throughout the campaign. Poilievre's gone after Brown over passages in his book that are critical of social conservatives and has accused him more than once of making misleading statements
No comments:
Post a Comment