Quote:
On Sunday night, only a few hours after the horrific mass murder of six Muslim men and the wounding of 19 others praying in a Quebec City mosque, controversial Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch tweeted the following: “Heartbreaking news out of Quebec City tonight. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims.”
Normally this would be seen as a politician’s genuine expression of sympathy. But in Leitch’s case, there were swift angry replies on Twitter: “Don’t you dare,” said one. Another called her a “gross opportunist.” “Not another damn word saying whether or not they have Canadian values,” said a third, blaming Leitch for “fuelling hate.”
Even the satirical online magazine The Beaverton got in on the act, with a piece headlined “Kellie Leitch heartbroken that people would act on hate she’s incited.”
More details are emerging about Alexandre Bissonnette, the young white Quebecois man charged with the murders and attempted murders of the men praying in the mosque.
He was “quiet,” he played chess, he had studied at Laval University, and his social media presence included antagonism toward refugees and feminists, and admiration for the views of far right French politician Marine Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump.
There was no mention of Kellie Leitch.
But she was there all the same, in the shadows of this horrific crime, a mainstream Canadian politician who wants to be our next Prime Minister.
Leitch, a doctor and former cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s government, has called publicly for the in-person screening of immigrants, presumably like the men shot in the mosque, specifically for “non-Canadian values.” She has not explained how this could be accomplished.
She has talked enthusiastically of Trump’s victory and his “exciting message.” She regularly slams her country’s “elites” who want “open borders.”
Leitch issued a second condemnatory statement about the Quebec City shooting, referring to the “people” who were “murdered as they prayed” in a “house of worship.” She never once used the word Muslim or mosque. By not naming their faith, she slighted them.
Words — or lack of them — matter. Her campaign manager Nick Kouvalis, who was also Mayor John Tory’s chief strategist in 2014, has his own problem with words. He publicly used the word “####,” short for ####old, but now part of the hateful new white supremacist and neo-Nazi vocabulary. The word is meant to emasculate people they see as too weak to accept hard right positions.
Kouvalis used it on Twitter to berate a constitutional scholar critical of Leitch. Kouvalis also accused him of “treason.”
Kouvalis has since “unreservedly” apologized, saying he used words he shouldn’t have.
But how is this word even in his head or vocabulary that in a moment of anger he can spew it out? This word connects him directly to a hate-filled group.
We need to talk about this. We need to connect all the dots. Leitch has said, emboldened by surveys, that “70 per cent of Canadians agree” with her proposal to screen for values, which while she never says it out loud, seem at every turn to be referencing Muslims.
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https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/02...ch-timson.html
Federal leadership candidate's campaign manager publicly using alt-right language to attack a prominent member of academia.
Don't think for a second what is happening down south can't happen here.
There is a disgusting element in our society that demands any Canadian serious about continuing our legacy as a free and open society need to condemn and excise.
This is outright appalling and I would hope any conservative who has previously commented on the need for Muslims to publicly condemn radical Islam should be first in line to condemn Kellie Leitch and her negligent use of inflammatory language and policies.