Canada’s Conservative Party’s Death Spasms

The right‘s aggression won’t spare even itself.

Public figure Pierre Poilievre, image credit Chris Wattie/Reuters

I remember when my mother voted for Joe Clark. I was too young to vote at the time, which is good because I didn’t know nearly enough about the issues to make an informed decision. That specific handicap doesn’t stop others. I like to think if my mom were still here she’d be paying enough attention to know that blue campaign signs don’t represent the same things today that they did four decades ago. Many seniors aren’t.

Briefly supplanted by the western Reform Party after a catastrophic election loss in 1993, a decade later the Progressive Conservatives merged with them to form the new Conservative party, discarding the progressive in more than just name. Since then, they’ve emulated their ideological cousins in the GOP by cultivating and catering to extremist elements.

Fox News had launched the new era of partisan alternate reality media bubbles in 1996, marinating viewers in outrage to steadily pickle them from mere Tea Partiers into full blown January 6thers. That was an attempt to seize control of a nation away from its democratically elected government by force no less than invading Ukraine is, although on a less competent stochastic terrorism scale. Of course the western right loves Putin, they’re birds of a feather. Tucker Carlson spouts pro Putin propaganda so enthusiastically that Russian state TV features him heavily, secure in the knowledge they couldn’t dial it up any further themselves and saving a few increasingly worthless roubles in production costs. Canada blocking RT media channels makes little difference when Canuck OAN-equivalent Rebel Media serves as a political fifth column, currently filming their own pro Putin propaganda in Russia. The Rebel, with a track record of directly inspiring white supremacist terrorism, is deeply embedded in the very heart of the party.

When Canada’s turn for an attempt to overthrow elected government came around, this time inflicting billions in economic losses by blockading vital supply chains and holding communities hostage, Conservative members of parliament cheered them on, took selfies with them, and belligerently demanded that prime minister Justin Trudeau negotiate with a crowd that waved a swastika flag and publicly fantasized about…