Just. Wow.
I am rarely speechless, ask anyone, but this latest hate crime in Quebec City has me reeling.
I just sat here at my computer for 20 minutes staring at a blank page. You will have to forgive me if what follows is a bit disjointed.
Despite all the problems in the world, despite my penchant for identifying and venting about them, I have always been more or less an optimist.
So, while there has been political ebb and flow, I’ve always felt like on balance, we have been making progress toward a better world. The pendulum swung between left-centre and right-centre and we managed to keep the nutjobs out on the fringes where they belong.
Not any more. Now the nutjobs have control of perhaps the most powerful office on the planet and I feel like the liberal democratic reality I have always cherished is unraveling.
Whether we agreed or disagreed on the fine points, we have always maintained a relative equilibrium on the big picture, on the values of liberty, the rule of law tolerance and inclusiveness that our brave men and women fought for during two world wars and lesser conflicts since.
In Canada, during the Stephen Harper years, I felt like we were sliding. With his repression of scientists, hatred of the media, disregard for democratic institutions and blurring of the line between church and state, there was plenty to worry about, but Donald Trump and his team are taking those things to a level Harper never even dreamed of, nor, do I think he would have wanted to.
Part of that, of course, is because Canada could never wield even a fraction of the power the United States does, but it’s also because I think Harper was, at heart, a decent human being.
Trump is not. He is a menace to humanity and there can be little doubt this latest shooting, if not directly inspired, is a symptom of a new reality in which it has become okay, at least in the minds of some unstable persons, to target innocents on the basis of inclusion in an irrationally and ideologically vilified group.
There is no question radical Islam is a problem in the world. Part of that is a product of Western interventionism, but it is certainly not justification for abandoning liberal democratic values, much less shooting up a mosque.
And, radical Christianity is also a problem in the world.
We talk a lot about the radicalization of Muslim youth by Islamic terrorist groups, but what about the radicalization of white youth by a neo-Nazi movement that is no longer on the fringe, but has infested the very corridors of power in Washington DC.
Trump’s refusal to distance himself from these radical hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, his elevation of one of the worst of their kind to the nation’s Security Council, his reckless use of executive orders to sanction an entire class of persons and his nonexistent relationship with the truth is almost incomprehensibly dangerous.
Trump’s mouthpiece, Sean Spicer, as disingenuous and reprehensible a spokesperson as the White House has ever seen, even had the gall to suggest the Quebec shooting was justification for his boss’s travel ban on Muslims. The illogic of that position is astounding.
We are now living in very disturbing times, and even if the Quebec killer of six innocent people is just a deranged individual, this will not be the end of this kind of attack.
I have to say, though, I am proud of our premier. Trumpism is rampant in Saskatchewan and even many people who are skeptical of the man, are sympathetic to some of his policies, particularly anti-immigrant ones.
It would have been very easy for Wall to come out soft on, or avoid commenting on the Trump travel ban altogether. It probably would not even have been all that politically damaging for him to weakly support it.
He did not, though. He came out strongly against it with a thoughtful and principled position.
Those of us in the centre of the political spectrum must now be prepared to fight extremism in all its forms.
What happened in Quebec is just the most recent and extreme of hate crimes that are regularly occurring across the continent.
