In America, the new President-elect, Donald Trump, is a man who built his campaign on fear. Part of that fear was unique to the election, as he painted his opponent as a beacon of corruption, refusing to say her name without saying “crooked” first. The other fear was more generalized, demonizing entire religions and nations, trying to get people to fear others whose only crime was being born beyond the southern border, or into a religion not shared by the majority.
The first part is par for the course of any election season, and has been a go-to strategy for candidates on any side of the political fence. The second part is important, and one that is relevant to Canada. This is because of the current Conservative leadership campaign, and at least one Candidate is doing a Trump-esque campaign, also trying to use fear of an outside culture to gain power.
Kellie Leitch is more subtle than Trump, which is inevitable when being compared to one of world’s most obnoxious human beings. But her tactics are the same. She has targeted immigrants as the enemy in her leadership bid, she’s trying to make people fear some sort of outside force. The barbarians at the gates that Leitch has invented don’t share “Canadian values,” whatever those might be, and she wants us to fear them in order to carry her into power.
This strategy has failed in Canada before, back when Leitch was part of the “barbaric cultural practices” hotline, something thoroughly unnecessary – most of the practices marked as “barbaric” were actual crimes, and thus would require a call to the police instead – but pitched at making people fear their new neighbors from different cultures. The screening based on values is another way to play to that kind of fear, same as building a wall at the border or proposing mass deportation, as has been done in our southern neighbors’ election.
The subtlety in Leitch’s approach is that she doesn’t outright say she wants to ban a specific group, such as Muslims, but she assumes that people will make up their own group they want to see banished from Canada. It’s such a meaningless term that she can play to a wide range of fears at once – so long as someone is perceived as an “other,” whether due to race, culture or religion, they can be believably kicked out of the country thanks to Leitch’s thoroughly unnecessary screening process.
Defining “Canadian values” is outright impossible. My personal values are not going to align with Leitch’s values, for example, which is probably obvious from this column so far. Canada is a multi-cultural country, like it or not, and that means there is no one universal thing that defines us. Canadian values change depending on who you talk to.
Near as I can tell, the one value that Canadians all share is that we are proud of the fact that we’re not Americans. If we embrace a fear of people from another culture, we will be doing what Americans just did in their own election. Since it’s the one thing that defines the country, by embracing her Canadian values screening, we’d be supporting our own deportation.
