Canadians are too politically correct to accept a politician such as right-wing Geert Wilders who has been running in the Netherlands for that country’s parliamentary elections yesterday. At one point the pollsters were suggesting that the right-wing anti-Islam, anti-EU politician’s Freedom Party could get as much as 20 per cent of the popular vote. And in Holland, with proportional representation, that means 20 per cent of the seats.
But the question needs to be raised in Canada as to whether it is better to air those opinions or suppress them?
First, we know that Wilders and his party will not be able to be part of the government. The Dutch Liberals under Mark Rutte with more than 25 seats will be putting together the coalition that will rule for the next four years. There is no way that they would invite Wilders to be part of that coalition.
From the sidelines, Wilder will be shrill in his ongoing message of hate.
But does that not give us more time to refute the garbage he spouts?
And you should bear in mind that, compared to Wilders, President Trump is a diplomat.
Our home-grown right, such as M.P. Kellie Leitch have to use code words for bigotry or they would face the wrath of their own party.
The problem in Canada is that with our first-past-the-post electoral system is that the major political parties have to take the “big tent” approach to gather the voting support for a majority. You get the Liberals running with a broad left-wing appeal and then ruling with right wing gusto. The Conservatives never seem to mention their denials of women’s and gay rights during an election but you know the pressure is always there. And the New Democrat’s attempts at right-wing promises create their own nemesis.
Our failure in North America to face these issues directly could be part of the reason that so many of us were wrong in calling last year’s American election. From Hillary Clinton on down the chain, we failed to see the real strength of Trump. He was feeding the chauvinism, he was building a wall of ignorance, he believed in the bigotry. And he told the biggest lies.
We have to accept the blame. We have to block bastards like Trump. Their lies must be exposed. Their causes challenged.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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