How the Hate Card Could Play in Canada

A political storm is coming, and it’s going to hit hard. However, I’m not talking about the Washington-based storm. This one is a home-grown tempest, and the dark clouds have been building on the horizon for quite some time.

Most of us have been preoccupied with the ongoing chaos Donald Trump is creating. Our political attention has been on how the Prime Minister is negotiating the treacherous waters of trade and sovereignty. But the focus for Canada’s right-wing politicians has been elsewhere.

Did you notice that coming into the new session of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre stated that his number one priority was killing the foreign worker program?

Then he followed with the claim that Christians (read white) “may be the number 1 group that are victims of hate-based violence.”

The comments caused a great deal of eye rolling in the political media sphere. It seemed as if Poilievre wasn’t reading the mood of the nation.

Au contraire.

Poilievre is reading the cards very well.

So is Premier Danielle Smith, who, rather than deal with the disintegrating state of Alberta’s health care and education system, has stated her priority of posting people’s immigration status on provincial driver’s licenses.

MAPLE MAGA are setting the stage for a political play that has proven devastatingly effective across Europe and the United States. Their target will be to fan fears about immigrants.

In times of uncertainty, so-called populists always blame outsiders. The groundwork for this play has been underway for months now, with online BOTS and dark actors steadily creating fears of our nation being overwhelmed by immigration.

During my time in Parliament, there was constant pressure from local businesses and communities to admit more immigrants, particularly foreign students. They helped address enrolment problems at northern colleges and the worker shortage. And many who came stayed in our communities, setting up businesses and helping revitalize them. The result was an economic, social and cultural win-win.

But now we see white resentment is being stoked with online disinformation. And the impacts are being felt. There has been a spate of recent articles interviewing immigrants to Canada about their fears of growing white backlash.

There is a playbook at work here.

The extremist “blame the immigrant” strategy is being used to devastating effect in Europe and the United States. And now the polling numbers in Canada are beginning to solidify in disturbing ways.

A stunning new poll reveals a serious political cleavage over the issue of immigration. A majority of Canadians (56%) now believe there are too many immigrants in Canada. But when broken down along political lines, it reveals that 82% of Conservative voters are convinced that Canada has an immigration problem. That number has doubled in just five years.

Think about that for a moment. Five years ago, the views of Conservative, Liberal and NDP voters on immigration were relatively similar. But in a relatively short time, the gap between Conservative leading voters and other voters has grown into a chasm.

The percentage of Liberal-leaning voters who think there is too much immigration is 44%, with 37% among NDP voters. Those numbers have actually dropped somewhat over the last year, but the Conservative opposition has formed into a hard bloc, with the majority saying it is a vote-determinant issue.

If the Conservatives define the coming election as a fight over immigration, they can count on a very solid majority of their voters going to the polls. And with the pretty strong numbers in the rest of the electorate, it would be very possible to shave off support from other middle-of-the-road voters if the temperature was raised high enough. The public is being led to falsely believe that immigrants are responsible for the housing crisis or the job crisis.

Recently, a woman told me she couldn’t get a family doctor because of the refugees. Another one said that subsidized foreign workers caused her son to lose a job at Canadian Tire. I tried to explain that, to hire a foreign worker, the company must undertake extensive searches to prove that no Canadians are willing to work. I doubt her son ever even applied.

But if you run a campaign on these mistruths, things will get ugly very quickly. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has already begun to shift from online hate memes to extremist “rallies.” These serve as provocations to push extremist views into mainstream discourse.

Right-wing politicians have been using anti-immigrant dog whistles for some time, but you can expect that there will be ramped-up rhetoric to push the issue further.

In the UK, Tory MP Katie Lamb shocked the establishment press by stating that it was time to consider mass deportations of people who have legal status in the UK. Such language might shock the pundits, but she was simply using the playbook of making what was once unspeakable part of the public debate.

The UK case is worth looking at because the anti-immigrant fears are deeply connected to the erosion of investments in public health and programs. In the UK, years of austerity and cuts from Conservative and Labour governments have left more and more people on the margins. It has created the perfect breeding ground for rage and resentment.

Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, says that the UK population has become susceptible to the hate agenda because they feel abandoned by their government.

“If we were doing more, people would not feel threatened, they would not fear falling behind. They would be reassured that the digital and ecological transitions and globalization will be painless because they are protected by a state that cares for them.”

As de Schutter points out, the results of Keir Starmer’s hardline commitment to austerity can be seen in the polls.

“It’s completely terrifying. Reform UK is higher in the polls than ever, and you have these anti-immigrant demonstrations in various parts of the UK… and the reason is that we’ve not been investing enough in the welfare state.”

A test case will be the upcoming by-election in Caerphilly, which has voted Labour for over a century. Lifetime Labour voters are turning to Nigel Farage because they feel that their government has abandoned them in the area of badly needed health services and support for people.

If this sounds familiar, it should. In the United States, the MAGA agenda is based on driving economic insecurity for the working class while stoking anti-immigrant rage. Is Canada vulnerable to such manipulations? Absolutely. While we don’t have nearly the level of austerity as the UK, public investments in housing and mental health care have deteriorated, as affordability issues worsen.

People are being gouged at the grocery store, while pensions and wages aren’t keeping up. In every community in this country, food bank use is on the rise. New statistics show that 50% of Canadians say they are just one pay cheque away from needing help to feed their families. Nearly 28% of families with children say they may need to use a food bank in the coming months.

A major part of the economic insecurity stems from the government’s absolute failure to respond to the growing housing crisis. The Trudeau government promised an “accelerator fund” to kick-start housing across the country. It has become a political game of blame between the feds, provincial premiers and municipalities.

Meanwhile, the pressure on families increases.

Today’s homeless population include young people, students, seniors, and people who have jobs but can’t afford a place to live. In any given year, as many as 235,000 Canadians will find themselves homeless. Prime Minister Carney has promised an “austerity” budget. It’s the kind of policy a banker-politician might think is good, strong medicine in an age of growing debt.

He needs to understand that housing and food security are more fundamental to “nation-building” than reviving the planet-burning Keystone XL. You can bet that Pierre Poilievre is hoping against hope for an austerity budget.

A storm is brewing. And it will be ugly. People who can’t afford to live in their home communities or are forced to use the food bank will be susceptible to the blame game.

I believe that Canadians can withstand the hate playbook by showing the incredible solidarity we’ve demonstrated through the MAGA storm. But our leaders must make it clear that they understand the realities faced by people living in precarious economic circumstances. Nation-building is about the Prime Minister showing struggling Canadians that the government has their back.

The anti-immigrant playbook is vicious, and it is stupid. But woe to us if we think we are somehow too smart to take it seriously.

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