The Horrible Death Threats against Jagmeet Singh

 

A lot of the media are agitated over Jagmeet Singh having been heckled in Peterborough on Tuesday.

From the videos I can find on line, the small mob shouted “traitor,” “I have children and you will not touch them,” “You turned your back on the people,” “for our children,” “We will fight for this country,” ”Not welcome,” “Shame on you,” and “boo.” One male voice said ““get the f*** out of Peterborough,” then, as the car drove off, “stay the f*** out of Peterborough.” Presumably Singh never heard the second sentence.

It was hard to hear clearly. All the legacy outlets had someone talking over the clip so you could not hear what was actually said. This fact is in itself most interesting. You had to take their word for everything; deliberately.

Singh claims he heard “death threats,” and both the Peterborough police and the RCMP claim they are investigating possible criminal behavior. The Peterborough chief went on the air to say to the protesters “your actions and belief systems are reprehensible, unconscionable, and, in some cases, criminal.”

A death threat would be criminal, but I need evidence of one. Otherwise, free speech. There was nothing even immoral in anything I could hear.  BlogTO had it right, if inadvertently, in calling the protest “inappropriate.” Exactly—it was simply rude.

If you are a good person, you should never condemn another for being rude. Only your upbringing tells you what is and is not proper in company. In a pluralistic society like Canada, indeed in any society, upbringings differ. A recent immigrant can have no idea what you consider rude, and vice versa. Even people from different regions. And, significantly, people from different social classes. 

If the police and the government want to criminalize “rudeness,” they are waging a pogrom on immigrants and the working class.

Which indeed they have been doing for some time, increasingly obviously. This is what is behind Trump Derangement Syndrome: he grew up in Queens, and so has the manners of Queens and the working class. It is his manners they find intolerable.

The ruling elite clearly both hate and fear the ruling class. They seem to know no scruples in harassing and wanting to subdue and control them. 

The fact that they make no distinction between bad manners and immorality is most telling. This is the sign of someone who has no conscience. They see ethics itself as no more than manners, and as easily dispensed with.

Also chilling—the Peterborough police chief is openly and unilaterally declaring the Orwellian crime of wrongthink: it is not just the protesters words, but their ‘belief systems” which he calls criminal.

So much for freedom of thought and freedom of conscience.

In any free society, this public statement by a public servant should result in immediate dismissal.

If the Peterborough police chief is not immediately cashiered, that will say all we need to know about our present governments.

Racist Calls Only Non-Racist in the Commons a Racist

Jagmeet Singh

Jagmeet Singh has been ejected from the Commons for a day for calling a Bloc Quebecois MP a racist. For non-Canadian readers, Singh is the leader of the NDP, Canada’s social democratic or democratic socialist party. 

I am glad to see this discipline applied. Debate in Canada’s Commons has long devolved to the schoolyard level. The Speaker even tried to dodge the issue by claiming he had not heard the remark; Singh forced the issue by immediately repeating it.

Singh called Alain Therrien a racist because the member for La Prairie refused unanimous consent to a motion “recognizing the existence of systemic racism in the RCMP.” “The motion points out that ‘several Indigenous people have died at the hands of the RCMP in recent months …’ The motion also asked MPs to support a review of the RCMP's budget, to demand that the RCMP release all of its use-of-force reports and to call for a review of the RCMP's tactics for dealing with the public.”(CBC)

“Singh had asked the Commons to recognize there is systemic racism in the RCMP and to call on the government to review the force’s budget, ensure the Mounties are truly accountable and do a full review of the RCMP’s use of force.” (NatPost)

Therrien was right to block the motion. The alarming thing is that he seems to have been the only voice. This was mob rule, an attempted lynching of the RCMP, one of Canada’s unifying national symbols. And only a BQ member was ready to stand up for human rights and Canadian unity.

The motion presupposed, simply declared, that there was systemic racism in the RCMP. That is like declaring someone guilty without a trial.

That is classic hysteria. We elect people to prevent this kind of mob justice.

So is calling someone a racist for saying there might not be racism involved. That is like declaring someone a Communist for daring to doubt there are Communists in the State Department; or declaring someone a witch for doubting witchcraft was involved. It is frightening that any adult can think in these terms; much less an elected representative; much less a candidate for the leadership of the country.

To bring this charge of systemic racism against the national police is also pathetically childish in another way: a demonstration of Canada’s eternal kid brother syndrome. People in the US are currently agitated about police brutality; so little brother Canada has to foment its own scandal along the same lines. Monkey see, monkey do. Grownups, by contrast, think for themselves.

If it exists, systemic racism is a serious matter; far more serious than individual racism, because it has the force of government behind it. It deserves to be treated seriously, not in Singh’s pre-emptive manner. Systemic racism, happily, is easier to prove than individual racism. Unlike individual racism, finding it does not require reading anyone’s mind, or trying to infer anything from their actions. For racism to exist systemically, it must be communicated among the participants in that system. It will appear in the laws, bylaws, or regulations of that system.

It should indeed be investigated; in fact, it apparently is being investigated. Singh’s motion sought to short-circuit that process, by imposing a conclusion: a classic example of prejudice.

I would even say that there apparently is systemic racism in the RCMP. As I say, the matter of systemic racism is rather easily proven. Like other arms of the government, I would assume the RCMP requires racial preferences for aboriginal people, and probably blacks, in hiring. I would not be surprised if, like the courts, there is also a legal requirement that they treat aboriginal suspects differently from non-aboriginals.

These are indeed examples of systemic racism.

I would like to see such an inquiry.

Tom, We Hardly Knew Ye

Tom Mulcair

A friend who has voted NDP his entire life says he cannot vote this time for Jagmeet Singh.

Perhaps this gives some insight into why the NDP’s support has sagged.

My friend feels that Singh lacks gravitas. “I can't imagine him representing Canada abroad.”

He did not say how he would vote; he did say Scheer and May both also lacked gravitas. Of course, I feel the same way about Justin Trudeau, only much more so. He did not mention Trudeau, but surely because in this case the matter was obvious. I got the impression he was just going to stay home.

Then he mentioned Tom Mulcair—how wrong the NDP was to vote him out.

I think that may be important. Singh is being compared to Mulcair as much as to Trudeau. Mulcair had gravitas. Next to him, Singh looks and sounds like a student body president.

I think this is a fatal error indulged in by both the Tories and the NDP. Seeing Trudeau’s success, they did the boneheaded typical politico thing and voted in new leaders who were as similar as possible to Trudeau; young, good-looking, inexperienced. Giving the voters no alternative once they saw the problem with youth, inexperience, and lack of seriousness. (May may not have youth, but she surely lacks gravitas.) Mulcair could have torn up this field and left only embers.

On top of that, there is a festering sense that Mulcair was treated badly by the party. I think my friend resented that as a Quebecker—and NDP support in Quebec has collapsed.

If the NDP is decimated this election, Singh will almost certainly be obliged to resign. If that happens, intelligent NDPers not fond of extinction of their species should organize a Draft Mulcair movement as soon as possible.

Singhing in the Rain

Jagmeet Singh

Jagmeet Singh's leadership of the NDP is in trouble. The Dippers cannot seem to budge the polls, and now internal dissent had broken out over Singh's high-handed approach to matters in caucus and in Saskatchewan.

I said at the time that the NDP was making a big mistake in dumping Tom Mulcair. I'd say now this proves me right.

The NDP thought that, with Singh, they could out-fresh face, out-hope-and-change, out-Obama, and out-progressive Trudeau's Liberals.

Bad concept. Trudeau's Liberals were already crowding that side of the political spectrum, governing left. There was not much viable ground to their left. Why vote, then, for a party with less chance of gaining power, when your agenda is being accomplished by the party in power?

Worse, if Trudeau screws up, or the public gets tired of him, Singh does not work as an alternative. He shares the same characteristics likely to alienate from Trudeau: being young, inexperienced, a pretty face, from a privileged economic background, from Central Canada, very urban.

Now imagine how much better Mulcair would play than does Singh on this score and at this point, if you are annoyed with Trudeau. If Trudeau looks amateurish, out of touch,, callow, and, as the Conservatives said, not ready for prime time, so does Singh. Mulcair has an avuncular look, solid political experience, performs well in the House. He looks like the adult alternative. Rather than crowd the left end of the spectrum, he was moving the NDP toward the centre, where they could look like a safer alternative to the Tories as well as the Grits.

Tom Mulcair.

Both Trudeau and Singh came in on the coattails of Barack Obama in the US. Whenever some new US politician makes a splash, the instinct among Canadians and Canadian pols is to find the closest parallel they can to run. But Singh is too late at the feast. Trudeau got there first. Now Obama is gone from the nightly news and the front pages, and that approach is old hat. The drive now, on the right, is to get someone who looks like Trump. Enter Doug Ford. On the left, the obvious model now is Bernie Sanders.

That's the avuncular thing.

Policies aside, Mulcair looks more like Sanders than does Singh.

Can Singh come back? Doubt it. Can the NDP get Mulcair to come back? Doubt it.

But I bet that if Mulcair were still leader, the NDP would be looking right now as though they had a serious shot at being the next government.

Singh for the Win

Jagmeet Singh is bad news for the Liberals and good news for the Conservatives.

The secret key to Canadian politics is that we are always looking South to see what big brother is doing, and then want to do the same. But there is a variable time delay of about seven years.

Trudeau got in two years ago as the best approximation at the time of Barack Obama. Young and handsome, at any rate.

But Singh looks significantly more hopeandchangey. For one obvious thing, his skin tone is closer. He can whup Trudeau for the “Canada’s Obama” vote.

It will probably not be enough for the NDP to win. After all, Obama is gone in the US. A bit too late for Singh. Now we look South, and see Trump. And the NDP is coming from third place currently.

What he is more likely to do is split the leftward vote more evenly, giving the Conservatives the chance to win. Scheer does not look or feel at all like Trump, but he is the closest thing, and, in the end, a real Trump would probably be too much for Canadians. Politeness is far more important north of the border than south. Reagan got us Mulroney; he wasn’t that close a copy either.