Latest Polls Show National Socialists on the Verge of Taking Power

Riaz's actual Facebook post, 2013.

Doug Ford’s PCs are stumbling in the current Ontario election. When the election was called, they looked inevitable. Last analysis I saw, last night, they would still win a majority government—and the Liberals would be down to one seat!—if the election were held yesterday. But all the momentum has leaked over to Horwath’s NDP. That’s the danger when you start out with a big lead, and then try to nurse it by being cautious. Somebody else, who has nothing to lose, starts to look more exciting and dynamic.

But now, Providence seems to have intervened. Or perhaps this was inevitable. It was just a matter of time before someone found something like this on the NDP. Two PC candidates have presented a Facebook post by one NDP candidate, Tasleem Riaz in Scarborough-Agincourt, from as recently as 2013, making a blanket endorsement of Adolf Hitler. Complete with a photo of him giving the Nazi salute to troops marching in review.

It is hard to imagine anything, short of showing up with a loaded machine gun in Nathan Phillips Square, and starting to fire with enthusiasm, that could more clearly and immediately disqualify someone from public office.

More amazingly, in her first reaction to the revelation, Andrea Horwath did not seem to grasp its seriousness. She expressed continued support of the candidate and said the matter would be looked into. Boilerplate, and no sense of urgency.

The candidate’s own response was yet less reassuring. She did not deny posting it. She just says she does not recall, and does not endorse the sentiment. Anyone can always say that; even if caught red handed, videoed live in the act of posting it, you can still never be proven to have lied. Yes, you really may not recall. But you resort to that line if you posted it, know you posted it, and suppose there is a decent chance someone out there can prove you posted it. And by saying you do not recall, you avoid having to explain or defend it. First and automatic line of defense when you cannot think of any defense. If there were some context around the original quote that would justify or even partly justify it—and if she did not recall, Riaz could just as easily as anyone else have gone back and looked at the post to check context and other posts around the same time—this is where it would have appeared. She had nothing to offer. She probably has no defense. She did it, and she meant it just as it appears she meant it.

Any attempted defense that someone else hacked her account is kind of precluded by the fact that another incendiary post fairly widely separated in time has also been found, calling Canada’s military in Afghanistan a machine for slaughtering innocent men, women, and children and urging all Muslims to vote NDP. Okay, not another open declaration of Nazi allegiance, but demonstrating that she is pretty outspoken and racist.

Now, it is not just a good election tactic for the Tories to hammer away at this issue. It is a civic duty. We are actually talking now about electing an open Nazi to government in Ontario, with the endorsement of the rest of her party and the rest of the government. I could not have imagined we had become that depraved.

Almost as alarming, people seem to be talking about this as if it were an issue of “antisemitism.” Hitler was about one hell of a lot more than antisemitism. There was that little matter of the Second World War. You might recall; it was in all the papers. And that odd bit about enslaving the entire population of Eastern Europe. Yeah, and ruling the world. There was that dictatorship bit, endorsed in detail here by referring to Adolf as “The Ruler,” Der Fuhrer. And that inconvenient absence of all human rights, or norms of government, and personal rule without regard to morality of any sort. And Germany itself left in rubble. At the end, Hitler literally wanted to have them all killed—all Germans.

Riaz was openly endorsing all of this. Up to and including an image of lines of marching men.

At the same time, she was implicitly at least--actually, pretty explicitly--declaring a disregard towards any democratic restraints on her or restraints of parliamentary tradition or law. Her core idea as expressed is that, like the Nazis, whatever she says or does to get power, once given power, she will do with it just as she pleases.

But hey, everyone is cool with that bit.

We are all doomed if the NDP gets into power, with her still a candidate.

In fact, it looks as though we are all doomed if the NDP gets into power, with or without her. Because they obviously do not see this all as terribly problematic. This is the true face of the modern left.

No, strike that. Whether or not the NDP gets into power, we are all doomed. Because nobody now seems to see this as a big deal.

I tremble for my old province when I consider that the Lord is just.