#cpc #ndp #tm4pm #cdnpoli
Now that I have your attention..
The last two leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada were eviscerated by the Conservative Party attack machine as a way to define their new leader before the Liberals got a chance to define their own leader. So far, the Conservatives have taken a relative hands off approach to Mulcair, aside from some of the usual ‘tax and spend’ drivel they usually drone on about when it comes to NDP and Liberal politicians.
One of the more dispicable attacks was the use of dual citizenships to smear former leader, Stephane . Dion was a dual citizen of France. So it seems that Thomas Mulcair as well. Before the Conservative pit-bulls had a chance to go after Mulcair, his dual citizenship was raised in the blogosphere and media. Mulcair was quick to dismiss this by challenging the Tories to prove why it even matters.
There’s a bigger problem that Harper is about to step into here. There are probably a million Canadians with dual citizenship to many countries around the world. Some are duals to England, America, India, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and of course France (and many many more). What if Mulcair was a dual citizen of Israel?
I ask this because his wife is Jewish, and as such is entitled to seek Israeli citizenship (as per Israeli law). If she was a dual citizen to Israel and Thomas Mulcair decided to apply as well, would Stephen Harper have a problem with this? Probably not. The Conservative are staunch supporters of Israel and likely wouldn’t have raised the issue if that was Mulcair’s dual citizenship’s other identity.
So, what this really means is that Harper and the Conservatives are really against France and dual citizenship of France because of their hatred of all things French. Provocative statement you might think, but history suggests that its entirely consistent with the political evolution of the incumbent governing party from their roots as the Reform Party.
Remember the TV ads from the 1993 Federal election campaign? Remember the voice-over from elder conservative statesman Preston Manning? After several dark and scary images of former Prime Ministers that originated from the nation’s second largest province, the punch-line to get you to vote Reform was the “No More Prime Ministers From Quebec”. Then or now, it was regionalist at best, bigoted and hateful at worst. That was the party that Stephen Harper first won a federal seat as; and the nucleus of the party now in power.
Stephen Harper probably doesn’t care that Mulcair is a dual citizen. Its the fact that he’s French. Harper would love to re-create the far-right populism that drove people to vote for his party way back in ’93…at the grave expense of awakening the equally dangerous and populist separatist movement in Quebec.
That is not how you lead and unite a nation.
