The Politics of Fear and Loathing

I've never seen as much race-related crap floating around as there's been during this election campaign.  Maybe it's the ubiquity of social media, but I blame the race-bating of the Harper Conservatives.  It obviously appeals to a certain subset (and I use the prefix "sub" for a reason) of Canadians.  Just as an example: 

Anyone who can't see that this is a photo-shopped piece of garbage could spend a few seconds to find out that, even in Ontario, such photos are never allowed on government-issued ID.  Same with passports.  So if it's not happening, what's the problem?

The problem has several points.  First, there have always been those who are just uncomfortable (ie: intolerant) of anyone who is different, and the more different they are, whether it's because they eat curry, have a mental or physical disability or wear a niqab, the more phobic they become.

The other point is that the Harper Conservatives are trying desperately to find a wedge issue that they can flog, something that will bring back voters to their base.  It's called race-bating and it's obviously working.

I've seen comments that "you shouldn't be able to hide your identity when taking the citizenship oath" and "what if I walked into a bank with a balaclava on" and similar such nonsense.  Have any of these people taken the time to find out what really happens as someone goes through the citizenship process?

One of the sorriest examples of this actually appears on Jason Kenney's website.  A petition you can sign basically to indicate how intolerant you are of different cultures.  Jason Kenney is/was a Minister of the Crown, Minister of Immigration, as a matter of fact.  "Stand up for Citizenship"?  How about standing up for democracy, Mr Kenney rather than waving red herrings around, raising wedge issues that nothing much to do with anything other than some people's prejudices?

Of course, the Harper Government has been at this for quite awhile now.  Fanning the fear of "jihadist terrorists" and "keeping Canada safe".  

In this election, the Harper Conservatives are playing this for all it's worth, even here in BC, courtesy of a former Mayor of Surrey.

This is right out of the Republican playbook in the USA where we have Jeb Bush claiming that Dubya "Kept America Safe".  You would think that most people with an IQ in the double digits would remember that 9/11 happened during Dubya's watch.

This kind of "thinking" has infected the halls of government here in Canada, supported by a "Conservative base" and it now colours how Canada responds to Syrian refugees, how we get involved in Syrian bombing campaigns and why the government is constantly flogging the "terrorist" issue.  Even in the USA, where hawkish behaviour is stereotypically more the norm, more reasoned opinions realize that what we're doing isn't working.

Basically, racism is racism.  The Harper Conservatives are playing this as an election ploy in the face of all the evidence that what they're saying just isn't true and isn't working.

"Casting refugees as freeloaders may be politically expedient but it lacks a basis in fact. Between 1979 and 1981, Canada accepted 60,000 “boat people” from Southeast Asia. Within a decade, 86% of those former refugees were working, healthy and spoke English with some proficiency, achieving the basic criteria for success set out by academic Morton Beiser in his landmark study of their integration into Canadian society. They were less likely to use social services and more likely to have jobs than the average Canadian. One in five was self-employed. They weren’t a drain on the taxpayer—they were taxpayers."

[Update] - Sometime in September, it was reported that the Harper campaign had hired Lynton Crosby, an Australian renowned for his fondness for divisive wedge-issue politics.  Not long after, we began to be treated to a endless series of posts about Muslims, women wearing Niqabs, jihadist terrorists, and similar stuff (see above).  Here's the thing:

 "The number of women who will actually want to wear a niqab during Citizenship ceremonies is less than 100 per year, do you really want to risk, the economy, jobs, freedoms, environment and your future on that?" The ONLY reason this is a thing is because Harper's hired Aussie hater has made it one. You're being played, people.

Oh Canada.  What is happening to us? Where have you gone, eh?

[Update] - An article in Macleans on October 7th, 2015, covered everything that you need to be afraid of, according to Harper.  Possibly it's because Conservatives aren't the manly men they used to be.