Ezra Levant and Canadian-Style Trumpism

In Edmonton this past weekend, Ezra Levant and his merry little basket of deplorables posing as journalists held a rally at the legislature opposing the carbon tax passed by the NDP government that is set to come into effect in January 2017. Aside from the fact that Levant claims The Rebel is a journalistic endeavor and that political advocacy more than blurs any pretense of journalistic objectivity, protesting is perfectly fine in a democratic society. Prominent politicians such as Wildrose leader Brian Jean and federal Conservative leadership candidate Chris Alexander were in attendance

Chris Alexander reacts to a crowd at a Rebel Media hosted anti-carbon tax rally, as they
begin to chant "Lock her up." (Sheila Gunn Reid/Twitter, Zoe Todd/CBC)

But things really did go off the rails very quickly:

1. Bernard Hancock (the actor playing the role of "Bernard the Roughneck") encouraged the illegal hacking of the government in order to obtain material that could be used against the government: “I know there’s a bunch of stuff they can dig up on what’s going on in that building…we need their help.”
2. Some individuals attending the protesting appeared to have additional motives as they proudly displayed homophobic signs. Levant claims they were NDP plants since his supporters would NEVER act in such vulgar ways.
3. Supporters of an anti-immigrant group handed out flyers targeting minorities.
4. Perhaps getting the most coverage, many in the crowd began shouting "lock her up!" referring to Alberta premier Rachel Notley (because.... reasons) while federal Conservative leadership hopeful Chris Alexander was speaking. He later expressed how uncomfortable he was when he heard the chant, though didn't do anything about it at the time. Not much in the way of courage, but at least he feels bad.

Not surprisingly, this all resulted in significant media coverage as other conservative (big "C" and small "c") politicians denounced the rhetoric at the rally and comparisons to Donald Trump-style politics were made:

• Graham Thomson: Alberta politicians of all stripes distance themselves from yahoos at Saturday rally
• 'Lock her up for what?' Professor weighs in on Alberta rally
• Wildrose leader denounces 'lock her up' chanters at weekend rally
• Chris Alexander says he was 'mortified' by chants of 'lock her up' aimed at Alberta premier
• Alberta, federal politicians denounce ‘lock her up’ rally as Trump-style politics

Well, we guess not everyone was ready to denounce the "lock her up!" chant:

Then again Brad Trost is sort of an idiot. And considering that your "friend" Alexander is scrambling as quickly as he can away from the incident, we're not sure he would be as appreciative of your public support for him in relation to the chant.

But anywho....

In brief, it was all a bit of a dumpster fire. And Ezra being Ezra, there's no fire he isn't willing to throw more gasoline on as he later double downed on the "lock her up!" chant:

If the shoe fits....

Let's take a closer look some of the incidents that occurred.

Immigration Watch Canada Benign Name, Malignant Views

Meet Dan Murray, founder of Immigration Watch Canada:

This past April we posted a story concerning the efforts of Immigration Watch Canada to draw attention to what they claim as a "broken" immigration system. They did so in an especially dishonest way:

As we noted in our previous article, the bottom photo doesn't feature Brampton area Sikhs, nor does it depict Sikhs even living in Canada:

It might be important to note that Immigration Watch Canada couldn't even be bothered to include a picture of the Sikh community in Brampton that they are attacking. The photo, featuring Babu Singh Dukhiya, are of Indian nationals in India. None of them, so far as we can tell, are Canadian citiizens. Actual depictions of Sikh Canadians who have seamlessly integrated into Canadian society, such as the man in the photograph below donating blood at a Canadian Blood Service clinic and the the city councillor attending the opening of a new hospital, sort of doesn't fit with the nightmarish dystopian future they want people to envision as a result of immigration.

The phrase, "mainstream Canadians" is found on the poster and is echoed in the first paragraph of IWC website, though the word "population" replaces "Canadians" in this case:

Immigration Watch Canada is an organization of Canadians who believe that immigration has to serve the interests of its own citizens. It cannot be turned into a social assistance / job-finding program for people from other countries. It should never be a social engineering experiment that is conducted on Canada’s mainstream population in order to make it a minority.

Though they are attempting to present themselves as a group of citizens concerned about the levels of immigration to Canada, they reveal their cards pretty early in that "mainstream Canadian" = white/European Canadian.

This past Monday, IWC held a protest in front of  the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander's constituency office in Ajax, Ontario. The numbers were small and the message rather convoluted:

Flyers and Graffiti

Over the last two weeks, there have been a few events that have resulted in some coverage in the mainstream press that would be of interest to our readers. The biggest story is the one about the flyer that was distributed by a group calling itself Immigration Watch Canada in Brampton:

"Mainstream Canadians" = white Canadians apparently

Actually, given the euphemistic name the IWC has given itself, we sort of appreciate that they decided to be so overt in their racism. Kinda puts it right out there in the open.

Condemnation of the flyer has been widespread and varied and has resulted in a police investigation, but not to worry. You see the spokesman for the group says that the flyer isn't racist and that it's the people who view the obviously racist flyer as racist who are the real problems:

"That's the standard answer that they all give. They can't think of anything else to say, so they play the race card or call you a xenophobe," Murray said in a telephone interview on Friday. "If we are going to throw around names, I'll call them a bunch of cowards and quislings –  the mainstream part of the population that engages in that type of conversation."

Yeah. Because how could one possible come to the conclusion that the ad is xenophobic? Crazy, right?

Of course the quisling accusation sort of echos the claims of people like Paulie Fromm and his fellow travellers that immigration is akin to a foreign invasion, so that doesn't help their claim to not being racist. Hell, we half expect them to start spouting off the Whitaker mantra.

And it also doesn't help your rejection of the racist label when your flyer results in Bill Noble and the folks on Stormfront showing you a little love: