#we’ve all crawled out of the woodwork in 2025 I guess

[swanfireprincessmydear]

Neal Cassidy I will always love you

[frozenartscapes]

Have you heard about the rising right wing extremism in Canada???

Boy have I.

I’m currently living in a province that is suffering directly because of the rise of right-wing politics. And yes, that does include extremism. You want to know who the Trump of Canada is? Google Doug Ford. You might get some old posts about his crazy brother who made Toronto famous a couple of years ago, but you want to look for Doug. 

Conservatives and Liberals (in this case, I’m referring to the Parties but it also corresponds to political views) have been swinging back and forth for positions of power for decades now. First we’ll start off with one, get sick of them, then switch it up for a few years. This happens on both the provincial and federal level. And because Canada isn’t a two-party system, sometimes the NDP (further left-leaning than the Liberals) and the Bloc (only in Quebec, and the main party looking for Quebec separation) will rise to power for a little bit too. Although neither of those last two parties has ever been in the Government seat on the Federal level. The furthest the NDP got was Opposition a few years back. But it’s always more or less been dominated between the rivalry between Conservatives and Liberals. Currently, the Liberals hold the power in the Federal Government. And until about a year ago, the provinces have been a mix of several different parties, and considerably more left-leaning.

Then the Conservatives started taking over. The reasons for why is a mix of several different things, ranging from people being sick of taxes to help pay for social programs, people hoping the Cons will magically bring back jobs to a dying industry, people deciding that buck-a-beer and getting beer in convenience stores was an important political platform, and the government-holding Liberal leader being so unlikeable for reasons that are beyond me that she decided to shoot her party in the foot just a few days before the election by telling the public not to vote for her. And yes, that last thing did happen. With each provincial election, more Conservatives have taken office. Most recently with PEI and Alberta joining (and in Alberta’s case, rejoining) the Blue Band Wagon. (Also I feel like I should explain that in Canada the Conservatives are blue, not red. The Liberals are red here.)

What does this have to do with extremism? A lot, actually. Just like in the USA, as the Conservatives gain power and authority, and especially when Conservatives like Doug Ford gain power and authority, it emboldens people with their heads so far up their asses they can’t hear any lick of common sense past the sound of their beer guts digesting their most recent meal. Canada has in fact seen a similar rise in extreme right-wing groups and hate crimes targeting minorities. There have been people driving gas-guzzling trucks around in protest of carbon taxes. We’ve had our own rise of “Yellow Vesters” except unlike France these protesters don’t really have a reason to protest and are just mad about things the Snowflakes seem to care about so they’ll show up to scream at people vaguely about taxes or the gubbment takin’ away our freedoms without actually knowing anything about the things that they are screaming.

And while there has always been a back and forth, it’s never quite been like this. People are so mad about the various things the Liberals have done that the Conservatives don’t even need a platform. Doug Ford won in Ontario by basically being everything Kathleen Wynne (the Liberal Leader) wasn’t. Ford literally promised nothing but stupid shit like one-dollar beer and scraping the provincial carbon tax (that then meant the Federal-imposed Carbon Tax would eventually have to take hold with considerably less-benefit to the province) but he won because people were angry and they do stupid shit when they’re angry. Ford has done nothing to help Ontario, either. So far he’s scrapped a number of social programs, focused way too much attention on Toronto and nowhere else, and wasted money redesigning license plates and rebranding the Provincial Government’s graphics. Oh, I guess he did manage to legalize tailgate parties and he’s working toward getting beer in convenience stores. The former being absolutely useless in big cities where the main sport centres are downtown with no parking lots whatsoever and the latter is going to cost the province millions in penalties thanks to an already standing contract with a government-sponsored beer vendor that won’t expire until 2025, but at least he’s done something, right?

Sorry for the rant. I’m really bitter.

The Right-Wing has definitely seen a rise, and with it the worst parts of it are crawling out of the woodwork. We are at a point where we cannot afford to have idiots who refuse to come up with probable solutions for climate change because of all the various oil companies and water-bottling plants who have their nads in a vice, nor can we have people who give us bandaid solutions to major economic problems by investing money into dying industries. Canada might not have the same impact as a country like the States, but for a while we were one of the few Western countries left that hadn’t seen a rise in Right-Wing ideals so extreme that their governments shifted that way. Now it’s starting to look like we’ll fall that way, too.