I am not actively following Canadian politics, but recently Reddit swarms me with media/videos about Canada, with the kind of rhetoric I know from right winged people in Germany (AfD, CDU).
They are blaming Trudeau and immigration for everything that happens in Canada currently. Calling immigrants terrorists etc.
I always had to imagine in my head, that Canadians are friendly, open-minded people, but the media suggest otherwise.
So dear people, enlighten me with your opinion please!
Males worldwide are swinging hard to the right. It’s concerning.
Males worldwide are swinging hard to the right. It’s concerning.
Yes, the problem is the men. Thanks.
Less glibly, couldn’t you look at this through a more positive lens? Can you not be grateful towards our sisters, mothers and daughters for their capacity to resist the fascist hatred that is washing over the planet? Like if we narrowly avoid slipping in to full on fascist governments, then yeah, it will be because of the women, not because of the men. And if we narrowly avoid saving ourselves from that fate, then yeah, it’ll be more the responsibility of the men of the world than the women. It’s a plain as day fact that you can see over the last ten years of polling. If that fact is hard for you to process, probably this public forum isn’t the best place for you to try to work it out.
It’s not just right wing criticizing our immigration policies right now. It’s basically every single person.
I haven’t used Reddit in a while, but back when I did, r/canada was alt-right and I doubt it had real Canadians on it. It seemed like a Russian troll farm like r/the_donald. The actual Canadian subreddit seemed to be r/onguardforthee. The media is also mostly privately owned by wealthy conservatives so there’s a clear bias. I personally don’t read or watch anything that isn’t put out by the CBC, which has a mandate to be politically neutral.
Even Canada’s right wing party doesn’t hate immigrants, as they make up a large part of the Canadian labour market and are a source of tax revenue. The only valid criticism has been over student visas, which were essentially temporary visas given to people with lots of money. A lot of these “students” were middle aged, already had advanced degrees, and spent more time working a high paying job, or simply just living in Canada, than attending school. The conditions of a student visa were mostly “do you have $100,000 per year?” Nobody had much reason to put a cap on it, since it was a large revenue source, but once there were over 1 million active student visas it might have attributed to actual issues. The conditions are changing and there is now going to be a cap on the amount of active student visas.
The Conservatives are blaming Trudeau for everything though. That’s definitely real. Their current leader is Pierre Poilievre who spent most of his 20 year career as an “attack dog”. I don’t think he knows how to do anything else besides trash talk people. It used to get him in a lot of trouble, but now it’s gotten him party leadership and is probably going to get him the title of Prime Minister. Not because Canadians aren’t friendly, but because this is Trudeau’s 4th election and Canadians don’t like voting for the same person 4 times in a row.
I haven’t used Reddit in a while, but back when I did, r/canada was alt-right and I doubt it had real Canadians on it. It seemed like a Russian troll farm like r/the_donald. The actual Canadian subreddit seemed to be r/onguardforthee.
You need to get out of your bubble of you think /r/onguardforthee is more representative of the Canadian population than /r/canada, and if you think /r/canada is alt-right.
I personally don’t read or watch anything that isn’t put out by the CBC, which has a mandate to be politically neutral.
That may be an official mandate, but it definitely not followed. Prime example is when sued the CPC during the election (which eventually was tossed by a judge). How many times have they sued other political parties during elections?
Other parties dont send robocalls pretending to be other parties.
But the CPC does.
Other parties dont gut the oversight board and replace it with industry lobbyists, but the CPC does.
Other parties dont steal from the G7 security budget when its in Canada, but the CPC does.
Other parties dont sell off critical infrastructure like Coast guard facilities or harbour control facilities, but rhe CPC does.
He’s also inherited irrational hatred from his father. Many 40-50 year old grew up hearing their parents bash PET like it was their full time job and religion. It became part of their fucking IDENTITY. JT could be the second coming of Jesus and the right would still gleefully desecrate his crucified corpse.
Not saying that’s the only factor but it sure made it easier to whip up the moral panic we see among some people today.
The Tories have been attacking Trudeau from the outset though, I know people from when I lived in Calgary that still blame Trudeau Sr. for a lot of their problems so Trudeau got that from the outset.
Historically we have red Tories but imo the “big tent” of the CPC is just reform 2.0 and while they’re still there (I recall Michael Chong for example being one of the few people who acknowledged climate change and had a plan in his platform when he ran for leadership) it’s still definitely reform party at its core. I had hoped the PPC would peel off the more hard-line side of the party and they could stop courting them but yeah, that didn’t happen.
We’re an exporter though of the hardliners, I brought up Harper and the IDC a while ago but I kinda forgot about the og Preston Manning who Farage in the uk modeled his recent campaign after and is an admirer of. We like to point at the states for the shift in our Tories but we’re absolutely more than capable of trailblazing ourselves…
The right are overrepresented online due to foreign influence campaigns
Are there sections of Canada that are overly right leaning? Kinda like Texas or Florida of the USA?
Alberta is the Canadian Texas/Florida unfortunately. The two large cities vote left, but the rural / agricultural voting block outweighs them, so the provincial government has been right wing for decades. With one exception in recent years there was a Premier that was so insufferable and corrupt that in protest an NDP government was elected but that was just a one shot.
This is partly false. Edmonton and Calgary vote blue federal and usually orange for provincial. Results from the last federal election https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6183209
Provincial - https://globalnews.ca/news/9633315/live-alberta-election-results-2023-vote/
Which I think has a lot to do with union and provincial government employees. But I’m just another stupid Albertan.
foreigndomestic influence campaigns
Canada Proud, NatPo and Post Media in general, etc.
Do you mean this - “… Chatham Asset Management LLC is an American hedge fund…”?
IMHO Canadians are not significantly friendlier than most nationalities. At most they are friendlier than the average big-city dwelling Americans, and that’s where the meme came from. Up until a few years ago Canada was a country of small cities, and these comparisons are all inherently flawed given the myriad of factors involved.
There is a LOT of conservatism brewing in Canada, and this hasn’t much to do with friendliness. Some of the most astoundingly friendly people I’ve met were midwesterner Americans… and these same people were very bigoted in some regards. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.
Of course there’s a theme, and big truck jackasses playing heavy metal with “Fuck Trudeau” & MAGA stickers abound. But visit an assembly from any affluent neighbourhood residents association and you will see highly educated and courteous old ladies parrot genocidal talking points.
