Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 2, 2022

To Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, there are only two kinds of people in our country: People who agree with himand people who support Nazis.

This is one of the takeaways of the Freedom Convoy, a mass protest of Canadian truckers who gathered in Ottawa to oppose Trudeau's vaccine mandate. The protest was brought to an abrupt halt last week after the Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act and used its powers to arrest the protestors and freeze their bank accounts.

Trudeau has since revoked the Emergencies Act. Yet even before his power grab, when members of the official opposition party in the House of Commons, myself included, objected and asked why the Prime Minister thought that granting himself and his government emergency powers was the appropriate way to respond to protests, he accused us of supporting Nazis.

"Conservative party members can stand with people who wave swastikas," Trudeau replied. "They can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag."

As the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, to see the unspeakable horror of the Shoah used in such a grotesque and juvenile way by our Prime Minister strikes at the very heart of the rot in our democracy. Real human tragedies are not to be used as cheap political fodder, carelessly thrown around by our Prime Minister with the sole purpose of igniting further division in an already divided state.

I am offended, and above all I am deeply saddened that this is the state of politics in Canada these days.

It's true that symbols of hate have shown up on the fringes of recent protests. This is reprehensible, and I will be the first to stand up and condemn them unequivocallyas I have whenever and wherever they've reared their ugly head in past protests, in our playgrounds and on our buildings.

But this hateful fringe does not take away from the legitimate issues Canadians from across our country have when it comes to the constant overreach of lockdowns, restrictions and mandates related to the pandemic that this government has repeatedly demonstrated.

Nor does it justify the Prime Minister using the horrors of the Holocaust as a talking point and attacking anyone who dares criticize him. And yet, he has repeatedly done so.

These are serious times, and they require serious leadership. Sadly, our Prime Minister has been unable and unwilling to show any. Instead, he has embraced the lowest of partisan impulses to try and score political points with little to no regard for the deep hurt and damage his words continue to inflict upon our societyon those who followed all the rules as well as those who questioned their validity.

Canadians are angry and justifiably disappointed to see their Prime Minister giving in to infantile attacks and cheap political posturing over and over again when we face serious issues in Canada. I, too, am horrified as a Canadian that the Prime Minister would not hesitate to insinuate that anyone in public office supports cold-blooded Nazi murderers, simply because they asked a question he did not want to answer.

In strong democracies, we need to be able to engage in constructive dialogue and debate about the choices our governments are making. This means asking questions in Parliament and holding decision makers accountable for the decisions they impose upon all of us.

But Canada's government does not want any discussion of let alone disagreement over the choices Trudeau makes. Our government has been reduced to a combination of political theater, childish schoolyard attacks and horrifying oversimplifications meant to sow division.

I asked the Prime Minister for an apology for his words and his behavior. But I don't expect I will receive onenot because his abhorrent statement accusing me of standing with those waving swastikas isn't worthy of one, but because this Prime Minister no longer seems to care that his words are harmful as long as he can turn them into an attack on people who disagree with him.

I will keep asking difficult and uncomfortable questions as long as this undemocratic behavior continues. This is what I was elected to do, and this is what we owe to each other and to future generations of Canadians.

But I am worried about the state of our countryand the state of our democracyunder this Prime Minister and government.

Melissa Lantsman is a Conservative Member of Parliament for Thornhill. She was elected in 2021 and appointed as Official Opposition Transport Critic and Chair of Outreach.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

Go here to read the rest:

For Trudeau, There Are Only Canadians Who Agree With Himand Nazis | Opinion - Newsweek

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