Erin O’Toole Is Treating Canadian Conservatives With Undisguised Contempt

How many lies will you put up with from O’Toole?

When someone lies to you over and over and over again, so blatantly, without even pretending to tell the truth, and then expects you to go along with it, what does that person think of you?

Do they respect you?

No.

Do they think you are intelligent?

No.

Do they see you as an equal, as a peer?

No.

Instead, they are looking at you with contempt.

They see you as unworthy of the truth.

They see you as someone who deserves only lies.

And they see you as someone who is so weak that you’ll let them keep on lying to you.

Worst of all, when that person leads a political party, not only do they expect you to allow yourself to be lied to, but they then demand that you also volunteer, donate, and advocate for that party.

Contempt for Conservatives

Let me ask you this question:

What would have happened if Erin O’Toole said this during the CPC Leadership campaign?

“After years of campaigning against the carbon tax, and signing pledges not to bring in any consumer carbon tax, I will introduce a consumer carbon tax that takes your money and puts it into an account you can only use for government-approved ‘green purchases.’ And I won’t share the plan with most of my Caucus, and it will instead be leaked to CBC ahead of time. Then, to justify my plan, I’ll claim it’s a ‘levy, not a tax,’ using the exact same arguments both Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley used when they introduced their carbon tax plans.”

You know what would have happened if O’Toole said this during the CPC race.

He would have finished a distant fourth, coming in behind Leslyn Lewis, Peter MacKay, and Derek Sloan.

He would have been laughed off the stage.

But at least it would have been honest.

At least he would have been telling voters the truth.

At least he would have shown enough respect to Canadian Conservatives to be upfront about what he planned to do, and let people decide whether they supported him based on who he actually was.

But that’s not what O’Toole did.

To try and win, he pretend to be someone else.

He lied, and campaigned as ‘True Blue.’

More than that, he signed ironclad pledges promising not to do exactly what he ended up doing.

And his ‘plan’ turns out to be even more arrogant and paternalistic than the Liberals, as O’Toole doesn’t even let you choose how to spend any rebate money, instead locking it away behind an account where the government tells you what to choose from.

Make no mistake, nothing about O’Toole’s plan is ‘conservative,’ it’s as statist and big government as it gets.

O’Toole expects you to be weak, lack self-respect, and give in.

As I said on Twitter in response to this clip from O’Toole, he knows he’s lying to you:

“He’s lying to you. He knows he’s lying. He knows you know he’s lying. He expects you to just give in and accept being lied to and treated like an idiot. Will you?”

https://twitter.com/SpencerFernando/status/1383839899472732164

What Erin O’Toole is counting on is him thinking you are weak and submissive.

He thinks he can force his lies on you, and that you’ll go along with him anyway.

He wants you to ignore what your own mind and common-sense says, and instead substitute his dishonesty for your own sense of truth and reality.

Will you?

For those who say ‘this is all about beating Trudeau,’ I would ask if you have any red line whatsoever that you wouldn’t let O’Toole cross?

How much more like Trudeau does he have to act before you would stop putting up with it, before you would demand better?

And why would you trust his other criticism of Trudeau, when he so blatantly lied to you and flipped on the carbon tax?

Why trust him on protecting the rights of law-abiding Canadian gun owners?

Why trust him on deficits?

Why trust him on China?

Why wouldn’t he flip on those issues if there was an uncomfortable media cycle or two?

O’Toole and his supporters are trying to hold your mind hostage

What Erin O’Toole is doing is deeply manipulative.

He knows you despise Justin Trudeau.

And he’s betting that you will swallow any amount of lies from him, because he thinks he can simply say ‘beat Justin Trudeau’ and you’ll go along with it.

And for some people, maybe he’s right.

But as I noted above, why would you believe him when he says he would be different?

Further, reversing Trudeau’s policies, and reversing decades of mounting weakness in Canada isn’t something that will be easy.

It will take strength and courage.

Have Conservative MPs shown that courage?

Have any of them stood up and pushed back after O’Toole pushed his carbon tax without telling them ahead of time?

Have any of them either stood up for themselves, or for their own constituents who they repeatedly told over and over again that they would oppose and fight against the carbon tax?

How could you expect people who don’t respect themselves to somehow respect you?

But what’s the alternative?

The question of course becomes, “well, what’s the alternative, if the Conservatives don’t win then Trudeau wins.”

The fact is, there are many alternatives.

First of all, if you live in a part of the country where the Liberals are weak, you can certainly consider other parties, including the Maverick Party and the PPC. In some heavily-conservative parts of the country, an upstart right-wing party would have a higher chance of winning than the Liberals, so the Conservatives could lose seats without the Liberals gaining any.

If you live in a swing riding, you have leverage, as you can contact your Conservative MP or Conservative candidate and tell them that they will lose your vote unless they stand up to O’Toole’s carbon tax betrayal.

If you live in a riding where the Liberals or NDP dominate, you are even more free to vote for the PPC, Maverick Party, or other options – even if only once as a way to send a clear message to the Conservatives that they can’t treat their core supporters like garbage.

If you happen to live in Beauce, then getting Maxime Bernier back into Parliament would be good for the country.

And, in cases where you have an MP like Pierre Poilievre or Michelle Rempel Garner – both of whom show more courage than most and still seem to largely respect their supporters (along with being young and having big potential futures) – then supporting them and contributing to them is still worth it in my view – unless of course they start promoting O’Toole’s terrible carbon tax policy that is.

To put it another way, Conservative Canadians can start informally organizing to vote strategically, to hold the CPC accountable without benefitting the Liberals. Look into your riding. Look into the candidates. Look into all your options.

Political contempt must be politically punished

The fact is, the Conservatives will get worse if O’Toole gets away with this. They will think they can fully betray their core supporters, and they will take people even more for granted.

By voting strategically, looking at all your options, making it clear to the CPC and your Conservative MP/candidate that they don’t have a stranglehold on your vote, you have the power to be part of a larger pushback against O’Toole’s arrogance, and help build a Conservative alternative that respects you, sees you as valuable, and offers a real alternative vision to the Liberals, NDP, Greens, and other statists.

Links:

Maverick Party

PPC

Who is My MP – to respectfully contact Conservative MPs

Spencer Fernando

Photo – Twitter

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