Party for the people

The People's Party of Canada is a new political party that has managed to acquire a whopping 3% of Canadian votes in recent polls.  They are changing the political landscape, drawing on a base of voters that other parties have been ignoring.  That base is pretty much the people who thought that the Conservatives weren't nearly racist enough, and who wanted a party that would work harder to screw over people of colour.

I wish the PPC much greater success.  Not *too* great, mind.  Right about 5% would do. 

We have had a problem here in Canada for quite some time that the official policies of the Liberals have been a bit left of centre socially but right down the middle economically.  The Greens and NDP were far left, and the Conservatives formed many governments because the lefties split the vote.

But the PPC might help end all that.  They have grabbed a bunch of the most bigoted people that used to be reliable Conservative voters and dragged them off to the hinterlands where their votes won't do anything.  If only they can continue doing that, right up to the point where they might actually win a seat, that would be convenient.

Reading the PPC website is hilarious.  They say that immigrants pay less taxes and make less money than other Canadians, so we should keep them out.  Is there any country in the world where this isn't the case?  Doesn't this mean that immigrants take the hardest jobs making the least money?  How in the world is that bad for those who already live here?  They even try to make immigrants sound bad by saying that they use almost as many resources from the government as a long time resident does.

Another way to put that would be:  Immigrants use LESS resources than long time residents.

They also have some nonsense about how previous immigrants were good ones.  You know, people who took on the values of those who were here before.  You can tell this because of all the white people who speak Native languages, you see.  But these new immigrants, they have brown skin, and we can't tolerate that, even though they actually do learn English and, largely speaking, adopt local value systems.

The Conservatives admit climate change is happening, they just think the way to handle it is to pump a lot of oil and hope it goes away.  The PPC though, they aren't having any of that weaksauce.  They are sure climate change is Big Environmentalism propaganda, and they are going to deal with it by pumping a lot of oil and pretending it doesn't exist.

In all seriousness, I can't decide if I like that the PPC exist or not.  They are a bucket of bullshit bigotry, but if they can drag a chunk of the most regressive Conservative voters away that would be super from a 'winning elections' perspective.  Of course it would mean having to hear from those politicans, which I don't like.

Not that the PPC are consulting me about whether or not they should exist.  Their supporters would no doubt have many nasty names to call me if they noticed me, but the party itself is so far from my social circle that I only know about them from looking at polls.