Angry in the Great White North

Conservative candidate CS Leung is up against Liberal incumbent Bryon Wilfert in Richmond Hill.  Leung was hit with a rash of vandalism, with signs being defaced with all sort of Nazi crap:

If the Conservatives win on Tuesday, are we going to have more of this sort of thing?  We all know the way things are with so-called progressives.  Conservatives aren't just mistaken, according to these people.  Conservatives are evil.

In the Toronto suburb of Vaughn yesterday, in what can only be a case of ironic coincidence, Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion stood with Rebecca Finch on the stage of a rally.  Rebecca Finch is the candidate for Dufferin-Caledon, and has made it clear that she is one of those progressives who thinks Conservatives are murderous Nazis for whom she has little sympathy when they die:

• “…perhaps we should feel little sympathy for those right-voting victims of recent natural disasters, for those who have ignored instinct and common sense so they can continue to stuff themselves with superficial gluttony” (Metaball, February 2006)
• “…the fact that one of Harper’s biographers gleefully describes how Canada is figuratively (I think) littered with the bodies of those who have dared cross Harper… that is why I'm taking a chance and putting myself out there” (Metaball, April 2008).
• "However, when the extremists have succeeded in their goal (let's say, for instance, like Germany under Hitler, Russia under Stalin, the US under McCarthyism or Bush, Canada under Harper), drama is not only no longer needed, it is condemned and actually punished." (Metaball, May 2006)

Stephane Dion has done nothing about her candidacy except to support it.  We can infer that this is tacit approval by Stephane Dion of anyone who equates Stephen Harper and Conservatives to Nazis.

And now this has happened to CS Leung.

Let's get the obligatory politeness out of the way.  Certainly this can't be the work of anyone connected with the Bryon Wilfert campaign, and Bryon Wilfert and his campaign team would quickly denounce...

Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah sure.  Whatever.

The fact is that in Canada, there is a viciousness in the left directed at anyone who considers themselves to be conservatives.  I've seen it.  I've experienced it at work, where I try very hard never to discuss politics, and certainly never espouse my political views.  But when it comes up, yikes.  I just keep my head low, tell people to focus on work, and wait for the viciousness to pass.

No, I don't go out for beers with the people from work all too often.

So let's get Jason Cherniak, Liberal riding president for Richmond Hill, Bryon Wilfert's campaign manager, and a top blogger in this country (and I guy I like on a personal level) to issue the requisite denunciations.

By the way, nothing on his blog.  I am hoping that it is merely a matter that he has not yet heard of what has happened.

It won't matter much. 

That's not a dig against Jason.  It's just that short of Liberals helping to turn in the culprits, the people who do this sort of thing will assume that as long as people like Rebecca Finch are allowed to share the stage with Stephane Dion, that they will always be protected (or at least, studiously ignored) by the Liberal Party and their allies on the left.

It's not that this is true, but they think it is.  Ritual denunciations won't change that unless people like Rebecca Finch are dealt with and made examples of.

And clearly that's not going to happen, not while Stephane Dion is in charge.

Perhaps he feels comfortable with these people.  Who knows?