Up close with Bernier on the campaign trail

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/06/2023 (838 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A BIG-CITY francophone from the most secular province in Canada is winning the political hearts of a surprising number of Mennonites in rural southern Manitoba, including some of my good neighbours.

Drawn by this irony and the adventure of crossing societal divides, I took my leftist sensibilities and set off into the foreign political territory in my own backyard.

If Maxime Bernier had received 323 more votes in the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, he might now be angling for Justin Trudeau’s job. Instead, he is spending four weeks in the Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar, campaigning as the candidate for the People’s Party of Canada in a federal byelection.

The vote, triggered by Candace Bergen’s resignation from politics, takes place on June 19.

While my political inclinations have always leaned leftward, I have become alarmed at the rigidity of the left. Many liberal-minded Canadians would either dismiss or sneer at Bernier. While part of me is tempted to do the same, that would be to also dismiss some of my neighbours and longtime friends.

This is where the democratic rubber hits the country mile road. Democracy demands that we contend with difference, encourage debate, enter tension, make room for a broad range of voices. It allows us to fight vigorously for what we value, but it also requires an underlying fabric of basic human respect, as naïve as it sounds to suggest that in our polarized times.

Life in the Rural Municipality of Stanley, my home, provides unique opportunities to exercise my democratic muscles. Stanley surrounds Winkler and Morden, and falls within the Portage-Lisgar riding.

I grew up here; spent 20 years in parts more liberal; then returned 10 years ago.

It is, arguably, the most right-of-conservative corner of Canada. The COVID-19 vaccination rate here maxed out at 23 per cent, lower than any other jurisdiction in Canada. The PPC received 22 per cent of the vote in this riding in the last federal election, more than anywhere else in the country, including the Quebec riding where Bernier ran.

Now Bernier is here. So I mustered my belief in democracy and went to his Freedom Fest rally in Winkler last Saturday. I sat with a neighbour and two friends listening to about as much rancour and rhetoric as one would expect at any political event.

I also arranged an interview with Bernier on Monday. Sitting in the lobby of the Winkler Best Western, Bernier is far from his Montreal home, but he is quick to point out that during the 2021 federal election, the rally he held on a farm outside Schanzenfeld, near Winkler, with the local candidate at the time drew more people than any other campaign event held by any party anywhere in the country during that campaign. Politically, he is at home here.

Bernier’s message is clear and crisp. The CPC is a party of “fake conservatives.” Their leader, Pierre Poilievre, is a follower, not a leader, directed by opinion polls and political calculations rather than convictions.

Bernier’s message is not about taxes, economic growth or health care, but rather “mass migration,” which he opposes; the Paris climate agreement, which he would pull out of; and gun laws, which he would align with “common sense.” The core of his message, however, is about abortion and “toxic trans ideology.”

Bernier says people should be free to do what they want with their bodies when they are 18 years old, but before that, medical gender transitioning procedures should not be permitted. He says teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools confuses kids and contributes to mental health crises.

Rejecting my suggestion that the abortion debate is dead in Canada, he says it is “taboo,” not dead. Taboos do not deter him.

He notes that his CPC opponent, Branden Lesley, is also pro-life, but will be unable to act on that in Ottawa. In a visit to Winkler, Poilievre in fact confirmed that he would not bring forward legislation related to abortion if in power.

Bernier, if elected, would introduce a private members bill restricting late term abortion. He believes Poilievre would be pressured by his caucus into allowing a free vote. He says the topic is taboo because no one wants to argue in favour of late-term abortion.

An Ipsos poll in 2002, found that 56 per cent of Canadians believe women should have access to abortion at whichever stage they choose. Only 25 percent think the abortion debate should be reopened. For Bernier, that is no reason not to speak up.

Whether people find Bernier and the PPC offensive or even dangerous, this is democracy. We do well to consider the dangers of the alternatives.

I will fight for my values, which differ from Bernier’s, and I will also fight for the neighbourly decency that holds democracy together, even if just barely.

I often recall what Justin Trudeau said on the night he was first elected prime minister, “Conservatives are not our enemies; they’re our neighbours.”

Will Braun lives south of Morden and serves as editor of Canadian Mennonite magazine.