The Grant Rant

Well, now I have officially seen everything.

You’d think that, as we watch the United States have some sort of emotional breakdown, that Canadians might say to ourselves, “Hey, let’s not act that crazy. We can conduct ourselves in a more reasoned fashion.”

Apparently not. Here we have a Black Lives Matter speaker in Toronto during an anti-Trump rally held this past weekend calling call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (ya’ll might actually want to sit down for this) a “white supremacist terrorist.”

He said he wanted to accept everyone who is not allowed into the US border to Canada. Don’t cheer! Do not cheer, because we know what exactly that is. We know what that manipulation is.

It is what this country is founded on: erasure and silencing of the real history of this land: the genocide of indigenous people on which this state is founded on, the enslavement and genocide of black people on which this state founded on, the indentured slavery of racialized people on which this state is founded on.

When Justin Trudeau says that, he is a liar, he is a hypocrite, he is a white supremacist terrorist. That is what he is.

Yes, our Justin Trudeau. Mr. Sunny Ways. The guy who bleeds multiculturalism and goes out of his way to reach out to minority groups in this country is apparently a fascist and, I guess, a member Al Qaeda. Or Spectre. They weren’t really clear.

#alternativefacts, it seems, is a virus that has spread north and infected Toronto.

Certainly, Canada has yet to come to terms with our own history of racism, particularly as it pertains to our First Nations communities. Trudeau promised to usher in a new era in the relationship between Ottawa on our First Nations brothers and sisters but, it could be argued, has fallen well short of that mark. At the very least, there is an important political conversation to have there.

That conversation cannot be had if the unrelated issues of the Trump travel ban are conflated with Canada’s historical treatment of our First Nations. The narrative being told here is as warped as Trump inauguration crowd estimate.

And Trudeau as white supremacist and terrorist? That is not a political discussion, that is just madness. Trudeau is neither and presenting an alternative-reality narrative about the Prime Minister undercuts whatever credibly Black Lives Matter has left in Toronto. The group already had a serious credibly issue after having successfully lobbied to have the Toronto police barred from marching in the annual Pride parade.

It is ironic that the weekend rally was ostensibly to protest the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet in that speech, BLM has adopted the same Orwellian tactics of the presidency they claim to deplore. BLM, it seems, has adopted its own form of Newspeak, where words and facts are reshaped to suit their particular political agenda, accuracy be damned. In BLMspeak, after all, a terrorist can be anyone they disagree with politically.

White supremacy is a real thing that appears to be on the rise in the United States. It may turn out to be a motive in the Quebec City mosque shooting. Terrorists are also real, and coping with the international problem of jihadism and Islamism is urgent and critical. By slapping those labels on the Prime Minister, BLM has stripped those terms of actual meaning and seriousness, rendering them impotent and neutering our ability to talk about these issues in a substantive manner.

The group has posted another list of demands on its Facebook page, this time insisting Canadian immigrant policy be changed. Perhaps emboldened by its success with hijacking the Toronto Pride parade, Black Lives Matter Toronto has come to overestimate its political influence.

Until the group returns to reality, they can and should be ignored and banished to the political fringe.