The Liberal party that claims to be a force for good and the glue that unites this nation, this week showed their true colours again as Master practitioner in the Arts of Identity Politics. This week a Liberal candidate in Calgary on the popular social media site Twitter, claimed that the Calgary cops were racists. Normally, this would be water off a ducks back, and merely chocked up as a rogue candidate going way off the deep end in a riding that probably could only be won if Hell probably froze over first. Sadly the Liberals have an illustrious history of playing Identity Politics by pitting one region or group against each other in the broad Canadian debate.
In 2001 then Minister Hedy Fry tried to marginalize the Canadian alliance as a political force by alluding to that certain areas of British Columbia had crosses burning on their yards. A not so veiled reference to the Ku Klux Klan and their illegal and immoral activities of that organization in the United States.
If an individual cast their gaze back even further to the time of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, he himself had a mixed record when it came to the mastering of the Faustian Fine Art of Identity Politics. Famously in his first meeting with Adolf Hitler. he thought that Hitler was a fine fellow and would be a great leader for Germany. “My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good. ” I’m not comparing King’s initial support for Hitler’s efforts in 1937 as it applies to the Liberals broad-brush approach to Identity Politics.