LILLEY: Liberals freak out over Poilievre meeting Christians
Comments show utter disdain for a large portion of Canadian society.
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The reaction to Pierre Poilievre visiting a number of Christian churches lately would make you think The Handmaid’s Tale was about to move from fiction to reality.
Seems to some so-called progressive Canadians, politicians can seek the votes of any religious or ethnic group, but Christians need to be avoided.
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This all began with a story written by David Akin at Global News stating Poilievre recently attended services at three evangelical churches in the Toronto area.
The story from Akin was fine, it noted something of interest, mainly that Poilievre wasn’t hiding the fact he was campaigning at these churches. As Akin noted, some previous Conservative leaders have avoided the association with evangelical churches because of negative connections some voters have due to impressions from American politics.
Politically and religiously, Canada and the United States are two very different countries, but that didn’t stop progressives from fainting at the thought of a politician meeting with such deplorable people!
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It wasn’t just TruAnon social media accounts like Vicki Campbell who accused Poilievre of, “trying to bring religion into politics in Canada. It’s so American of him,” there were serious Liberals as well.
“The far-right Evangelical Christian movement is a scourge on our politics. They’re a dangerous lot. Yet these are the sort of groups Poilievre seeks out. He met with these folks three times last weekend while not attending a single Pride event,” Liberal commentator Andrew Perez posted to X.
Poilievre deciding not to go to Toronto’s Pride Parade was a major issue for much of the commentary, including longtime Liberal strategist and recent Vancouver mayoral candidate Mark Marissen.
“Poilievre chose evangelical churches over Pride events. This was a deliberate choice. He could have gone any other weekend,” Marissen posted.
Scrolling through Liberal social media was a matter of wash, rinse, repeat with these comments, with some adding in plenty of expletives or vulgarities to emphasize their point.
First off, Poilievre has been going to churches on other weekends, it has been posted to social media and not hidden. As for Toronto Pride, it’s not the only Pride Parade in the country. And while turnout is high, most of the city doesn’t participate, just like any other major event.
The fixation on Pride is an attempt to label a man whose father is gay, who has a lesbian as one of his deputy leaders and several gay support staff working for him as if he is some sort of homophobe. There were also claims from Liberals online that Poilievre showing up at evangelical churches was proof he is courting white Christian nationalists.
Can we get a grip on reality?
One of the churches Poilievre visited was in Markham and has a predominantly Chinese congregation. The other two were in the Brampton area and have predominantly black congregations.
Calling evangelical Christians “a scourge on our politics,” as Perez did, is an ignorant comment, or as Chrystia Freeland might put it, “cold, cruel and small.” It shows a lack of understanding of Canada’s evangelicals and a smearing of an entire group of people based on imagined or imported caricatures of American churches.
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This hysteria about Poilievre meeting Christians and visiting their places of worship is beyond bizarre. None of these Liberals complain when Poilievre visits mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras or temples, just evangelical churches and perhaps a Catholic church if he went to one considered conservative in any way.
Politicians of all stripes visit places of worship, Trudeau himself was at a Hindu community gathering last week. The Prime Minister has even visited mosques and other places of worship where people are separated by gender.
That hasn’t resulted in the same outcry from Liberal sources.
Liberals love to claim they are above divisive politics, but their views on their fellow Canadians who are Christian would say otherwise.
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