Patrick Brown Blows it Again

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Feb 2017

Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown is being hailed in the media for his cleverness in side-stepping a political trap set for him by Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberal caucus.  The alleged trap is a motion before the Ontario legislature similar in kind to Motion 103 before the Canadian House of Commons.  It is a resolution condemning Islamophobia and all kinds of religious discrimination.

The witless Mr. Brown is being too clever by half, or isn't clever half enough by coming out in favor of the resolution.  I recall Brian Mulroney being confronted in 1984 with the Canada Health Act with the expectation that he would reject it on conservative principles, and thus opening himself up (just before his landslide victory) to accusations of being a wicked man because he expressed disagreement with this or that Liberal piety.  Mulroney, with alleged political adroitness, came out in agreement with the Canada Health Act, and Canadian health care (or lack thereof) has been saddled with it ever since.

Patrick Brown is alienating people who would be inclined to support him - people whose teeth grind at the prospect of preening moralisms and proclamations of support for the religion de jure.  Donald Trump created a revolution down south by punching such preening pieties right in the mouth.  But Trump is a much bigger man than Brown, and could weather the media storm thrown at him in the course of the campaign.

With a little bit of wit and cleverness (admittedly missing in both federal and provincial politicians) Brown could have turned the motion on its head, and exposed it for the empty, meaningless gesture of Liberal virtue-signalling that it is.

For starters, Mr. Brown can say that the motion is nothing but an empty gesture of meaningless virtue-signalling by the Liberal party and another sign of the exhaustion of the Wynne government. They have no justification for another term, and are trying win the election nevertheless by dividing people with these political traps.  He can say that the motion exposes the Members to ridicule because of the unseriousness of the motion brought before the legislature.

He might then playfully accuse the motion of being Islamophilic in its condemnation of Islamophobia.  Islamophilia is a prejudice also - in favor of Islam, rather than against it.  And since prejudice of any kind is being condemned in the motion, the motion condemns itself!

The absurdity is thus made manifest, and Mr. Brown has not committed himself one way or the other on any issue larger than the wording of the motion itself, or on its intent (being virtue-signalling).

Regrettably we do not have in Canadian politics an intellect equal to that of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who would tear this childish stuff apart.

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