By Andru McCracken
They take up the most space and time on social media, they dominate my personal Facebook experience and if you would just listen and do a little research on your own you would agree that their issue is probably the most important thing going on in the whole world, vastly under reported and very very important.
Some plots are silly: The Earth is flat. The Moon landing an important hoax in a series of fakes. Jet exhaust aids mind control.And this: Climate change is a left wing plot to tax the free world into submission. In other words, Climate change is an industry captivated mind control machine, a ‘nonprofit industrial complex’ whose goal is to ensure the survival of the 1% and delay saving the planet.
Some plots are pernicious in a way we are very familiar with, say anti-semitism.
I was surprised, on reflection, just how clearly the Federal Election 2019 dealt with the fringe.
Whatever inroads these caring devotees made for their cause, the Federal Election sidelined them. Hard.
If the geoengineers, the anti-immigration activists, the islamaphobes captured the vote as well as they captured my social media feed, we’d be living in a very different Canada.
And if a flat earth, anti immigrant, chem-trail watcher wanted a perfect candidate they had no better than Ron Vaillant who called it the ‘most important issue’ of our time. Vaillant was our candidate for the People’s Party of Canada who made waves with a ‘Say no to mass migration” billboard that simplified the question of immigration, Canada’s responsibility abroad and our economic future at home to just five words.
During the McBride all-candidates’ forum, Vaillant declared that he would rid the immigration system of the ‘family reunification program.’ Vaillant just wanted the skilled migrants and not their ‘baggage,’ you know, family. The woman who sat behind me gasped aloud. She reminded me that this rhetoric doesn’t wash with the vast majority of Canadians. With the election results in, it appears that the gasper in the audience had a much better chance of getting elected than Vaillant who garnered just a fraction of the votes.
Overall I’m not particularly pleased with the results of this election. Like the vast majority of Canadians I think the climate is in crisis. Solutions aren’t coming any time soon, despite their capacity to create an economy we can live in.
But my consolation is this: The fringe makes themselves heard and seen on social media and in the big picture that act has integrity. Despite their larger than life appearance, they are on par with the rest of us, they can cast their vote. And, to the extent that their conversation is legitimate and makes sense, they can influence policy and the debate. Not more.
For me, that’s reassuring.
