XPost: alt.sodomites.barack-obama, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns XPost: sac.politics

If you doubted the old chestnut that politics can be a “fickle business,”
the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, would like to
have a word.

For several happy months, a succession of polls confirmed that Poilievre appeared poised to become the country’s next prime minister with a
staggering plurality to boot.

Impatient voters had, on the whole, soured on Canada’s spent prime
minister, Justin Trudeau, worried about the ever-rising costs of living,
from groceries to homes.

Poilievre and his shadow cabinet exploited the prevailing zeitgeist and
seemed destined to wrest power from an exhausted Liberal Party that faced
a blunt and bracing political reckoning.

Then, Donald Trump returned to the White House, threatening to turn Canada
into the fractured union’s 51st state.

The political terrain and stakes shifted like a sudden, disorienting earthquake. Fretting Liberals capitalised on the opening by ditching
Trudeau and electing a new leader, former banker Mark Carney as a
“serious” antidote to Trump.

With election day on the horizon, Liberal fortunes have made a stunning volte-face. Once trailing far behind like a wounded racehorse limping to
the finish line, the party has edged slightly ahead.

But Carney and cocksure company should remember that other old chestnut
that, beyond taxes, there are no guarantees in life or politics.

Some polls reveal a tightening contest, with one having Conservatives
retaking the lead.

And while the subject dominating the short campaign has been the
existential danger that a former continental confederate poses to Canada’s sovereignty, for many concerned Canadians, the state-sponsored genocide devouring Palestine and Palestinians with such ruthless and inhumane
efficiency is the defining issue of these awful times.

Those same concerned and motivated Canadians have made it plain that
genocide is on the ballot and Canada’s established political parties are obliged to take note, or they will suffer the inevitable and harsh consequences.

Last week in Ottawa, scores of Canadians demonstrated their resolve to
hold Canada’s political leaders to stiff account if they continue to deny
that Israel is guilty of genocide and refuse to put tangible pressure on
Tel Aviv to end the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and the
occupied West Bank.

“We are here in Ottawa,” a concerned Canadian said, “to demand a two-way
arms embargo … and to say to all politicians that if you do not endorse a two-way arms embargo, you will not get a single vote from any of our communities.”

That concerned Canadian is, of course, not alone.

They have been joined by thousands of like-minded Canadians who have
invested time, money and energy to mobilise Arab and Muslim voters
throughout Canada to exercise their agency and franchise on April 28 in solidarity with their besieged brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Large nationwide and energised grassroots movements, including
#ElectPalestine, MuslimsVote and Vote Palestine, are seized with the overarching imperative to fix the fate of Palestine and Palestinians at
the epicentre of Canada’s political dialogue.

Their “voices” must finally be heard and attended to.

The predictable cultural condescension – quick, election-time visits to
mosques and cliche-ridden rhetoric meant to convey tissue-thin “sympathy”
for the “sad” plight of Palestinians – has lost what remained of its
vacuous currency.

Instead, powerful constituencies are demanding that Canada’s “major”
political parties recalibrate fundamentally and unequivocally their longstanding backing for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – an indicted war criminal – and reject outright his oft-repeated, and
international law-desecrating aim to reduce Palestine to dust and memory.

The crusade gathering momentum in Canada is reminiscent of the
“Uncommitted” cause engineered by Arab and Muslim citizens during the 2024
US presidential election, who warned the Democratic Party and its standard bearer, Kamala Harris, that they risked losing votes in crucial swing
states by continuing to arm and offer diplomatic cover to Netanyahu.

Harris failed to heed the urgent alarm and, as a result, forfeited the presidency to mollify Israel, its evangelical supporters in the United
States and Netanyahu’s grotesque strategic aims.

Her reward?

An emboldened Netanyahu has embraced Trump like a brother-in-genocidal-
arms.

The Democratic Party may or may not have learned an instructive lesson
that may or may not influence its slavish Israel-coddling in 2028.

We will, in due course, see.

Meanwhile, Carney and Poilievre have been busy mimicking Harris’s scoffing
at the pressing preoccupations of Arab and Muslim voters and their allies
among the broader Canadian public.

Poilievre is a crude, irredeemable honorary Zionist zealot, describing
mass pro-Palestinian protests as “hate marches”.

For his cavalier part, Carney was confronted at a rally in Ontario earlier
this month by a concerned Canadian who asked the prime minister, “Why are
you sending weapons to Israel via the US to kill our families?”

Carney’s response: silence.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/4/23/in-canada-genocide-is-on-the- ballot

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