Checkmate!

Maxime Bernier's staff deleted those 1000s of emails he allegedly got complaining about the census. Here's what he says:

[W]hen I was Industry minister in 2006 during the previous census, several thousand email messages of complaint were sent to my MP office. (Some people have asked me to show proof of this. It was evidently part of an organized campaign, as my Parliament colleagues and I often sometimes receive vast numbers of messages on controversial issues. They are one way among others to gauge the level of public support or opposition to a decision. These messages were obviously not filed for future use by my staff and were deleted.)

And the funny thing is: Bernier's suggesting that the alleged e-mails were deleted because he discounted them as being "part of an organized campaign"--in other words, judged them as not representative of an underlying sentiment in Der Volk. So why did he even raise them in the first place? Who cares how many emails you got if you admit they were all astroturf?

The guy's been caught in a piece of straight-up bullshit.

Also: Tory MP Rajotte has cracked.

Your Daily Nazi: Tories And Nazis

Kinsella gives a half-dozen good reasons that the Harper Conservatives should eschew the "anti-Semitism" card. Here's another more recent one: Edmonton MP James Rajotte making all nicey with white nationalist Glenn Bahr.

James Rajotte: Meet Glenn Bahr

Glenn Bahr:

Tory MP James Rajotte responding to a constituent letter from Glenn Bahr:

While I am only aware of the generalities of your specific case with the Tribunal and it would be inappropriate for me to comment without full knowledge of the situation, rest assured that I am in agreement with you that the Canadian Human Rights Commission (as well as similar bodies at the provincial level) has recently overstepped its original mandate ...

One of the "particulars" in one of the cases against Glenn Bahr:

I believe no matter how or why you are a homosexual your life should be terminated. . . They should be terminated along with retards and any other degenerates that nature would do away with in the wild. What gives us the right to prolong a life that would have been terminated by nature.

You know I'm feeling better these days about the whole idea of a Spring election...don't know why.

Your Daily Nazi: Weep For The White Supremacist Edition

A letter in which Glenn Bahr, founder of Western Canada For Us (WCFU), a now defunct racist group based in Edmonton, laments his harsh treatment at the hands of Edmonton's finest. Posted to both of those bastions of Free Speech, Free Dominion AND Stormfront.

Although Mr. Bahr's luck has been changing lately. As noted yesterday evening, he's found a supporter in Edmonton Conservative MP James Rajotte who, although he has kept himself carefully ignorant of anything beyond the "generalities" of Mr. Bahr's case, does know enough to know he's against Section 13.

Your Daily Nazi:Conservative MP James Rajotte First Conservative To Offer Support For Canadian Nazis

James Rajotte is the Conservative MP for Edmonton-Leduc; Glenn Bahr is one of the founders of Western Canada For Us (WCFU), a now defunct racist group based in Edmonton, Alberta. [1]. Glenn wrote James a letter bitching about Canadian Human Rights legislation, which he has run afoul of on at least one occasion, and found a sympathetic audience in Mr. Rajotte:

While I am only aware of the generalities of your specific case with the Tribunal and it would be inappropriate for me to comment without full knowledge of the situation, rest assured that I am in agreement with you that the Canadian Human Rights Commission (as well as similar bodies at the provincial level) has recently overstepped its original mandate and is in need of reform. Its mandate is to protect the human rights of Canadian citizens, not to curtail free speech and impose censorship on an open, democratic society.

I give you my assurance that when motion M-446 comes before the House of Commons it will have my support. Furthermore, the passage of M-446 in no way prevents the enactment of further legislation to reform human rights bodies in Canada, should the need arise in the future

For the most part, Stephen Harper has used the whip of leadership to stop wing-nuts in the CPoC caucus from going over the edge and off into 1990s Reform Party La La land. Reading Mr. Rajotte's response to one of Canada's premier white supremacists, it is easy to see the wisdom of this strategy. If Mr. Rajotte is unaware of the specifics of Mr. Bahr's case it is because he has not spent the 0.3 seconds necessary to google them. And while I suppose it is okay for the undisciplined monkeys of the opposition to contemplate tinkering with legislation that would objectively give Neo-Nazis a stronger foothold within Canada, you would think that a member of the governing party would have a little more maturity.