Anthony Furey: The Targeting of Jamil Jivani

Jamil Jivani, a former radio host for Bell Media and now a Conservative candidate who’s running to replace former Tory leader Erin O’Toole, speaks at Queen's Park in Toronto on June 4, 2020. The Canadian PressS/Rick Madonik

Commentary

It wasn’t a good look, to put it mildly. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to his caucus the other day to feed them their latest attack lines. These lines included a dog whistle against a popular young politician, Jamil Jivani, who is running to be the Conservative MP in the swing-riding of Durham.

Trudeau was going on a rant against the new additions to the Conservative family under leader Pierre Poilievre—both those who have won recent by-elections and upcoming candidates.

What Trudeau clearly hoped and thought he was doing was claiming that these up-and-comers are too politically extreme. Instead, he made himself look out of touch and afraid of the dynamic young voices who are rallying behind Poilievre.

It became clear last year that Trudeau’s not-so-brilliant strategy for re-election was to go all out on vilifying Poilievre. It seems to be all he has left.

Canadian voters typically don’t go for negative campaigning. It’s far better to focus on selling your accomplishments and all the good things you plan to do to better society.

Trudeau can’t run on his record though. He just has to vaguely fearmonger about what Poilievre would do as prime minister and toss around the phrase “MAGA.”

Trudeau and the Liberal brain trust somehow thought it was wise to lump Jivani in as one of the candidates they’re attacking. In a caught-on-camera moment, the Liberal leader sneered that Jivani was a “twofer.” He immediately went on to clarify he meant that the Conservative candidate was both “ideological and an insider.” But people took note of the other connotation that comes with the phrase.

Here’s how Postmedia columnist Lorrie Goldstein explained it on social media: “Twofer (two for the price of one) was defined by Trudeau with regard to Jivani as: “both an ideologue and an insider”. But ‘twofer” can also mean ‘a person who belongs to two minority or underprivileged groups and can satisfy two quotas.’ Either way, it’s a disparaging term.”

Disparaging indeed. The PM shouldn’t be using a term that can have racist connotations even if it wasn’t how he meant it.

Besides, it’s not like he used the phrase to refer to the other candidates he was deriding—and the rest were white. Why did Trudeau target the one black politician with this slur?

Poilievre and his team weren’t holding back. He posted the following online in response: “Justin Trudeau called Conservative candidate, Jamil Jivani, a “two-fer” – another racist comment from a leader who has an ugly past.”

Whatever Trudeau thought he’d gain though, it clearly backfired. Jivani posted a response video that has been watched over half a million times. He’s now levelled up in profile and gained the attention of not just his riding but the country.

Trudeau’s snit has only brought greater attention to the fact that young diverse candidates are lining up to run under the Poilievre Conservative banner. And he bizarrely wants people to join him in disapproving of it.

It’s clear what’s going on here. The Liberals are threatened. There are a whole bunch of young and trendy candidates who are running for the Conservatives. All across the country, there are healthy nomination races going on where quality candidates are vying to join the Conservative caucus.

The last time there was this sort of energy behind an election was in 2015, when Trudeau managed to attract quality candidates to run for him. He defied the odds and swept that election, winning more seats than the Liberals anticipated.

Trudeau knows what it’s like to feel momentum. He’s now feeling it again. It’s just that this time he’s not feeling it going to him. He knows it’s going towards Poilievre.

It was wrong to use the dog-whistle comment about Jivani. He should have been classier.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.