Canada’s 42nd general election, a campaign that raised eyebrows around the world for its exhibitions of hostility and discrimination, is finally over. Stephen Harper and the Conservative party peddled hatred of Muslims, fear of refugees, disregard for First Nations communities. Yes, they lost, but in losing they exposed a country where hatred is still in fashion and worthy of popular consideration.

Windsor Star columnist Anne Jarvis spoke for many in responding to the Conservative attacks by saying, “This is not my Canada.” Ideally, I agree: this is not what Canada should be. We ought to be a country committed to anti-racism, but doing so would mean fully acknowledging the living legacy of our racist history. Instead, Canadians naively and defensively insist we are not racist, and skate past every opportunity to explore why racism and xenophobia are still so good at dividing us.

Although they ran the most openly hateful election campaign I have ever witnessed, the Conservatives earned almost a third of votes in Monday’s election. Conservative supporters did not abandon the party over its hateful targeting of Muslim women who wear the niqab, its indifference to murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, or its insistence on invoking the spectre of terrorism in discussing Syrian refugees, most of whom are Muslim.

In a country committed to anti-racism, such a party would be laughable and fringe. Instead, many Canadians feared the racist tactics would succeed. We described the strategy of hatred as a “distraction” from apparent “real issues,” rather than clear evidence that racism is a most pressing and unresolved national problem. We comforted ourselves that what we were seeing and hearing was some sort of temporary illusion, a nightmare from which we might soon awake.

The Conservative campaign exploited a historical, ingrained hatred of immigrants and racialized people as old as the country itself. The fear-mongering against today’s Muslim refugees is reminiscent of the treatment of Jewish refugees whom Canada denied during the Nazi holocaust. The stigmatization of nearly 500 Tamil migrants, who arrived on Vancouver’s shores in 2010, echoes our fearful treatment of about 400 mostly Sikh migrants from India who were denied entry in 1914.

All Canadians should know this history, and should have learned it within the context of British colonialism and racism. But our shame hides the past, and mischaracterizes distinct patterns of hatred as accidents of outdated thinking, as the will of uniquely wicked individuals who sadly rose to power. Harper himself may one day be remembered as such a leader. But he was simply exploiting history, and betting on our very Canadian reluctance to face it.

In early September, Sue MacDonell, a board member of her local Conservative riding association, resigned after a series of Facebook posts she had written were publicized. In one post, MacDonell criticized funding for indigenous people by saying, “That’s right, throw some more money at the Indians … because it’s worked so well up until now, right?”

MacDonell responded to an opinion piece about the need to prioritize Muslim refugees by calling them “illiterate, unskilled primitive refugees” who would bankrupt the country. Some of her posts date back to 2010. These views are nearly as common as they are disgusting, and if MacDonell had not associated herself with a political party, her vitriol would never have made the news. Sadly, Canada is still a place that tolerates hatred and allows those who promote it to thrive.

The advent of a Liberal majority government doesn’t change this very much. The Liberals rejected Harper’s bigotry, but they failed to identify racism and xenophobia as critical problems in Canada. “We beat fear with hope,” prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau declared during his victory speech on Monday night. If fear was something Conservatives had dreamed up in a strategy meeting, and not an embedded Canadian challenge, I might agree. This campaign has revealed how much work we have ahead, and why we must commit to anti-racism in Canada.

The word “racism” was notably absent from Trudeau’s speech, as if the naming of the hatred we all witnessed, and which many of us were directly targeted with, would have spoiled the party. More troubling is that the Liberal campaign did not include plans to expose and eliminate systemic racism. If the wake of this hate-filled election is not the right time to speak openly about racism in Canada, the moment may never come.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every Thursday.

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