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No doubt the Liberals are too quick to assume the worst of their critics, inhabiting as they do a milieu in which the possibility that sentient adults might hold views contrary to their own is regarded as so improbable as to be explicable only by ignorance, malice or worse. The prime minister’s declared intent to make “divisiveness” the central issue of the next election — to emphasize, as it were, the stark contrast between his own party and the polarizers opposite — is revealing in its irony.

But to call out a demonstrably racist and intolerant person as racist and intolerant is hardly demonizing. It’s just accurate.

It would not have taken much research for the Conservatives to have unearthed Blain’s background, but it should not have required even that. Her followup question, whether the prime minister was tolerant of “Québécois de souche,” or the descendants of the original French settlers, should have been enough.

For that matter, so should the single-minded fixation that would lead her to travel some distance to a Liberal rally just to scream at the prime minister over the “illegal” immigrant question. People of goodwill can be concerned that admission to Canada should be by lawful and regular means, as they may criticize the Liberal government for its handling of the issue. It is the elevation of what remains a comparatively minor issue — we are talking about fewer than 60 asylum seekers a day — into a frothing obsession that should set off alarm bells.

But then, that would require the Conservatives to take a hard look at their own persistent fearmongering on the matter. Legitimate questions are one thing. But Conservative rhetoric on what they insist is a “crisis” is so monomaniacal, so out of proportion to its actual significance, that no one should be fooled. It is wrong to tar legitimate critics as racist or intolerant, but it is just as wrong to try to pass off calculated appeals to xenophobia as just “asking questions.”

Which brings us to Maxime Bernier. The Conservatives’ efforts to paint Trudeau as intolerant of dissent might have had more traction had they not spent the better part of the last week in a fairly concerted attempt to marginalize the MP from the Beauce over a series of tweets attacking the Liberals’ alleged “extreme multiculturalism” and “cult of diversity.”