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The extremism of the Harper government was mirrored by that of Clark. According to Supreme Court documents, her government sought to provoke a political crisis in public education that it sought to blame on the teachers. Headed by a supposedly “feminist” premier, the government triple-deleted emails relating to Highway 16, or the “Highway of Tears,” along which countless Indigenous women and girls disappeared or were murdered. Over the objection of the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs, Clark ramrodded the Site C dam through the environmental process, entirely without a compelling business case. By any accounting, the B.C. Liberals were extreme and cynically did much to undermine democratic institutions in this province. It did so on the basis of 45.82 per cent of the popular vote, which translated into 49 seats, as compared with the NDP’s 42.15 per cent of the vote and 35 seats. Again, FPP did precious little to prevent this extremist party from coming to power.

And, today, in Ontario, we see the very real prospect on June 7 of a Conservative government led by Doug Ford, brother of the late Rob Ford and former mayor of Toronto, who reduced Canada’s largest city to the butt of U.S. late-night TV humour. Worryingly, it appears that, if elected, Doug Ford will pursue a hard-right, social-conservative agenda that, among other things, will compromise a woman’s right to choose when it comes to abortion. And, again, here the FPP will have done nothing precious to prevent this outcome.

Samir Gandesha is working on a book on the rise of political extremism. He has lectured at universities throughout the world, was the Liu Boming visiting professor at the University of Nanjing in April 2017 and is associate professor and director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University.

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