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While threats against anyone – including politicians and public figures are never tolerated, it’s something that you have to expect, especially when the portfolio you look after is such a high profile one and one that brings out controversy and high emotions.

It seems that Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna now has her own security detail , owing to the many threats and nasty comments coming her way. “Much has been written about the online abuse and threatening behaviour politicians — especially female politicians — and others in the public eye face every day. But McKenna says as the heat around climate change continues to grow, that abuse is going from anonymous online vitriol to terrifying in-person verbal assaults. She has been called the C-word, a traitor, an enemy and a “communist piece of garbage.” Her family’s safety has been threatened more than once. Some people have wished she and her children will get fatal diseases. She has received sexualized messages so hateful they could be enough to make even the hardest of hearts skip a beat. The threats have become real enough that McKenna sometimes now requires a security detail, a level of protection even cabinet ministers don’t usually get.”There are places, yes, that I have to have security now and I don’t think that’s a great situation,” she said. “I’m someone who is trying to do my job, live my life, and talk and engage with people, and it makes it harder. I’m not going to let this stop me but I wish it would stop.” McKenna would not elaborate on the security needs, so as not to reveal when she has less protection. She said the online abuse in particular has been going on since she was elected, but that in recent months it has gotten much worse in person. “The challenges, the increases of this, is worrying for everyone,” she said.

McKenna is not alone in fearing for her safety. Tzeporah Berman, international program co-ordinator for Stand.Earth, said earlier this summer that she has received death threats and was physically assaulted in the Edmonton airport by a man angry about her campaign to close down the oil sands. Catherine Abreu, the executive director of Climate Action Network, Canada, said the issue is a constant source of frustration and fear for environmentalists.

Of course this article is quite sympathetic toward Minister McKenna (a.k.a Climate Barbie) and other eco warriors but fails to mention the insults lobbed the other way toward Conservative politicians, scientists like Dr. Tim Ball and ordinary Canadians who see through the scam that is “climate change.”



McKenna’s most notable gaffe to date is this:

On video, McKenna could be seen in a bar talking about her strategy for lying to the Canadian People. “If you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that’s your talking point, people will totally believe it!”

In response to McKenna’s contempt for Canadians, Conservative MP John Brassard slammed her remarks, pointing out some of the things she’s ‘loudly’ said in an effort to make people believe her lies: “Statement in the HOC May 27, 2019: Sorry @cathmckenna Canadians are smarter than you think. No matter how loud you say it or how many times you repeat it, Canadians are not totally believing you.”

Then, there was this one after the Christchurch, New Zealand massacre in March, 2019:

“I spoke to parents at Ottawa Main Mosque today whose kids are too scared to pray & go to school. In Canada. Meanwhile Andrew Scheer has to be called out before he can call out Islamophobia. We all need to stand together against racism, hatred & violence of all kinds. All of us.” McKenna was roundly called out for this one, being accused among other things as trying to score cheap political points from a tragedy.

After the New Zealand insult, there was this:

“McKenna is doubling down on demonizing Conservative Canadians. Her latest move is to try and attack Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Conservatives and link them to the wildfires in Alberta. And there’s an even more insidious use of rhetoric being deployed by the Environment Minister: She’s implying that Conservatives aren’t Canadians. Take a look at the text of one of her recent tweets: “Across Canada, people agree that climate change is a threat to our country. I don’t understand why the Conservatives are hesitant to join Canadians in the fight against climate change. We’ll keep working with Canadians as we move forward with our practical and affordable plan.”

The insults and demeaning behaviour are not limited to Minister McKenna. Other climate activists like David Suzuki demanded that Stephen Harper and others who don’t believe in the religion of climate change should be jailed.

A professor in Calgary accused a Conservative MP of spreading “climate misinformation” to junior high school students in Red Deer, AB.

This happened back in 2016 in Question Period when Conservative MP Lisa Raitt stood up “to tell stories about families she knew who were having trouble paying the bills and were worried about the national carbon tax the Liberals are mandating the provinces to introduce. She got through one anecdote and decorum seemed to hold. But once she started her second story, before she’d even really gotten into it, the Liberals started to groan and heckle and guffaw at her. Raitt was shocked.As she should be. It’s just not done. Can you imagine an entire section of the House of Commons laughing at, say, the plight of refugees? Of course not. Then why is it acceptable to ridicule the struggles of ordinary Canadians?”

Because that’s what climate elitism is all about and why these elitists feel that it’s OK to insult politicians who may not agree with the Liberals on climate and to demean the struggles of ordinary Canadians as they try and survive under crushing Liberal taxes and policies.

This is just a small sample of the insults lobbed at Conservatives and to ordinary Canadians by Minister McKenna and others like David Suzuki who don’t get it that not all Canadians buy into the religion of climate change.

Like many other progressives, McKenna has an extremely thin skin, especially when she was dubbed “Climate Barbie”, first by Conservative MP Gerry Ritz ( who since apologized and deleted the tweet that started it all) and then, picked up by Rebel Media. The name has coined many thousands of memes of the Minister as a climate crusader and while she may not like the name, her behaviour and policies helped to create the phenomena.

Even Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno saw McKenna as “Climate Barbie” when she said this back in 2017: “Climate Barbie” is a brilliant barb. Wish I’d thought of it myself. “Nobody could call federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna ugly. She’s gorgeous, a bilingual lawyer with a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. But “Climate Barbie” captures her perfectly, if one were a global warming troglodyte inclined to lob a sarcastic brickbat aimed, presumably, at McKenna’s purported shallowness. A bit of mischief, that’s all. Politics is a rough-and-tumble business. A wiser person would ignore the snarky smirch rather than wince and whinge. Or ding back instead of taking callow refuge in a pettish crybaby rejoinder, a pseudo-burka posture that reinforces paternalistic attitudes toward women.I will borrow from the alt-right glossary and characterize McKenna as a snowflake.”

Minister McKenna said back during the Climate Barbie hysteria that she wanted “respect” and not to be labelled this way. To get respect, one must earn respect.

Considering her constant haranguing of anyone who does not see “climate change” the way she sees it, when she calls those who oppose her climate deniers and other such names, that respect has not been earned.

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