There's an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. While the concept of the nuclear family experiences is at the end of its heyday, the village is making a comeback. Parents are starting to notice that children exposed to a diversity of cultural backgrounds and ideas in their formative years tend to do better in school, easily make friends and often become more successful adults. The benefits of the village principle also apply in other sectors, such as news and politics. Individuals who openly and freely consider all options in front of them are more likely to make truly informed decisions. While the Trudeau government is not without fault, and there are glaring flaws that can easily be pointed out, public attention must be shifted to the problem at hand: two frontrunners in the Conservative party's federal leadership race are exhibiting similar traits shown by Donald Trump and his team during their 2016 election run.

Kellie Leitch, right, and Kevin O'Leary participate in the Conservative leadership candidates' debate, in Halifax on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. (Photo: Andrew Vaughan/CP) Disinformation, fear-based statements and outright lies have dominated the cults-of-celebrity surrounding Kellie Leitch and Kevin O'Leary, leaving a distinct bitterness hanging in the air that can be heard in discussions across dinner tables and seen on news-feeds as conversations shift away from policy-based issues towards who said what outlandish thing. We are entering a new era of identity politics -- the increasingly common practice of political campaigns throwing actual policy to the wind and instead playing directly to our emotions -- this method is defined by selfies, sunny-ways, hope and change, fear and division and class anger turned into blind rage. Make no mistake, Kevin O'Leary -- who has still not presented a policy platform -- is winning the Conservative leadership race with nothing other than a reality TV inspired cult-of-personality that people are flocking to. He is using Trump's playbook. Facts don't matter -- not until much further down the road when they begin to negatively affect the people that voted for him. The toxic bitterness of the 2016 American election was difficult to watch for people across the globe as the once-hallowed title of "leader of the free-world" was unceremoniously discarded without a second glance and picked out of the trash by a celebrity brand. The same tactics and dogmatic rhetoric are now being used by some candidates in the Conservative leadership race regardless of how much facts may controvert them. Canadian politics are 1/10th the size of those in the U.S. and the cultural influence from our neighbours is being felt stronger than ever as roving bands of alt-right have sprung up across the country.