MISSISSAUGA – A former party member who placed a very close second in the Conservative leadership race in 2017 has proposed a border fence to block asylum seekers from crossing the border.

The MP who received the endorsement from 24 former and current Conservative MPs and 11 Senators during the 2017 leadership race, and is now receiving endorsements from white nationalists, explained a fence is not a wall.

“There’s no cost for that… It’s a question of declaring our sovereignty,” said the man who could have easily been occupying Stornoway had the circumstances been slightly different.

“Build a fence! Build a fence!” chanted a supporter for the Beauce MP, whom many assumed was an innocent, small-government libertarian who opposed a Canadian values test for immigrants, which is now an important feature of his party’s platform.

The populist leader has given dire warnings about “extreme multiculturalism,” “fake news,” and public servants receiving free feminine hygiene products in workplace bathrooms came within a hair of becoming the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

“No consensus supporting climate alarmism,” tweeted the former cabinet minister who was beating the current Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer on the first round of leadership voting by 7% some two years ago.

“The other parties are complacent and pander to Islamists,” said the party leader in another tweet who would have said this more subtly as noble politician in charge of the government-in-waiting.