With two national polls showing the vast majority of Canadians support federal Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s call for screening potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values, the real issue is this.

Why is an idea so popular with the public so unpopular among what the great American conservative thinker Thomas Sowell describes as those who consider themselves society’s “anointed”?

That is, self-proclaimed “wise elites”, who believe it is their role to protect Canadians from their own opinions.

This not only includes Liberal and NDP politicians, but many Conservative leadership candidates, along with media pundits and academics.

Despite this, a national Forum Research poll released Saturday of 1,370 Canadian adults taken Sept. 6-7, after Leitch’s views had been widely reported, found 67% agreed with her.

This includes clear majorities of Conservative, Liberal and NDP voters at 87%, 57% and 59% respectively.

A Nanos Research poll of 1,000 adults conducted Aug. 22-25 and released Sept. 1, before Leitch made her comments, found 74% of Canadians support: “Making the screening process more onerous for potential immigrants from regions such as the Middle East to reduce potential security threats.”

And yet Leitch’s proposal, which obviously strikes most Canadians as common sense, has attracted virulent personal and political attacks aimed at her, simply for suggesting the idea should be debated during the Conservative leadership race.

Leadership rival Michael Chong actually accused Leitch of “dog whistle politics”, a phrase typically used by the left to accuse conservatives of using coded language to appeal to racists in order to further their political careers.

Others mockingly compared Leitch’s proposal to Republican presidential contender Donald Trump’s call for temporarily stopping Muslim immigration to the U.S., and to build a wall at the Mexican border.

Think about that. In Canada, the anointed argue screening would be immigrants for anti-Canadian values, is the same thing as barring people from Canada solely on the basis of their religion or country of origin.

How do supposedly smart people become so oblivious to reality?

This is essentially a repeat of last year’s federal election in which the usual suspects described above (except for the Conservatives, of course) accused the then Stephen Harper government of bigotry for requiring that niqabi women unveil when reciting the oath of citizenship, a policy which polls showed up to 82% of Canadians supported.

There have also been personal attacks on Leitch, arguing she is a political lightweight, doesn’t really believe what she’s saying and that she is unfit to raise the issue because after the federal election, she broke down in tears while suggesting the Tory’s election proposal of a barbaric practices tip line was a mistake.

None of which is relevant to the issue — whether or not would-be immigrants to Canada should be screened for anti-Canadian values.

Indeed, the truly shocking thing here is that our political and chattering classes, with few exceptions, apparently don’t believe it’s important immigrants share our values.

What are they smoking?