'No doubt, Trudeau can be intolerable. But in repeatedly defending multiculturalism as it has been practised in this country for nearly half a century — in hostile territory, no less — he deserves credit and praise.'

Say what you will about Justin Trudeau.

I’ll start. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to sell yourself as an environmentalist who wants to tackle climate change while championing the construction of pipelines, the very machinery that perpetuates it.

And it takes chutzpah (not to mention insane levels of self-regard) to traipse through foreign countries as a whirling dervish of costume changes and cloyingly sweet sentiment, as Trudeau did during his trade mission to India last February. This was the most grating example of the Trudeau-esque persona: at once selling the Liberal brand of multiculturalism in a foreign country while reducing said multiculturalism to a smorgasbord of clothes, food and conspicuous sincerity.

Except this: Such overindulgences aside, the Prime Minister has deeply held convictions on the issues of immigration and multiculturalism — convictions he defends in public, unscripted, and often in front of hostile crowds. In the age of Trump, during which many liberal-minded leaders have become scared of their own ideology, Trudeau has only doubled down.

Consider the town hall Trudeau held in Saskatchewan this week. But first, consider the very idea of town halls. They are fraught exercises for any politician, often endured because they are part of the job. Just ask Tom MacArthur, a former congressman from New Jersey.

MacArthur was part of the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, an honour that earned him five hours of abuse from his constituents at a town hall in May 2017. The litany of insults launched in MacArthur’s direction — “liar,” “idiot,” “blood on your hands” — became fodder for national TV. He lost his seat in November’s midterm election.

For Trudeau, there was similarly little political upside in choosing to town-hall in Saskatchewan, home to immense reserves of both potash and anti-Liberal enmity. Indeed, he was welcomed as you might expect. “You are working for your globalist partners,” said one woman, on camera, while standing about 200 feet from the prime minister. “I wonder how much they are paying you to betray Canada. What do we do with traitors in Canada, Mr. Trudeau? We used to hang them, hang them for treason.”

There were many other similarly unhinged missives lobbed at Trudeau. One in particular visibly irked him. At one point, a fellow in a black T-shirt stood to denounce Trudeau’s “open borders,” then informed the prime minister that “Islam and Christianity … will not mix.”

“They’ve openly stated that they want to kill us,” then man continued. “And you’re letting them in.”

Trudeau’s answer was a treatise on how the country itself was founded on immigration, and how the first generations of these immigrants often faced discrimination. “It’s not easy to pick up everything you have, cross an ocean, and try (to) build a future for yourselves. And if people are doing it, it’s because they believe they can build a better future for their kids and grandkids,” he said.

Boilerplate stuff? Sure. But it is a testament to these addled times that Trudeau is one of perhaps a handful of world leaders saying it loudly and publicly, in front of demonstrably unsympathetic crowds.

The ethno-nationalist discourse, de rigueur in parts of Europe and in our neighbour directly to the south, has kicked the Overton window wide open. It is now acceptable to spew toxic, Facebook-sourced, anti-immigrant spiels in public. Denouncing them is suddenly akin to hating free speech.

And it’s now acceptable to label any politician who defends centuries of immigration as a liberal, open-borders shill who is probably sitting firmly in George Soros’s back pocket. In fact, it’s practically the citizen’s duty to do so. He’s treasonous, after all. He should probably be hanged.

Andrew Scheer has indulged the lowest common denominator. The Conservative leader denounced the recent UN agreement on migration because it would give “influence over Canada’s immigration system to foreign entities,” as he put it last month. In other words, under Trudeau, Canada’s sovereignty was being sacrificed to the globalist gods of the populist right’s imagination.

To be fair to Scheer, his party was scapegoating migrants and refugees long before he became leader. In 2015, Conservative MP Candice Bergen declared herself “embarrassed and sickened” by Trudeau’s decision to allow into Canada 40,000 refugees from Syria, “a country steeped in very real terrorism.” When I interviewed her, she said she was almost literally holding her breath for the first ISIL-related attack to emanate from this 40,000-strong horde. Here’s hoping she isn’t still doing so.

No doubt, Trudeau can be intolerable. But in repeatedly defending multiculturalism as it has been practised in this country for nearly half a century — in hostile territory, no less — he deserves credit and praise. Few like-minded politicians are doing it in this country. Precious fewer are doing it in the world beyond its borders.

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