What a great bunch. Photos by Jake Kivanc
Easily the worst/longest election season Canada has seen in my lifetime – with its lowlights being the extreme bigotry produced by the niqab debate and a crack-smoking ex-mayor’s endorsement of a man who allegedly hates drugs – the 42nd Canadian federal election is mercifully over.
But before we pretend this didn’t happen, there are a few things left to say.
Videos by VICE
Read more: How Canadians Learned to Stop Worrying and Vote for Justin Trudeau
One of the main attractions during VICE’s Election Circus that aired last night was the Wall of Shame, which featured the pictures of various candidates from the three main political parties who had done or said some kind of stupid and/or offensive shit during the election. As the night went on, our team added Xs or checkmarks to the winners and losers on the list. Here are the results:
WINNERS (Dammit)
Although he retained control of his Calgary riding and is technically a winner, soon-to-be-no-longer-prime-minister Stephen Harper got straight-up merked by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. After immolating our environmental policy and drumming up a racist conversation about what Muslim women can wear when taking their citizenship oath, it’s only fitting that the (now resigning) Conservative leader got his just desserts.
Another Conservative on the list (all the winners were), Marilyn Gladu also held onto her Sarnia-Lambton seat after defeating her NDP competitor Jason McMichael and Liberal candidate Dave McPhail. Known for her vibrant social media feed that features comments about how Muslims “want to kill everyone,” Gladu will surely continue her party’s stream of racism well into the future.
Conservative Larry Miller, also known as the dude who told Muslim women to “go the hell back where they came from” and compared their appearance to bowling balls, once again won his Owen Sound riding, which he has maintained control of since 2004.
Read: How Canadians Learned to Stop Worrying and Vote for Justin Trudeau
Diane Watts also makes the list for (you guessed it) making offensive comments about Muslims. (It’s a trend.) Some of Watts’s fliers this election included fear-mongering quotes about ISIS such as “You Will Not Feel Safe in Your Bedroom” and “We Will Fight Jihadi Terrorists at Home and Abroad” (sounds like a sweet hardcore band name), making the suggestion that the Islamic State is encroaching into the private lives of Canadians almost as much as our own government already does. Anyways, she won back her South Surrey riding Monday night. Hopefully she can govern OK with ISIS lurking behind her curtains.
Champion of anti-sex ed fanatics everywhere, Tory MP Cheryl Gallant, won back her seat in her Pembroke riding last night, which makes us ask the question: “What the fuck, Pembroke? I mean, we’re talking about the person who said that Ontario’s new sex education curriculum would aide child molesters in assaulting more children, a comment based off an ignorant reference to a former Kathleen Wynne staffer who was charged with possession of child pornography. Seriously, this one is just a disaster.
Finally, lesser evil Maxime Bernier – whose real crime was getting a ridiculously catchy and highly annoying election tune stuck in our heads – and future Tory overlord Jason Kenney – who is just a bad guy – both got reelected last night and you will likely hear from them again. Sorry.
LOSERS
Homophobia has been a political stumbling block for a long time, so it’s no surprise two candidates this election fell victim to its repercussions. First was the NDP’s Harbaljit Singh Kahlon, whose half-apology for his comments on people not being born homosexual in 2005 was not enough to save him this race. More recently, a Conservative-turned-Independent named Jagdish Grewal was ousted from the Tories after a column he wrote in the Punjabi Post earlier this year called “Is it wrong for a homosexual to become a normal person?” resurfaced on the internet, thus prompting a flurry of outrage. Grewal lost his Mississauga riding by a landslide to Liberal candidate Nawdeep Bains, and we got to put a big fat X over his face.
NDP Perth-Wellington candidate Ethan Rabidoux lost his chance at another four years of office last night and will probably go to work on his next novel, which is not a good outcome considering he wrote a book featuring highly-graphic descriptions of teenage rape. Similarly, another loser, who, if you can believe it, both sent out a bunch of misogynistic tweets a few years ago AND is named Chris Brown, crashed and burned in his Peace River riding last night when he lost to Conservative candidate Arnold Viersen.
Three candidates who made stupid and/or heinous references to Nazi Germany, Peter Njenga, Alex Johnstone, and Gordon Giesbrecht, also lost their respective races yesterday. Njegna, a Liberal candidate who compared himself to Hitler (seriously), and Johnstone, an NDP candidate who didn’t know what Auschwitz was, lost to devastatingly-low support. Giesbrecht, on the other hand, set himself up for a big L after trying to draw similarities between abortion and the Holocaust.
In a more humorous turn of events, grown man and parliamentary secretary of crybabies Paul Calandra lost his seat last night, too, which means we won’t hear him deflect serious questions anymore with a proclamation about how much he loves Israel. Also former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino lost in a turn events that probably doesn’t have anything to do with him allegedly assaulting somebody (with ketchup).
To close off the night, two more Conservatives got the boot from office last night. Chris Alexander, who totally fucked up at managing the now-out-of-control Syrian refugee crisis, and William Moughrabi, who made a Facebook post that ranked women based on how “hot” or “crazy” they were, both got completely trampled by their Liberal opponents.
Can’t wait to do this again in four years.*
*This is a lie.
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