Canada’s Nationalist Gets a Polite Refusal
The international club of nationalist politicians is big, diverse, and still growing.
Matteo Salvini, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Jimmie Akesson, Geert Wilders-they may not be national leaders, but their populist approach has bent the rules of politics in their favor.
Maxime Bernier wants to add a Canadian name to that list.
As the head of the People’s Party of Canada, Bernier is singing from the hymnal of modern populism-illiberal, anti-immigrant, skeptical of climate change, socially regressive, anti-establishment. His movement is buoyed by white supremacists and conspiracy theorists. He is campaigning against the very idea of Canada’s multicultural state, vowing to obliterate its immigration levels and roll back the clock on transgender rights, among other things.
What makes Bernier unlike his compatriots throughout Europe and the United States is that he seems destined to fail miserably.
Canadians go to the polls on Monday in a partly nasty federal election, in which voters seem disenchanted with the establishment candidates. In most places, that’s been a recipe for success for nationalists and populists. And yet Bernier seems set to perform incredibly poorly. While there have been electoral surprises before, it would take a political earthquake high up on the Richter scale for Bernier to even elect the 12 members of Parliament he needs to form a proper caucus in the lower house.
Bernier’s failure isn’t just a Canadian story. It’s a tale of how populism can fail-or be stopped.
