Trudeau says no to wedge politics. Really？
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169.44646
Summary
Justin Trudeau has said that one thing we will not see in the election campaign is an embrace of wedge politics. Andrew Lutton argues that this is a mistake and points out that wedge politics are polarizing issues aimed at driving a wedge between you and your opponent.
Transcript
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as the 2019 federal election nears Canadians now can start to see the issues and themes emerge that
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will ultimately dominate the news cycle and there are a number of big issues facing Canada right
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now from taxes to immigration all of them need to be discussed all of them deserve solutions
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better than those that are being put forward right now but Justin Trudeau has said that one thing we
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will not see in the election campaign is an embrace of wedge politics he said in an interview
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that he is not going to have any wedge issues dominate now for those who don't know wedge
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issues are issues that are polarizing specifically done to drive a wedge between you and your opponent
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and specifically further to drive a wedge between your opponent and a faction of the electorate
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it's what liberals are great at historically because the conservatives are a big tent party so
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if you can force the conservatives to get different sides under that tent to start fighting each other
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the tent collapses that is how the theory behind these sorts of issues go Trudeau says that the
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reason he wants to avoid wedge politics is because he doesn't like the idea of the polarized political
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climate but let's just look at the track record here Trudeau has been the one that has been
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relentlessly talking about abortion and I don't just mean the Canada summer jobs funding which
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took aim at individual churches or Christian charities that run day camp programs if they didn't sign
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away their beliefs I'm talking about even recently when the liberals and Trudeau specifically decided
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to make a about conservatives going to a pro-life movie on Parliament Hill as though this was
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in some way this reprehensible thing that some parliamentarian could ever go see a pro-life film
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look at M103 the anti-Islamophobia motion not put forward by Trudeau himself but very much backed by
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Trudeau's apparatus this was wedge politics forcing conservatives into a situation where they had to
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engage in this culture war where the liberals are fairly confident they're going to come out on top
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what about Trudeau calling a random woman that at that time he had no idea who she was a racist or
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implying that she was a racist this is again wedge politics right there to take aim at people because
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they dare ask you a question so when Trudeau says he wants to avoid wedge politics does he mean
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starting now like starting today or is he trying to pretend that he has never made this type of
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politics the focal point of his role as prime minister and we don't expect this to change look
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at how he won in the 2015 election he was trying to stoke these fears that Stephen Harper and the
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conservatives were Islamophobic and bigoted and ultimately this was a narrative that he has tried
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to push to Canadians about conservatives for the entire term of office since and Canadians need to push
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back against it when someone says they're going to avoid wedge politics what they're trying to say is
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that I am superior to everyone else I rise above these things the prime minister's office says
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that Trudeau raising abortion is not a wedge issue because people can have a respectful dialogue around
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it so that means that anytime the liberals bring something up if we can have a respectful response
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to it it's no longer a wedge issue it's great when you start playing with language because we can do
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it too Mr. Trudeau the fact is immigration is what he means and we know that immigration is one of the
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most significant issues facing Canada right now so if Trudeau says that he doesn't like wedge politics
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all he's going to do is use this to call anyone who brings up his immigration record a racist and
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boom we're back to the wedging again so I don't anticipate this having any manifestation in the way
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he campaigns but this is what he's trying to tell us that he's the guy that's saving Canadian
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democracy from polarization for true north I'm Andrew Lutton