Maxime Bernier

Wednesday April 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 24, 2019

D’Oh Canada! Canadian journalist voicing Trudeau on The Simpsons

Canadian journalist Lucas Meyer is putting the hours he’s spent listening to politicians to good use, lending his imitation of Justin Trudeau to The Simpsons.

March 24, 2017

Sunday’s upcoming episode, “D’Oh Canada,” will feature a subplot involving Lisa being granted asylum in Canada during a family trip to Niagara Falls.

Meyer, a lifelong fan of the show, said he was thrilled and a bit stunned to receive an email from a Simpsons producer last September. He auditioned a few hours later and found out he got the part the next day.

“I just couldn’t believe it, I sent it to my wife and she was losing her mind,” he said.

“A, it was unexpected. B, it’s not just a show it’s The Simpsons, one that I grew up with. And C, it’s not just a guest voice. It’s guest-voicing the prime minister.”

Meyer, who grew up in Montreal and Antigonish, N.S., has been honing his impersonation skills for years. He said Trudeau is one of his favourites to mimic, along with Don Cherry, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his mother-in-law, Esther.

August 15, 1997

While working as a reporter in Calgary in 2017, Meyer relented to urgings from friends and posted a compilation of his impressions on YouTube. The video has garnered about 32,000 views and caught the attention of The Simpsons producers.

Meyer kept the news secret for more than six months and finally shared it Monday on social media.  

“I never would have anticipated this,” he told CBC News with a laugh.

Tim Long, a Canadian-born consulting producer on The Simpsons, hinted the episode featuring Trudeau would touch on a “current scandal,” perhaps the SNC-Lavalin controversy.

“That may be one of those things that nobody in America is going to get,” Long, who was born in Brandon, Man., and grew up in Exeter, Ont., said in a recent phone interview with The Canadian Press.

“It’s funny, though, because of course America got used to the idea that, ‘Well, Trudeau is great’ — at least the liberal part of America has sort of got it in their head that, ‘Oh, he’s amazing and Canadians must love him’ — and I think they’re shocked to learn that he’s in a little bit of trouble right now.”

Meyer currently works as a reporter with Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and has had his own professional dealings with Trudeau on the scandal. (Source: CBC) 

Meme-able illustrations

Friday August 24, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 24, 2018

‘He kind of ripped off the Band-Aid:’ some Tories relieved after Bernier quits

August 17, 2018

After a bombshell day for the Conservative party, many members attending the annual Tory convention in Halifax expressed quiet relief on Thursday that the long-expected divorce of maverick MP Maxime Bernier from the party was finally out of the way.

Delegates from across the country began arriving for the three-day policy convention in Nova Scotia just as Bernier staged a spectacular resignation from the party in Ottawa, calling the Tories “intellectually and morally corrupt” and announcing plans to start his own party for the 2019 election.

As news of Bernier’s announcement reverberated around the convention halls, many members said they felt it was something they felt was inevitable after the Quebec MP’s recent flurry of controversial tweets.

It was “only a matter of time” until Bernier would leave, either by choice or by ousting, one member said.

May 28, 2008

“He kind of ripped off the Band-Aid,” another stated, a phrase that was repeated by several others.

A few people commented that some larger donors to Bernier’s campaign are now feeling angered by his rash decision to mount a battle against the Conservative party, and that they now feel a sense of “buyer’s remorse.”

Kathleen Mahar-Wagner of Quebec proudly displayed her reaction, fashioning a hand-drawn sign saying “bye bye Bernier,” which she wore around her neck.

“I’m very glad that he made the decision and that he’s left. I think it will be better for the party that he take his ideas and he does what he wants with them.” (Source: CTV) 

 

Friday August 17, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 17, 2018

Scheer cautions Bernier: Members of caucus need to work together

May 19, 2017

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer issued an indirect warning to outspoken caucus member Maxime Bernier on Thursday: members of caucus are expected to be team-players, focused on the same goal.

“There is an expectation in our caucus, and on our team, that everyone is focused on working together to earn back the trust of Canadians and to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister in the next election,” Scheer said.

“Every Member of Parliament should be, as their key priority, working towards putting out the types of policies that resonate with Canadians.”

His comments to reporters in Regina come after a few days of back and forth exchanges over the Quebec MP’s public remarks.

On Sunday evening, Bernier issued a series of tweets on diversity, saying that “Trudeau’s extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes,” and that “more diversity will not be our strength, it will destroy what has made us such a great country.”

September 22, 2015

Bernier then questioned the naming of a park after Pakistan’s founder; and criticized the federal government looking to make a statutory holiday in recognition of residential schools as a “cult of victimhood.”

On Wednesday night, Scheer issued a statement distancing himself and the party from the outspoken Quebec MP and characterized his comments as using identity politics to divide Canadians.

Bernier followed that up Thursday morning with another round of tweets denying he was engaging in identity politics.

Facing questions about whether he’s entertaining the possibility of Bernier’s removal from caucus—something Liberals and New Democrats have called for— Scheer said he wouldn’t talk about internal caucus matters but pointed out that it would be something decided on as a team. (Source: CTV) 

 Posted to Reddit. Posted to iPolitics. 

Friday May 19, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 19, 2017

What Maxime Bernier’s Canada would look like

The libertarian former cabinet minister is leading the Conservative leadership race, heading into the final stretch.

April 27, 2017

Maxime Bernier has a dramatically different idea about how Canada should work.

Bernier would get the federal government out of health care, transferring the full responsibility to provinces and paving the way for more private delivery.

Bernier would tie Canada’s foreign aid to “morality,” and believes billions of it should be spent instead on tax cut and healing the poor at home.

Bernier would end federal “welfare” for Canadian businesses, and axe popular tax credits for things like kid’s hockey gear and teachers’ classroom supplies in favour of across-the-board tax cuts.

And Bernier wants to do it all in a four-year term, should he become Conservative leader at the end of the month, and should he defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2019.

May 28, 2008

In many ways, Bernier’s approach would be a significant break from the Stephen Harper era. Harper took a slow and steady course, favouring incremental change and reassuring moderate Canadians there was no Conservative “hidden agenda.”

Bernier is proposing dramatic change quickly — and his agenda certainly can’t be accused of being hidden.

“They’re conservative ideas, they’re conservative values,” Bernier said this week, discussing his libertarian-leaning platform.

While popular with a good chunk of the Conservative base, there is some concern within the party about how the greater population will receive Bernier’s libertarian policies — and how well he can bring together the Conservative family after a divisive leadership campaign. (Continued: Toronto Star)

 

Thursday February 16, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 16, 2017

Liberal MP’s anti-Islamophobia motion set for debate on Wednesday

Members of Parliament will debate a motion to condemn Islamophobia and track incidents of hate crime against Muslims in the House of Commons next week.

Motion 103 was tabled by Mississauga, Ont., Liberal backbencher Iqra Khalid last fall, but will be discussed in the  aftermath of last month’s mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque. It calls on government to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.”

The text of the motion also asks the government to:

  • Recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear.
  • Request the heritage committee study how the government could develop a government-wide approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia.
  • Collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities and present findings within 240 calendar days.

The motion, scheduled for one hour of debate on Wednesday, has generated a backlash online, with petitions garnering thousands of signatures opposing the motion.

January 31, 2017

Some critics have mischaracterized M-103 as a “bill” or a “law” rather than an non-binding motion.

Some have warned that Canada is moving towards criminalizing Islamophobia or even to the implementation of Islamic law, called Shariah, in Canada.

Barbara Kay, a columnist for the National Post and contributor to The Rebel Media, said she worries about M-103’s potential impact on freedom of expression and special protections for a single religious group.

“There are a lot of countries in Europe where criticism of Islam, even if not entrenched in law as a hate crime, are being interpreted by police and law enforcement, social workers — the whole spectrum of the state apparatus. They have been internalized by those within the public service as wrong, and if not criminal then absolutely morally wrong, and therefore Muslims are a group that must be protected from this very offensive speech,” she said in an interview with CBC.

Kay said anti-hate speech laws have traditionally targeted human beings, not ideas. She questioned the need to single out Islamophobia, and argued there are more hate crimes against Jews than Muslims in Canada. (Source: CBC News) 

Corner Brook, Newfoundland