OTTAWA --
Interim Conservative Chief Candice Bergen pushed predecessor Erin O’Toole to point out help for the Freedom Convoy protest, arguing final week there are “good individuals on either side,” an echo of the phrase made notorious by former U.S. president Donald Trump after a Unite the Proper rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
Bergen additionally advised O’Toole and different members of the Conservative shadow cupboard that there have been “affordable individuals” on the truckers’ protest, simply as there have been within the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Her remarks got here throughout a gathering of the occasion’s priorities and planning committee in a boardroom of Parliament’s West Block. O’Toole was current on the assembly however didn’t straight reply, in line with sources who have been current.
Some in attendance have been shocked she would evoke the Trump phrase within the context of the truckers’ convoy, which had but to achieve Ottawa.
The sources advised CTV Information that Bergen believed any political threat Conservative MPs may face in the event that they attended or publicly supplied help can be restricted so long as they averted any probably inflammatory symbols.
Because it occurred, on Saturday, Alberta Conservative MP Michael Cooper was interviewed by CBC Information with a flag bearing a swastika within the background. He later issued a press launch condemning the symbols of hate seen on the protest.
Though O’Toole was first reticent about aligning with the protest, he did meet individually with some truckers final week, at a truck cease about an hour’s drive outdoors of Ottawa.
Bergen’s workplace didn't instantly reply to a request for remark Friday.
In an electronic mail Bergen despatched Monday, obtained by CTV Information, she advised different MPs “I don’t assume we ought to be asking them to go residence” and proposed that the occasion “flip this into the PM’s drawback.”
She additionally shared photos of herself visiting on the Hill with protesters from her residence province of Manitoba, tweeting that, “They should be heard and so they deserve respect.”
Trump’s phrase – “very wonderful individuals on either side” – drew heavy criticism when he used it to characterize the Charlottesville protest, the place white supremacists marched with torches and Nazi and Accomplice flags, chanting anti-Semitic slurs. One counter-protester was killed at Charlottesville.
The Conservative caucus selected Bergen as interim chief Tuesday evening, after voting out O’Toole as chief.
On Friday afternoon, she launched an announcement calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to offer a “clear plan to finish the state of affairs in Ottawa.” The protest is now in its seventh day.
She additionally known as on truckers in Ottawa to “”please stay peaceable. Name out and denounce any acts of hate, racism, intolerance or violence.”
Then-Conservative Deputy Chief Candice Bergen pays tribute to the late prime minister John Turner within the Home of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
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