Advocacy Canada founder Wilbur Turner makes some excellent points:The other word for objections to diversity, equity, and inclusion is "racism"
— Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 (@emmettmacfarlane.com) October 15, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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Wilber Turner / Queerly Beloved with Wilbur Turner
Poilievre’s War on DEI Isn’t About Merit—It’s About Power
Behind the slogans and fake outrage is a bid to roll back fairness and keep opportunity in the hands of the already privileged.
Pierre Poilievre’s latest attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion isn’t about merit. It’s about maintaining privilege. His new campaign to “End DEI” and “Restore the merit principle” is a pre-emptive strike against the Liberal government’s upcoming November budget, timed to stir resentment and fill Conservative coffers. The man never misses a chance to punch down.
... Wrapped in the language of merit, the real goal is to dismantle programs that open doors for those who’ve long been shut out of opportunity. DEI doesn’t hand out jobs; it removes the barriers that keep qualified people, women, racialized communities, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and queer and trans Canadians, from getting a fair shot. In other words, DEI is merit-based. It gives everyone the same chance to succeed based on experience and qualifications.
Poilievre knows this. He just also knows that fear sells better than facts....
Since taking the reins after Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Mark Carney has been holding together a fragile minority government. Poilievre smells blood in the water. His anti-DEI tirade isn’t random. It’s a calculated play to destabilize Carney’s government and trigger an early election....
His “Maple MAGA” rhetoric is all about importing American grievance politics into Canada. Dividing people along cultural lines while pretending it’s about common sense.
The sad truth is that it works. Carney’s minority is vulnerable, the economy is shaky, and Canadians are tired of political drama. Into that fatigue walks Poilievre, armed with slogans about “merit” and “freedom,” hoping no one notices that what he’s really promoting is exclusion.
But DEI isn’t an ideology. It’s a recognition of reality. It’s about ensuring that talent isn’t wasted just because it doesn’t look, sound, or love like the status quo...
The Beaverton gets the last word:Pierre Poilievre yelling about DEI is grimly hilarious when guys like him are the very reason diversity, equity and inclusion policies are needed 😡
— Scott agrees: FREE LINK (@scottdagostino.ca) October 14, 2025 at 6:54 AM
“Restore merit, end DEI” says man who could only get elected in Canada’s safest Conservative stronghold
— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) October 15, 2025 at 8:32 AM
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7 comments:
What was the saying "close set beady little eyes" in reference too? Just wondering.
Wilbur Turner says that PP's rhetoric is all about "[d]ividing people along cultural lines while pretending it’s about common sense." I can't think of a better description of DEI policies.
DEI policies divide people into cultural groups and assign some to the "oppressor" group and others to the "oppressed" group based on immutable characteristics like race and sex, and without evidence of actual oppression. It tells the "oppressors" that they will always be oppressors and that they should accept being denied opportunities on that basis. The best the oppressors can hope for is to be "allies" by supporting their own denial of opportunity. The oppressor class, aka "white cishets," also happens to be the majority of the population. The only way to escape is to claim a magic gender identity, which instantly transforms an evil oppressor into "the goodest, most oppressed person ever." What could possibly go wrong? It's common sense!
Dem polling after the loss to Trump showed that his criticism of DEI resonated with voters. It would be political malpractice for the Cons to ignore this. Why liberals cling to DEI, which is effectively institutional discrimination against the majority of the population, is beyond me.
Oh, please. I'm a white guy. We still have it better than anyone else, just not as much better as we used to. Those of us with anything at all going for us other than our race and gender are just fine. Anti-DEI types are such wimpy freaking whiners.
Sure, there's some people who get a bit silly about it. Same same for every movement on the planet, no matter how small. Big whoop.
That said, DEI is not a substitute for reducing inequality and creating broad-based prosperity, and it is often used as one. Pay no attention to that billionaire behind the curtain, or even that other one strutting on the stage, we'll just make sure the few remaining decent jobs go equally to all groups and that will solve everything. The divide between rich and poor is the REAL story, and of course PP also wants to make that worse.
PLG, I agree with your last paragraph 100%. I suspect DEI became universally adopted among universities, NGOs and major corporations precisely because it's highly divisive. It creates resentment and gets employees blaming each other for the declining working conditions and wages while the C-suite picks their pockets and tells them how much their commitment to DEI shows they care. Funny how the "equity" in DEI never seems to reduce the growing gap between what the CEO earns and what the precarious "independent contractors" who actually do the work are left with.
Cap, the people who find DEI "divisive" are usually just white guys who don't appreciate the additional competition they are getting for jobs - . And these guys are now in the minority, actually. But I do agree that there are other employment issues like wages and "independent contractors" that are unfair to workers. I just don't think these problems have anything to do with DEI.
When I started work, in the 1970s, I remember my department director telling me he always hired women for my position - because, he said, no man would work for the money I was getting. He thought I should be impressed at his enlightened attitude....Uh... thanks? Needless to say, as soon as our university organized a bargaining unit for administrative staff like me, I supported it 100 per cent. Women's equality was a lengthy struggle in the 20th century, and also equality for Indigenous people, and racialized people and disabled people. Codifying DEI as a workplace goal meant that it could be normalized, researched, implemented fairly, supported organizationally, and it wouldn't be up to individual bosses anymore - the dinosaurs couldn't block it nor did the enlightened have to try to implement it alone.
Just be good at the job you get. Any flavor, even vanilla,that is less than stellar should be at risk comment. Recognizing people elevated above their ability, educated beyond their intelligence and power trippers with secondary "promotion" agendas and card players (whatever their pass card is ) isn't da isms. Competence please and nobody cares about your issues or lifestyle.
As with all the solutions , the plan is perfect but unhealed humans will be involved.
to Cap … DEI IS about merit. It is an attempt to put MERIT above PREJUDICE
UU
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