Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri is praising the Peterborough Police Service for arresting a man accused of hurling homophobic slurs and burning a Pride flag — a move that drew the ire of some social media users who condemned her as a “fake” Conservative.
A 48-year-old man was arrested last week on two charges of criminal harassment after he was accused of stealing a Pride flag, burning it and — according to police — “screaming” anti-gay epithets.
The arrest demonstrates that “hate has no place in our community and our country and will not be tolerated,” Ferreri said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.
Dozens of social media users responded to Ferreri’s praise of the arrest with a stream of homophobic slurs. Others said the man’s arrest was unjustified and that as a member of a party that supports free speech, Ferreri was out of line.
One social media user, Shawn Quenneville, told Ferreri in an online post that “they’re pedophiles” — an apparent reference to members of the LGBTQ community.
First time meeting your voters eh?
It’s the internet, it might not even be Canadians.
She should cross the aisle and leave that bigot CPC party and their violent electorate in the dust.
Yup. They need to hold Pierre Poilievre and his cronies accountable by supporting proportional representation.
I’m game :)
All these stupid idiots need to realize we don’t have free speech in Canada. We also have comprehensive hate crime/speech laws, though they’re exceptionally underused due to circumstances exactly like this. Fuck conservatism.
Even USA free speech doesn’t protect you from assaulting people verbally with hate. Freespeech ends at the other persons consiltitutional rights of thing like freedom to travel unmolested by others.
At least online where these people conflate being able to spew hate speech as free speech, the vast majority don’t even understand its only about protection from the government.
They think they’re able to say anything they want and be free of consequences from everyone else in society, but that’s not what it is, and then cry afoul when they face it.
The Conservative Party doesn’t actually know what conservative principles are.
Same as the USA, it’s just been hijacked by racists, homophobes, and christo-fascists (dare I repeat myself).
There was never a “good” version of conservativism. That’s a myth that conservatives desperately want to sell you. It’s always been a political philosophy driven by the singular goal of preventing the enfranchisement of the disenfranchised. It wasn’t hijacked by those people, it welcomed them with open arms, just like it’s welcomed despicable, regressive people throughout its entire history.
IMHO the issue is that the the CPC is a “big tent” that was historically dominated by SoCons (which Harper kept in line pretty well), however over the past approx. 5-8 years the Libertarian contingent has grown quite a bit from grassroots.
Now even many of these “Libertarians” generally abide by SoCon principles but they don’t feel any need to push them on the general population; these people simply want to be left alone. This is causing some friction in the party as some SoCons are appealing to the “No True Scotsman” fallacy when discussing internal party/supporter politics.
Others said the man’s arrest was unjustified and that as a member of a party that supports free speech, Ferreri was out of line.
So because she is expected to support free speech there are opinions she’s not permitted to express? Incredible.
So because she is expected to support free speech there are opinions she’s not permitted to express? Incredible.
Yes. That’s the point of conservatism. Free speech for the in-group, oppression for the out-group.
You have to remember Wilhoit’s Law: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Good for her. At least one conservative can think for themselves
She’s my MP.
Yes, this is a good thing she did. She’s not a good MP, she’s made a lot of silly mistakes, and she’s still a kinda-vapid vlogger-turned-politician who’s known around town for grifting for handouts, but she did one good thing here.
And because the political right has been trained on fascist red-meat, she’s getting vilified for it, and we’ll probably get some Nazi hick from Peterborough County next time.
