Op-ed: Don't underestimate power of People's Party of Canada

Historians Jordan Stanger-Ross and Oliver Schmidtke published an op-ed in CBC Opinion entitled, "Why the People's Party of Canada election result shouldn't be underestimated."

"As Canada's federal election fades from the headlines, temperatures drop, and the hockey season shifts into full swing, Maxime Bernier's first campaign as head of the People's Party of Canada (PPC) might begin to fade from memory. After all, the PPC's results were forgettable. Bernier lost in his own riding, and PPC candidates tallied only 1.6 per cent of the national vote.

Yet progressive Canadians dismiss the PPC at our peril.

In the party's first campaign, Bernier managed to find candidates for 94 per cent of Canada's federal ridings. These candidates delivered the PPC message at doorsteps, schools, and town halls from coast to coast. The party received almost 300,000 votes in its inaugural run, a foundation on which it might well build. Its ideology of exclusionary, anti-immigrant nationalism is eerily similar to political movements across Europe."

Read the full piece on CBC Opinion.