Dear Editor:
We have all just lived through a preposterous election: $600 million-plus for a good dose of the same old same old. But nothing prepared me for the post-election comments of Wayne Baker, the People’s Party candidate for Perth-Wellington.
Offering a brief history lesson, Baker used a little rhetorical flim-flam: “If you go back to the first century Christian church, it grew under persecution.” Clearing the air immediately, Baker declined to be identified with first-century Christians – except, he added, “I am claiming to be part of a movement that has grown under persecution.”
The persecution the earliest Christians suffered was indeed severe, including everything from mockery to whipping to being fed to lions to being crucified, so in that context the word “persecution” has a legitimate meaning.
But today I challenge Baker (or any responsible member of the PPC authorized to speak) to name one –just one – act of persecution that he or his party has suffered in Canada. I disagree with PPC’s politics 100%, but if I can be convinced that the party or its individual members are suffering actual persecution in 2021 in Canada, I will rise to their defense and spare no effort to right a wrong.
But if PPC members are feeling sorry for themselves because they overestimated voter anger or their own popularity, then I ask that all of them cease using such strong biblical language to salve their (self-inflicted) wounds.
I anxiously await a response in these pages. I will take silence to mean that this letter has been interpreted as another act of persecution.
Richard Giles,
Alma