i know the liberals try to present a specific idea about what they call "multiculturalism", and then viciously attack anybody that challenges them on it.

but, if you look at historical data from actual liberal voters, you're going to see a different reality than the party likes to project. these ideas that the party wants to define itself by are only going to get 60-70% from actual liberal voters, meaning there's a big opportunity to poach liberal voters by appealing to their hidden or not so hidden racism.

but, what i actually think - and i've pointed this out over and over again - is that race is not an important issue in canadian politics, and certainly not the way that it is in the united states. immigration is an issue, and maintaining a secular identity in the face of so much religious immigration is an issue, but race itself is not very important to most canadians. bernier consequently doesn't really offer anything different to most conservative voters. it would be a different story if he was appealing to things that conservatives actually care about - like lowering taxes - but he actually isn't doing that. however, he is appealing to pro-market liberals, that may want to do things like break up supply management, and that tend to lean towards secularism over religious identity, but may perhaps simply be looking for a protest vote - and unwilling to give it to the greens or ndp because they're too far left for them.

i mean, it's not such a crazy thing. really. to look at bernier as a valid protest, all you have to be is a capitalist, centrist liberal that doesn't like the direction that trudeau is taking the country in, but knows the conservatives are even worse. that's a potentially large demographic, actually.