POLL: Do you think more diversity will hurt Canada?

Maxime Bernier is back in the news for yet another contrarian tweet, this time about Canada’s diversity. In a tweet thread published this morning, the MP from Beauce, Que. questioned the country’s multiculturalism policy and said that more diversity will lead the country to ruin.

Bernier’s tweet is the latest in a line of attacks by members of the Conservative Party who are unhappy with the government’s response to the flow of asylum seekers who have been crossing the U.S.-Canada border since Donald Trump won the 2016 American presidential election. Since his election, 31,000 people have crossed the border between Canada and the U.S., according to government statistics. A Yahoo Canada News poll asking readers what they think of Canada’s asylum seeker policy echoed the same sentiment — 96% of voters wanted stricter rules for new refugees. The influx is just a tenth of the number of immigrants annually admitted into Canada.

Bernier is known for his positions that run contrary to many mainstream Canadian political positions. Aside from being questioning the country’s multiculturalism policy, Bernier has also been an opponent of supply-managed dairy, a sacred cow amongst all of Canada’s big political parties.

Bernier also tweeted that among Canada’s immigrants are people who want to live in ghettos apart from the rest of society and reject “basic Western values” like freedom, equality, tolerance and openness, a talking point used by anti-immigrant politicians around the world.

Bernier later clarified that he didn’t mean to criticize diversity itself but rather criticize even more diversity than already exists in the country. He called Justin Trudeau’s pursuit of multiculturalism “radical” in a subsequent tweet.

What do you think of Bernier’s tweet? Do you think more diversity will hurt Canada? Let us know in the poll above or comments below!