Who is Pierre Poilievre shaking hands with? Well, his name is Jeremy Mackenzie. He is a military vet with PTSD. He is a Nova Scotian. He was involved with the Ottawa occupation, earlier this year. Also, while drunk, he held a pistol to the head of a man in, Cape Breton. He also faced charges for protesting outside of the home of the New Brunswick Chief Medical Officer, as well as, faced 13 firearms-related charges.

Mackenzie, is the far right extremist leader of Diagalon. Diagalon is the name of a ficticious country running through predominantly conservative states/provinces from Alaska to Florida. Mackenzie has been classified, by Canada’s Terrorism Assessment Centre, as an ideoloically motivated violent extremism (IMVE) adherent. Extremists, such as Mackenzie and those associated with him, paint the government as villans and believe that societal collapse is inevitable. Mackenzie has 13,000 members on his telegram channel and 10,000 youtube subscribers. A Diagalon patch was found, along with an arms cache, at the Coutts, Alberta blockade, in February, of this year. This is one bad dude you do not want to be associated with.

The picture above was posted on Mackenzie’s site and was retweeted by Global News reporter Rachel Gilmore. Gilmore has since received threats of violence including her and her family being directly harassed by “someone who clearly owns guns”. Mackenzie claims that he spoke briefly with Poilievre and states that “Sometimes you just gotta tell them what’s up.” He claims that Poilievre told him “he’s committed to pulling the plug on funding for all Canadian media”

An uproar has ensued. Poilievre defended himself as follows.

“As I always have, I denounce racism and anyone who spreads it. I didn’t and don’t know or recognize this particular individual. Likewise, I can’t be responsible for Justin Trudeau’s many racist outbursts just because I’ve met him or shaken his hand.”

Funny thing though, this is not the first time that Poilievre has been associated with someone within Mackenzie’s circle. Back on Canada day, he walked alongside James Topp, another vet, who has appeared on a number of Mackenzie’s podcasts. Certainly, Poilievre’s staff vetted Topp before Poilievre decided to march with Topp. Poilievre knew what he was doing, who Topp is associated with and what Topp represents.

Poilievre is playing a dangerous game here. Clearly, he is trying to get get votes back from Marcel Bernier’s extremist People’s Party of Canada (PPC). In the last federal election, the PPC got 4.7% of the total votes cast. But, Poilievre, in doing so, is drawing in Canada’s extremist elements to the conservative fold (Hello Donald Trump). If Poilievre does win the Conservative leadership, the party will take a dangerous turn to the right. Pierre better be careful or he and his party could get not only burnt but scorched.