EVEN BY THE THEATRICAL CUSTOMS
a member of this House and a descendant of Holocaust sur- vivors,” she declared (a reference, Lantsman told me later, to both sets of grandparents). “I have never been made to feel less, except for today, when the prime minister accused me of standing with swastikas. I would like an apology.” Within hours, the rookie MP, scarcely five months into the job, was on Fox News, telling host Laura Ingraham about how Trudeau’s “wedge” tactics were sowing division in Canada. Lantsman tried to balance those comments out, later saying in a podcast interview that she supported dem- onstrators’ right to free expression while denouncing the use of Nazi and Confederate flags. She never did get that apology. ANTSMAN’S performance in that crucible moment amounted to a parliamentary ver- sion of the old job recruiter’s adage that you get to make a first impression only once. Of course, it wasn’t Lantsman’s first speech in the Commons, but the incident sticks out in the memories of some Ottawa watchers: a novice politician rocketing to the centre of perhaps one of the most turbulent political dramas to hit the nation’s capital in decades. Three years— and one very peculiar national elec- tion — later, Lantsman, 41, has seen her political fortunes soar. She sits next to Pierre Poilievre, now leader of the offi- cial Opposition, in parliament and serves as the Conserva- tive party’s deputy leader, a post normally reserved for old hands. As one of the Tories’ front bench MPs, Lantsman embodies the Conservatives’ ambition to grow beyond their rural and Western Canadian base. She is suburban, female, gay, married, and a child of immigrants, as well as a naturally skilled orator whose communication chops have allowed her to expand the Conservatives’ appeal, especially among younger voters. As pollster Nik Nanos puts it, “For a
of Question Period, the exchange felt sharp and personal. It was mid-February, 2022, and downtown Ottawa was a cold mess, teeming with noisy truckers, right-wing agita- tors, conspiracy theorists, and ordinary people who turned up for a surreal winter carnival after two years of pan- demic restrictions. In Windsor and Alberta, meanwhile, protesters, some of them armed, had blockaded border crossings, ostensibly to contest the Trudeau government’s move to require cross-border truckers to be vaccinated. While calls to break up the demonstrations by declaring a national emergency were growing louder, some prominent Conservatives, especially then–leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre, were posing for selfies with the convoy leaders. (Ottawa voters did not forget: he was defeated in his long- held riding of Carleton in the 2025 election.) In the House of Commons, Melissa Lantsman, the newly elected Tory member of Parliament from Thorn- hill and her party’s transportation critic, was grilling Justin Trudeau on the government’s vaccine mandate policy for cross-border truckers. The prime minister shot back, con- demning Conservative MPs for “standing with people who wave swastikas”— an allusion to the fact that some pro- testers were waving flags with the Nazi symbol and “Fuck Trudeau” signs. Lantsman stood to reply with an obvious flush of anger in her face, and accused Trudeau of “[fanning] the flames of an unjustified national emergency.” “Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas,” he shot back. “They can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag. ... We will choose to stand with Canadians who deserve to be able to get to their jobs, to be able to get their lives back. These illegal protests need to stop, and they will.” The speaker of the house warned Trudeau about unpar- liamentary language. At the end of the session, Lantsman rose on a point of order. “I am a strong Jewish woman and
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