On Thursday, the only woman to ever serve as the prime minister of Canada issued a horrifying tweet in which she stated she wanted the deadly hurricane Dorian to strike President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida. In response to a tweet from a scientist warning that Dorian was a major hurricane threat to the East Coast this weekend and that Florida was in the hurricane’s crosshairs, Kim Campbell tweeted, “I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!”
Fox News reported on Thursday, “The strengthening storm churned over the warm, open waters of the Atlantic on Thursday, upgrading to Category 2 strength late in the day, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. Forecasts showed Dorian tracking toward Florida’s east coast …Forecasters believe the storm will strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane by Friday, and stay well east of the southern and central Bahamas before making a turn toward Florida by Sunday afternoon.”
When someone pointed out to the unrepentant Campbell, “What the heck is wrong with you. There are real people who live and work there,” Campbell snapped back, “get a grip,” tweeting, “As there are in Puerto Rico- sorry you don’t get snark- but Trump’s indifference to suffering is intolerable! We’d also help if he tackled climate change which is making hurricanes more destructive! Instead, he will remove limits on methane! Get a grip!”
After the resignation of Brian Mulroney in 1993, Campbell served for roughly five months as prime minister. She currently serves as the chairperson for Canada’s Supreme Court Advisory Board.
The Conservative Party of Canada, founded in 1867, changed its name to the Progressive Conservative Party in 1942. After Campbell, a Progressive Conservative who was serving briefly as prime minister, lost in the 1993 election, the party changed its name back to the Conservative Party; the party regained the leadership in 2006 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who governed until 2015, when Justin Trudeau was elected to the position.
After the party changed its name back to the Conservative Party, Campbell, complaining about the fact that the party did not subscribe to her environmentalist views, said, “Well, I’ve never joined the Conservative Party of Canada; I think (former prime minister) Joe Clark expressed it that he didn’t leave the party; the party left him. It is not the Progressive Conservative party. You know, our party was the party of the acid rain treaty, the Montreal protocol. I’m sorry; I have no time for climate deniers and anybody who is trying to pussyfoot around it.”
Asked whether she thought the Conservative party was “weak on that,” Campbell answered, “Yeah, I do. They pussyfoot around, they don’t really come out and say, commit themselves to dealing with it, and they’ve produced a plan that has no target. It’s really a sop I think … if certain issues aren’t taken seriously, we don’t have time to hope for people, and if they’re saying things because they’re playing to a recalcitrant base, in theory, they’ll do differently, whatever, sorry, that’s too much of a risk.”