Forget terrorists — be terrified of Harperites

Posted on March 22, 2015 in Governance Debates

—

TheStar.com – Opinion/Commentary – Stephen Harper’s government wants us to be terrified of terrorists, niqabis, criminals, thieves, etc. But it’s the Conservatives we should be scared of.
Mar 21 2015.   By: Haroon Siddiqui, Columnist

Governor-General David Johnston’s term is extended for two years by Stephen Harper. He who owes his job to the prime minister will be deciding the prime minister’s fate in the event of a hung Parliament the morning after the Oct. 19 election.

Granted, extensions are not unusual. Also, a replacement would have been a Harper appointee as well. Still, there’s some history here.

Johnston — a well-respected academic, former president of the University of Waterloo — was named GG in 2010 soon after he helpeddefuse a potential embarrassment for the ruling Conservatives. Asked to help write the terms of reference of an inquiry, he recommended against reopening the infamous Airbus affair, Air Canada’s 1988 purchase of the French planes, and former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s role in it. Johnston dismissed that as “well-tilled ground.” That suited Harper just fine.

Two years earlier, Johnston’s predecessor Michaëlle Jean had been rolled over by Harper who asked her to prorogue Parliament, to save his then minority government from certain defeat in the Commons. She caved in, instead of insisting that he go to Parliament to prove that he still had the confidence of the House. The rest is history. She went on to become UNESCO’s special envoy for her native Haiti, and last year was elected — with a major push by Harper — as Secretary-General of the Francophonie, the 57-member organization for the French-speaking world.

The governor-general is our constitutional watchdog. “According to international best-practice standards, watchdogs should serve a fixed term and be appointed with the approval of all parties,” writes Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch. Otherwise, “the governor-general will unfortunately likely continue to do whatever the PM wants, no matter how questionable.”

Another brick in Harper’s re-election edifice will be laid this week. He wants to extend and possibly expand Canada’s military involvement in the war on the Islamic State. The current six-month mission ends next month and he may want a longer mandate — to take him past the October election.

In keeping with the Conservative penchant for saying one thing and doing another, the government is positing the war plan as non-partisan — after having brazenly used the war as a partisan wedge issue to whip up fear, paint critics as terrorist sympathizers (even possibly “a national security threat,” as Greenpeace has been told), and raise funds for the ruling party.

Harper continues to pump up the “jihadist monster” as the Armageddon. But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says that Muslim terrorists are less of a threat than white supremacists. “Lone wolf” attacks are more likely to come from radical right-wingers than radical Islamists, as the Star’s Alex Boutilier has reported from internal CSIS documents.

Contrary to facts, Harper links Muslim radicalization with Canadian mosques. And he remains undeterred even though his ban on the niqab during a citizenship ceremony has been tossed out by the Federal Court. He and his acolytes are inventing new rationale on the run: the citizenship oath must be seen to be recited and it should be recited loudly — when there is no such requirement. Harper has even stooped to character assassination, suggesting that the Toronto woman at the centre of the controversy is too stupid and weak to know that she is pursuing a practice that’s “anti-woman” — when anyone who takes on a prime minister, especially this vindictive one, has got to be a strong and brave person.

The Harperites are feeding off the same Islamophobic trough as the separatists in Quebec. If Jacques Parizeau, Pauline Marois andPierre Karl Péladeau pine for a certain kind of immigrant, one who’d vote for separatism, Harperites and Co. want a certain kind of Muslim, one who’d fit their definition of Islam. These Ottawa mullahs are the last ones you want standing on guard for Canadian secularism and pluralism.

The Conservatives are shameless in using the anti-niqab campaign to raise funds. Similarly, no sooner had Harper told rural Canadians to use guns to protect themselves than the party followed with a fundraising appeal.
Jenni Byrne, the party’s national campaign manager, told potential donors that Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau “want to make life harder for lawful hunters, farmers and sport shooters by bringing back the long-gun registry,” while “opposing everything we do to punish criminals who commit crimes with guns.”

The Harperites gutted the gun registry against the advice of police chiefs across the country. Now they have a bill before Parliament to rob the RCMP of the power to prohibit certain kinds of weapons, to let the minister of public safety allow more semi-automatic rifles.

True to form, this flight from common sense is wrapped up as the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act — like the Fair Elections Act that made elections unfair; Access to Information Act that made information inaccessible; Privacy Act that invaded your privacy; and the non-combat mission in Iraq that placed Canadian troops in combat, just 200 metres from the firing line which, Defence Minister Jason Kenney said, was not the front line.
The Harperites want us to be terrified of terrorists, niqabis, criminals, thieves, etc. Time for us, in fact, to be terrified of the Harperite bigots, bullies and ideologues.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/03/21/forget-terrorists-be-terrified-of-harperites.html >

Tags: , , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2015 at 11:41 am and is filed under Governance Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply