Canada vs. Radical Islam: Harper’s Mixed Record
A warning to those who believe that electing a “conservative” government automatically will inspire tougher measures to fight radical Islam: Canadians know from experience that this formula does not always work as planned.
When Canadian voters again rejected the nation’s “natural ruling party” — the Liberals — and handed the Conservatives their second minority government in the fall of 2008, Islamist Watch asked some prominent Canadians how Prime Minister Stephen Harper would tackle creeping Sharia and other manifestations of homegrown radical Islam.
Two years later, it is time to revisit those questions.
In 2008, Ezra Levant, a lifelong Conservative Party supporter, had just emerged as the country’s premier critic of Islamist lawfare, having been hauled before a government tribunal for publishing the infamous “Muhammad cartoons.” Back then, Levant said that he was optimistic about the government’s commitment to battling domestic Muslim belligerence.
Today, he admits that “progress is slower” than he had hoped, but Levant remains encouraged by what he has seen. For example, he lauds the Conservatives’ refusal to bow to international progressive pressure to somehow rescue “child soldier” and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who currently is being held at Guantanamo and just pleaded guilty to murdering an American medic during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.
On the home front, Levant reports that through sharp criticism and even funding cuts, “the government continues to marginalize the worst groups out there, such as the Canadian Islamic Congress” (CIC) — the Islamist body that unsuccessfully attempted to silence Mark Steyn — “and the Canadian Arab Federation,” a peddler of anti-Semitism and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
However, the ruling government faces a continuous uphill battle when instituting even moderate reforms such as those, due in large part to Canada’s particular parliamentary structure.
“The main problem for deep reform remains the minority government,” Levant explains. “For example, a few months ago when there was evidence of niqab-clad women boarding a plane without revealing their faces, the Conservatives called for the matter to be discussed at a parliamentary committee. The [left-leaning] opposition parties, which together have a majority on all committees, blocked that discussion.”
Salim Mansur agrees that any analysis of the Harper government’s successes and failures must take mundane political realities into account. However, the author of Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim is not willing to excuse the Conservatives for failing to embrace necessary reforms.
Mansur accuses Harper of holding back on reforms because the prime minister fears alienating Muslim and centrist voters. Yet Mansur is convinced that if the Conservatives were bolder in their opposition to radical Islam, they would gain more overall votes than they would lose.
“It looks to me,” says Mansur, that Harper “wants to win the majority without in any way rousing any controversy over the subject of Islamist jihad that he fears will make him lose centrist votes, hand the opposition a political stick to beat him up with, allow the mainstream media to paint him as a redneck, and drive him out of leadership if he cannot win the next election with a majority. So Harper is playing safe politically and he is betting that this subject will not turn into the make-or-break issue in the next election.”
“For example, a few months ago when there was evidence of niqab-clad women boarding a plane without revealing their faces, the Conservatives called for the matter to be discussed at a parliamentary committee. The [left-leaning] opposition parties, which together have a majority on all committees, blocked that discussion.”
This is why much of the west is a laughing stock in the Muslim world. They see this form of political correctness on our part and understand that we have absolutely no common sense. If a man walked on a plane wearing a ski mask and said he was doing so out of religious beliefs, do you think any rational country would let him on the plane? So why doesn’t this same rule apply to women? Regardless of what their religious beliefs may be, I thought the western world decided a long time ago that that practical safety on board planes trumps religious beliefs. I’m wondering whether or not these women even allowed the authorities to search them if they refused to show their faces. Not only is this whole idea of constantly covering your face a huge threat to safety, it just shows that western nations would rather let terrorists on a plane hiding their faces rather than be considered “racially insensitive” to Muslims. Not only is this form of political correctness dumb, but it could get somebody killed one day. There have been several female suicide bombers that have attacked Israel in the past. Let’s hope they don’t ever come here trying to board a plane while hiding their faces.
If somebody is boarding a plane wearing a facial disguise along with other loose-fitting garments, how can you be sure that it’s actually a woman? It might not be! There has been at least one case in Europe of a male fugitive attempting to make a break for it while hiding under a burqa.
Works in Harper’s favour, though. Canadians are watching and we’ll notice who it is that blocks common sense responses to public safety issues. Although, I do think he may be misreading public sentiment. If an election was called today, who’s going to vote for the parties that don’t care if we are flying safe.
You provide one brief comment on the ‘main problem’ making dealing with Islamic fascism difficult, namely, the the unique Canadian parliamentary system. Then, rather than discussing it, you dismiss it as ‘mundane’ and focus instead, on an assumed and quite fictional individual power (of the Prime Minister)..ignoring that the main problem of Canada’s parliamentary structure renders individual power in its government almost non-existent. Canada does not give its Prime Minister any executive powers – a very different situation from that in the US.
You also ignore the fact that Multiculturalism is a legal infrastructure of Canada, put in place by the Liberals in the 1980s. It is a practice that encourages third world immigration, that moves immigrants into ‘identity blocs’ dependent on government largesse, that encourages them to remain isolate and cultural distinct, and that relies on their vote to remain in power.
The facts of Canadian governance is that the structure of the Canadian parliament and the lack of executive power means that the PM has very little power to put through his desired reforms. That’s in large part because Canada, also back in the 1980s and also by the Libreals, erroneously gave one province, Quebec, its own federal party. This party, the Bloc Quebecois, runs no candidates outside of Quebec and is thus unaccountable to the majority of Canadians. Its stated ‘de jure’ agenda is ‘separation’ from Canada; its ‘de facto’ agenda is to get as much money and power for the one province as it can get.
It is the default party of Quebec; you vote for the Bloc because it is ‘in’ Quebec, and since Quebec is constitutionally, regardless of its population size, also guaranteed 75 seats in the 301 seat parliament, then, the Bloc is a key voice of power. It is firmly socialist, welfare-state focused (as long as the federals pay)..and since Quebec controls its own immigration – which means that it can ignore the immigration to the rest of the country, most of which go to Ontario.
The existence of this separate federal party – whose members can’t be voted on by the majority of Canadians guarantees that any government in Canada will be in a minority.
The other two federal parties, which do mount candidates in all of Canada, are the Liberals and NDP. Both are socialist; both are pro any type of immigration because they set up immigrants into ‘distinct identities’ within the Liberal-promoted official practice of Multiculturalism.
These three structural realities: the lack of executive power in a parliamentary system, the existence of a separate federal party open only to one province, and the official policy of multiculturalism, means that conservative-focused reform is exceedingly difficult in Canada. The majority of parliament members, within the Liberal, NDP and Bloc, are leftist, are socialist.
Well stated ETAB. PMSH has to win a majority or the CBC and other Canuck journolist media will crucify him for any non P.C., non multicultural changes proposed and fellow travellers will be back in power and then we will be truly frakked. Trudeau was our Obama. Be afraid.
ETAB, you’ve nailed it here. Brava!
Mark Steyn calls Canada the “benighted Dominion”. I think so.
And the first thing they should do, should they ever get a majority, is defund the Communist Broadcorping Castration.
Absolutely right Louise. The Sun news channel can’t come quick enough. For you non Canadians that’s Fox News north. Hopefully its far right enough to make everyone’s heads at the cbc explode.
Yup. And employees of the Corpse are already advocating censorship.
Thank you ETAB, well said. What Stephen Harper can do, he has done already. Even so, the lefties attack relentlessly. Their MO is the same as the demonrats, only we’ve been subject to it for longer than the US, witness the appalling name-calling and ad hominem attacks in the last several Canadian elections.
Is there a glimmer of hope that the republican sweep in the US will help us out here in Canada at the next general election? I’m praying.
Harper is not the leader of a conservative government- he is the leader of a conservative MINORITY government.
The significance of this difference escaped your attention. I witness here the “below the belt” attacks from the liberals, the far left NDP and the unions every day. Considering the circumstances, Harper is doing a great job.
Just to put things in perspective … news this week …
President Obama has granted a waiver allowing four countries to continue receiving U.S. military aid even though they use child soldiers, officials said Wednesday.
Human rights groups reacted with surprise and concern, saying the decision would send the wrong message.
“What the president has done is basically given everybody a pass for using child soldiers,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
Administration officials said cutting off aid would cause more damage than good in countries where the U.S. military is trying to fight terrorism and reform abusive armies.
Obama sent a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, dated Monday, saying that it was “in the national interest” to waive a cutoff of military assistance for Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Yemen.
Further to my comments on the structural difficulty of dealing with Islamic fascism within Canada – we have to consider, again, our parliamentary system.
The Bloc Quebecois, that federal party open only to Quebec voters, which holds 55 of the House seats, is led by a man, Duceppe, who is hard left socialist; a card-carrying communist at one time. That reality, plus the socialist leftism of the NDP and the Liberals, means that the majority votes in the House are ‘progressives’. It would be political suicide to mount an attempt to insert more stringent measures against radicals and ‘immigrants’.
Harper has to deal with these issues ‘by the back door’. That is, by stealth. He has to insert a new Immigration Booklet for newcomers that openly says that Canada has ‘gender equality, that it operates within the rule of law..and so on. But, when Harper tries any tactic of putting any of this into law, he is stymied by the majority in the House. The Bloc, NDP and Liberals promote the open door policy, where any and all can come and claim refugee status, where immigration sets up ‘ethnic enclaves’…etc. All part of the legacy of multiculturalism..which is only starting to crack in the last few years.
Remember also that Canada does not have a centrist or even ‘right’ media system. The public giant of broadcasting, the CBC, is firmly ‘progressive’ and left. The majority of newspapers are similar. There is, as yet, no FOX North and the progressives both in parliament and outside of it have been trying to prevent such freedom of thought up in Canada.
Canada has, for example, what are commonly called ‘kangaroo courts’, or Human Rights Commissions, where if you state or print something that can ‘expose someone else to insults and hatred’ (defined by subjective feelings) then, you are taken to the Human Rights Court. Truth, by the way, is not a defense and the government pays for the lawyer of the complainer.
Salim Mansur, whom I greatly admire, is a member of a new non-governmental advisory group on immigration. I’m sure he and the other members will come up with excellent suggestions – but, the majority in Parliament, who are Progressives, will probably reject them all.
Let’s also recall that from 1920′s til 2003, Canadian conservatives called their party Progressive Conservative. I mean, if it took 80 years to drop that moniker, how long will it take to make the changes we might desire in parliament, immigration and financial responsiblity?
The one thing I’m afraid of is that any success toward socialism by Obama in the U.S. will embolden the progressives/socialists/communists in Canada. We are already too far to the left.
The liberal/NDP parties in Canada have long held sway in promoting their agenda. It is too bad really because they are the most communist/socialist perpertuators on the earth.
If there is any chance of freedom or prosperity happening, these guys will fall all over themselves in the rush to kill it. But they are happy time big spenders of tax money. They just love to spend other people’s money on a lefty agenda of little use and much waste. Plus they hardly ever tell the truth, even to each other.
If Canada could elect a Conservative majority and stick with it, there would be a saner government of more freedom and prosperity. I suppose the Canadians are not yet poor enough to do that. Give it time.
Shortly speaking, Canadian parliamentary system assures that the political block representing PARASITES, CRETINS, MORONS, DOLE BLUDGERS, PROSTITUTES, HOMOSEXUALS, LESBIANS, ALCOHOLICS, DRUG ADDICS, PEDOFILES, CHILD MOLESTERS, ISLAMOFASCISTS, COMMUNISTS, ECO-FASCISTS, DEGENERATES, WASTLERS, THIEVS, FELONS, will have a permanent majority in Parliament thus being able to sponge permanently on the very tini and ever decreasing sector of the PEOPLE OF HONEST AND SMART WORK.
What about applying the PINOCHET option to deal with that gigantic set of swollen social pathologies and once for all free the GOOD people from the opression.
As the recent past has proved that above mentioned solution worked (and is still working) handsomely.
As in the case of AMERABIA, my own EUNUCHALIA, LONDONISTAN, EURABIA and in CANUKISTAN as well, our lack of resolve will inevitably lead to the FRANCO OPTION.
canada vs radical islam……..please explain to me which islam is radical, i keep forgetting. is radical islam the ones that follow the quran exactly, and want to kill us now, or is radical islam the group that is content to bide their time and kill us later?
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/13/maxime-bernier-ottawa-should-quit-intruding-on-provincial-jurisdiction/
There is hope…
Also, take the time to see who Mayor Elect Rob Ford is…
Immigration from ALL terrorist sponsoring countries into the West should be stopped altogether and those that are living in their Judeo-Christian host countries who are known to have ties to terrorists, citizen or not, should be deported. Our politically correct and fear of being called racist paranoia will be the ruin of us yet. KICK THEM ALL OUT.
A true conservative government would not accept the following:
1. Redistribution of wealth through federal Transfer Payments to the poorer Provinces;
2. Free Public Health Care;
3. Bilingualism;
4. Immigration policies that threaten the very existence of English Canada;
5. High taxes;
6. Legalized abortion;
7. Bail-outs;
8. Under-funded military;
9. Progressivism;
10. Global Warming, eco-terrorism, Suzuki-ites.
Harper’s clowns are nothing short of liberals in conservative clothing. They are the egg-shell government. They offend nobody. They are inclusive. They are Progressive. They are Liberals.
In other words…COWARDS!
You are very presumptuous and ignorant. Canada does not have “a true conservative government”. It has a “conservative minority government”. And why? Because enough Canadians voted for the socialists to impede the forming of a “conservative government”. The present government is not what Harper wanted, it is what the people wanted. So stop whining about the government and start complaining about the electorate. Like in the USA, Obama is not the problem, the people who elected him are. A President or a PM can be removed, but who will edify the people?
P.S. The American conservatives should be happy to have a principled man like Harper who is not constantly claiming he was anointed by god.
After 75 years of Liberal Party approved indoctrination by their official propaganda agency, the CBC, of course they vote that way. Ever look at Canadian election history prior to 1936, when the CBC first went on air?
Yous could be right SurDavid, but any government that at this point tries to touch such sacred cows like publicly funded health care, bilingualism, transfer payments would be out on their ear in Canada. You have to recognize realities here. Harper’s incremental approach to moving towards a more conservative point of view is the only thing that makes sense. He is making small steps — better funded military, attempts to clean up the immigration mess, at least trying to improve the formula for transfer payments. Big changes take time.
Given how politicized a growing list of things have become, the insistence of one standard for all will be opposed by those who conclude that their interests would be harmed.
Yet, it has to be done. Why? Because when we look at what has gone wrong (trillions of dollars vaporized from the global economy, Sons of Allah are still shedding blood because they conclude they are right regardless of how more odious they appear to people who park politics so that the important conclusions are not based on politics) certain items crop up more than once.
One example is, “I’ll believe it when I see it”. Given that selective vision is a known phenomenon, and those who wish not to see wind up not seeing, whatever is in front of them (regardless of how hideous it is)is viewed with blind eyes.
It goes back to the battle between Adler and Dewey, for that is still raging even though Adler and Dewey have shuffled off this mortal coil. As evidence I
cite this: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816146,00.html
The Neo-Conservative Zombies have to grow up & put the Nation before their political gamesmanship.
We are not allowing immigrants into Canada if Muslim, their Colonists.
I have no problem with others, just the Religion that is not a Religion, but a political movement.
That even has a philosophy of lying to achieve the ends of a totalitarian State under a pseudo religious Law called Sharia.
Muslims will allow no one else in their Nations. Why do we allow them in ours?
They have proven for 14 hundred years this cult will never assimilate with any other but themselves with hardship even there. Again why are we allowing this warrior cult in our lands? Through out history this death lovers group has killed millions just for not believing what they do, baring that its oppressive to anyone including Muslims.
Harper wake up before they claim Canada as well.
The real issue is that Canada is turning it’s back on the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The bible prophecies about our time. It says that great was the day when God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt but greater will be the day when he brings them back from all the far lands where he has dispersed them. This happened in 1948 as predicted in the book of Daniel. God says that Israel will be surrounded by a people who worship a god of war(jihad?). It will be a clever deception. Many will be destroyed in the name of peace. Jesus said their will come a time when people will kill you and think they are doing God a favor (Islam again). God says that at the end of time people will not believe that he is the creator(evolution). People will believe whatever their itching ears want to hear(non bible based Christianity). You cannot worship God and money(we have alot of money worshippers). God will send terror to the nations that turn their back on Him(us). The only thing that can save this nation is God, the real God who sent His son Jesus to die on the cross for us. Muslims claim god is the Great Deceiver and he really put another one on the cross, not Jesus. They claim God has no Son. Jesus said he will return to avenge his people Israel and to go after those who have divided up His land(Palestinian state). He will divide the nations into sheep and goat nations. Is it possible that we could be a sheep nation? We can only pray.