Out Of Respect

Out of respect for those lives tragically cut short or otherwise affected by hatred in Quebec last night, I don't feel it is appropriate to post on another topic today, so I shall simply add my voice here to the horror and outrage felt by all sane Canadians today. I can offer no words of comfort except to say we must all face this together and be strong.

There Is So Much Truth Here

Unfortunately, few seem to want to hear it:

A Good Question

There are days when it is difficult to see any long-term future for the human race. Stories abound of both our collective and individual acts of brutality that attest to the fact that purely animal urges prevail within us far too frequently. The scintilla of hope that something better is possible is offered, paradoxically, by collective and individual acts of kindness and compassion that also occur on a regular basis.

The problem, it seems to me, resides in our refusal to tame and regulate the bestial side of our nature, its most frequent expression being found in the behaviour of those who claim to represent us, our governments. Too many of us are content to simply throw up our hands and say these things are out of our control, and then go on to divert ourselves with the latest technological toy. Neil Postman wrote about such in Amusing Ourselves to Death.

I am, however, frequently buoyed by letters to the editor that amply demonstrate that there are those among us with insight, clarity and the capacity for analysis and are willing to challenge the insensate among us. Two such letters I reproduce below:

Husband of terror victim cut PM's call short, Jan. 22

I sympathize with the families of people killed in the Burkina Faso terror attack but I can’t help wondering about suggestions that Canada should step up bombing in Syria in retaliation. The Canadians were killed in Burkina Faso. Would it not be more satisfying retribution to send our planes to bomb Burkina Faso?

But who do we blame for the attacks? If the killing of a few Canadians in Burkina Faso justifies bombing attacks in Syria, then surely the killing of Canadians in Burkina Faso was justified by the killing of Afghans in Afghanistan, Iraqis in Iraq and Syrians in Syria. Turnabout is fair play, they say, and at this stage we of the Western world are ahead by several hundred thousand killings. Let’s hope ISIS and other “terror” groups don’t try to even the score.

We could also note that bombing has never yet won a war. Hitler’s blitz did not knock England out of World War II and when economist J.K. Galbraith studied the effect of allied bombing on Germany, he found that German arms production had peaked in late 1944.

We had air superiority, but the Korean war was a draw. The Americans dropped more bombs in Vietnam than they had in World War II, but they lost the war. The bombing of Cambodia helped Pol Pot to take power there.

It’s lots of fun to bomb an “enemy” and it’s very profitable for the corporations that make the planes and the bombs, but the evidence suggests that bombing builds, rather than breaks, resistance.
Western governments have spent billions of dollars on the series of wars that George Bush Sr. began and Jr. continued, but we’re a long way from peace. Does anyone else notice that the flood of refugees coming to Europe from Libya, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria are coming from three countries that the U.S. “liberated” from governments that people did not see the need to flee, and one that was for years a client state that, in one case at least, tortured a Canadian on the orders of American “security” forces.

Maybe the best way to end terrorism would be to stop provoking it.

Andy Turnbull, Toronto

Respectfully, Westerners have no business in countries such as Burkina Faso, a state that is frequently rated among the worst countries in the world. Suggesting Prime Minister Trudeau is wrong to pull fighter jets in the fight against terrorism is unfair and just plain folly as incidents such as the recent deaths of six Quebec residents in the terrorist attack in Burkina Faso are literally a daily occurrence across the width and breadth of the African continent as well as many other territories in the world.

People who visit such countries in the name of faith-based altruism do so at their peril, and should not expect the governments of their home states to be held accountable for their misfortune. Tough, unsympathetic words? Perhaps, but that is the reality of the world we live in.

States such as Burkina Faso must forge their own destiny. Westerners who wish to help others in the name of faith would be better served if they looked in their own backyard first before disseminating their brand of religious altruism abroad.

Louis MacPherson, Bowmanville

Both letters will, no doubt, provoke a flurry of outrage. The truth often hurts.

Putting Things Into Perspective

The bigoted backlash against Muslims in light of the recent ISIS attacks is given short shrift by This Hour Has 22 Minutes:







Should the time come when we no longer have a sense of humour, we will know that the terrorists have won.

Collective Amnesia

In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, it seems that the world is about to embark on even greater military intervention in the Middle East, intervention that will undoubtedly be aided and abetted by a fog of amnesia about recent history.

While I do not consider myself particularly well-versed in international politics, especially as it pertains to the Middle East, it hardly takes a Ph.D to know that every time an outside force enters the region, disaster ensues. Consider, for example, the Soviet Union's failed incursion into Afghanistan in the 1980's, which essentially gave birth to Al Queda thanks to the U.S. arming of the mujahideen. That the Soviets found the country uncontainable in no way deterred U.S. adventurism there, which only made the world's situation much more precarious.

But U.S. aggression in Afghanistan was merely prologue to even greater disaster in Iraq. Indeed, writer Oliver Willis suggests that George Bush's inept decisions led directly to the creation of ISIS:

1. The decision to invade Iraq, which had been contained by the no-fly zone created by the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations and unable to threaten its neighbors or the West, created a power vacuum in the Middle East which had been filled by Saddam Hussein until the invasion in March o 2003.

2. The Bush administration believed it could install Ahmed Chalabi – part of the public relations campaign to sell the Iraq War to America – as leader of the new government, but he had been outside of the country so long they never accepted him. He was viewed as a “western stooge.”

3. Almost all of the leaders of ISIS have connections to the former Iraqi government, mostly coming from the military of the Saddam Hussein regime.

4. Paul Bremer, who was the appointed head of Iraq by the Bush administration, passed the de-Baathification law which sent Iraqi army members into the populace, eventually becoming insurgents and terrorists:

The de-Baathification law promulgated by L.­ Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.

5. ISIS leaders’ training as part of Hussein’s regime gave them the knowledge they’ve needed to be deadly:

Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.

Some might admit that "mistakes were made," but no one seems to want to take any lessons from those mistakes.

There are now calls for long-term and intensive military build-ups in the fight against ISIS:

Some also speak of a much more aggressive military option. Experts say it would require 150,000 U.S. troops, could last decades and cost trillions.

An enthusiastic Thomas Donelly of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute is calling for such an implementation in Syria and Iraq:

It would take “more years of heavy combat than we’ve seen before” and “decades,” to properly re-integrate alienated Sunni populations that have sometimes backed Islamic State. The initial stage would cost more than $1 trillion over several years, he estimates, and 150,000 troops.

“Anything less than military engagement is likely to be useless,” Donnelly said. “It’s a war.”

Justin Trudeau has mounted the world stage as an emblem of soft power. We can only hope that he manages to keep his head as so many others in the 'civilized' world are losing theirs as they frantically beat the war drums, the reverberations of which are likely to grow louder and louder over the next weeks and months.

About Those Diversions, Mr. Harper

H/t Raeside Cartoons

Meanwhile, always perspicacious Toronto Star readers will have none of it. Here is but a small sampling of their sentiments on Mr. Harper's diversionary tactics:

Re: Harper vows to end ‘terror tourism,’ Aug. 10

Travel restrictions to terrorist locations shouldn’t be election promises. When warranted I expect any government to take responsible precautions, including restricting travel to certain areas, more for the safety of the travelers than as a way to stop potential radicals.

It’s hardly worthy of be‎ing touted as a campaign plank, but I suppose the Conservatives have little else to run on. More and more though, the Conservative positions on security sound like a paranoid response from someone who runs and hides in a closet at the first hint of trouble.

Terry Kushnier, Scarborough

Life mirrors art. Stephen Harper unjustifiably presents terrorism as so threatening to Canadians that he must be kept in office to be our saviour. Remember the movie “Wag the Dog,” in which a film producer created a pretend narrative of real war threats in order to keep the incumbent U.S. president in power? It worked in the movie — let’s be aware and ensure it doesn’t work for Stephen Harper.

Linda Silver Dranoff, Toronto

If Stephen Harper had been a politician in the 1950s, his bogeymen to scare voters would have been those nefarious communists. Richard Nixon parlayed that type of fear mongering into a political career that launched him all the way to the White House. Once in power, Nixon would direct his people to undertake unethical retaliations against individuals and groups that disagreed with his ideology or who had pointed out mistakes or deceptions committed by his administration. Tax audits were one of his weapons.

In the end, his governments involvement in a scandalous illegal activity brought down a majority elected government. A lot of people knew the negatives about Nixon before he was elected to a second term. But, it took the release of the Nixon tapes to convince the rest of the U.S. electorate.

Wait a minute – in addition to our government’s cynical ploy of a tough on terrorism agenda, aren’t we seeing tax audits being used here in Canada against environmental and politically liberal charities? Don’t we have a chief of staff for the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada involved in a hush money payoff scandal? I don’t get it. Isn’t it our duty to learn from history?

Someone should have been taping the Harper administration.

Russell Pangborn, Keswick

Now we know who’s been spying on people through their baby cams. You gotta get to those terrorists while they’re still young eh Steve.
Harpers “Anti Terrorism Act” is just that — an act of desperation.

Richard Kadziewicz, Scarborough

Let us all hope, for the sake of our country, that such critical thinking is not confined to the pages of national newspapers.

In Which Stephen Harper Tries To Change The Channel

One suspects it won't work.

Distracted Thinking

I am something of a creature of routine. For example, all things being equal, my early morning ritual consists of retrieving the Toronto Star from my mailbox and reading the front section while enjoying my breakfast. It is during this reading that I often get my idea for the day's blog post. Firing up the computer, checking email and going to my blog dashboard are my next steps, assuming no exigencies have arisen requiring my attention elsewhere.

A requisite part of these quotidian activities is a certain amount of focus and concentration, perhaps one of the reasons I don't scan the entire paper during breakfast. If reading a political column, for example, I have to concentrate so as no to misread the writer's intent. Without that focus, distraction and digression would undoubtedly result. Of course, as I get older, that concentration becomes harder to maintain. It is the way of all flesh, I suspect.

It seems to me that as a nation, perhaps as a species, we allow ourselves to be far too easily distracted by the bauble, by the sensational, by the essentially meaningless, while failing to note or appreciate far more important underlying realities.

Take the overreaction to Elizabeth May's 'performance' the other night at the press gallery dinner. The fact that she dropped the 'f' bomb, and not the context of its use, is what everyone talked about, to the point, quite hypocritically in my view, that some say she should resign as Green Party leader.

In today's Star, Thomas Walkon offers some perspective:

First she said she was surprised that previous speakers hadn’t acknowledged that the dinner was taking place on land claimed by the Algonquins.

“What the f--- was wrong with the rest of you,” she said.

This, incidentally, was one of only two times she used vulgarity in what has been labelled a profanity-laden speech.

Then she noted that the prime minister, as usual, wasn’t attending. Maybe he fretted about being hit by flying bread rolls, she mused, before suggesting that such fears were unfounded because “there’s got to be a closet here somewhere.”

I confess I found that rather amusing, in a mean sort of way.

May then turned her attention to Omar Khadr:

“Welcome back Omar Khadr,” she said. “It matters to say it. Welcome back. You’re home. Omar Khadr, you’ve got more class than the entire f---ing cabinet.”

And in fact he does. Khadr’s response to being jailed almost half of his life for the crime of being a child soldier has been gracious and measured. The Harper government’s response to Khadr has been anything but.

Despite that very important context, all anyone could talk about was May's language and whether or not she was drunk.

Our predilection to think trivially, to be overwhelmed by the sensational while ignoring the substantive, serves the ruling class very well. Gwynne Dyer's most recent column, I think, addresses this issue within the context of anti-terrorism laws passed by both France and Canada:

Left-wing, right-wing, it makes no difference. Almost every elected government, confronted with even the slightest “terrorist threat”, responds by attacking the civil liberties of its own citizens. And the citizens often cheer them on.

Last week, the French government passed a new bill through the National Assembly that vastly expanded the powers of the country’s intelligence services. French intelligence agents will now be free to plant cameras and recording devices in private homes and cars, intercept phone conversations without judicial oversight, and even install “keylogger” devices that record every key stroke on a targeted computer in real time.

Things are almost equally as grim here in Canada:

The Anti-Terror Act, which has just passed the Canadian House of Commons, gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the right to make “preventive” arrests in Canada. It lets police arrest and detain individuals without charge for up to seven days.

The bill’s prohibitions on speech that “promotes or glorifies terrorism” are so broad and vague that any extreme political opinion can be criminalized.

In both countries, the sensational, (the threat of death by terrorist) stoked by respective governments to cultivate a compliant response from their citizens, ignores a very important factual context:

France has 65 million people, and it lost 17 of them to terrorism in the past year. Canada has 36 million people, and it has lost precisely two of them to domestic terrorism in the past 20 years.

That seems to have worked for France:

The cruel truth is that we put a higher value on the lives of those killed in terrorist attacks because they get more publicity. That’s why, in an opinion poll last month, nearly two-thirds of French people were in favor of restricting freedoms in the name of fighting extremism—and the French parliament passed the new security law by 438 votes to 86.

It appears to have been less successful here:

And the Canadian public, at the start 82 percent in favour of the new law, had a rethink during the course of the debate. By the time the Anti-Terror Act was passed in the House of Commons, 56 percent of Canadians were against it. Among Canadians between 18 and 34 years old, fully three-quarters opposed it.

Should Canadians feel superior? Not really. After all, Bill C-51 is now the law of the land, and we can be certain that the 'terror card' will be played relentlessly in the Harper campaign for re-election.

Time for a crash course in Critical Thinking 101.

Meanwhile, Back At Campaign Central

Hate campaign, that is. True to form, the Harper regime wasted no time in denouncing the decision to release Omar Khadr on bail pending his appeal. And in addition to playing to their rabid base, they took the opportunity to excoriate both Trudeau and Mulcair with some verbal prestidigitation:

Meanwhile, Thomas Walkom offers a good analysis of the government's strategy:

Conservative Roxanne James, [seen in the above video] the government’s designated spokesperson, said Ottawa opposes Khadr’s release because he has been convicted of “heinous crimes.”

What she should have said is that, in the lead-up to this fall’s election, the Conservatives hope to use the Khadr affair as a political wedge issue.

A polarizing figure since his arrest in Afghanistan, the former child soldier is viewed in rather absolutist terms by the Canadian public. There are those who believe he is an inveterate terrorist who deserves no mercy, while others see him as a victim of his parents' jihadist zeal and a political football very useful when governments want to vent their demagogic spleen and manipulate the masses.

He is, in short, a perfect political vehicle for a Conservative prime minister hoping to use crime and national security as defining elements in the election campaign.

Khadr's political usefulness began with the Americans:

The Americans, meanwhile, were desperate to have their much-maligned military tribunal system score a judicial victory. Khadr seemed to fit the bill. The U.S. had already decided to ignore the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan. Instead, captives like Khadr would be labelled “unlawful combatants” and accorded none of the usual rights of soldiers at war.

Not far behind, the Canadian government picked up the ball:

... by then, Harper had discovered Khadr’s political usefulness. The organizations that the Conservative base loves to hate — including human rights groups, liberal churches and lawyers — were all clamouring for Ottawa to bring Khadr home, where he could have a chance at parole.

So the prime minister resisted. The more the critics clamoured, the more strident his resistance became.

Last year, the Conservatives castigated Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau for suggesting that Khadr be treated fairly.

Clearly, in contrast to the take-no-prisoners approach the Conservatives usually employ in their politicking for the hearts of Canadians, they are making an exception for Omar Khadr.

Some Inspiration From A Clear-Thinking Citizen

That's what I derive from Donald Crump's Star letter. It is a shame more of our fellow citizens are not possessed of such critical faculties:

Increasing risk of terror in Canada

When a government starts making decisions based primarily on getting re-elected, with little regard for what is best for the country, we should all take notice. In Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s view, the fact that a majority of voters support his “war on terrorism” is reason enough for his government to increase the risk that terror will come to our shores. I think we have learned since 9/11 that terrorists cannot be defeated through the normal rules that apply to wars between countries. Rather than feeling safer because our Armed Forces are fighting in the Middle East, we now have a large target painted on our country, a target that gets larger and more tempting with each passing day to those who would do us harm.

I understand the political motivation for our leaders to show decisiveness in the face of a threat, but I don’t understand the blind pursuit of a political strategy that can have no outcome other than to make us less safe and secure. If, as Harper professes, the terrorists hate our freedoms, the measures under Bill C-51 to restrict those freedoms seem to be giving ISIS et al. exactly what they want. Coupling that with attempting to bomb them into submission through military excursions that may be illegal if they include Syria is the height of folly — and arrogance — and will inevitably anger those terrorist organizations and motivate more to join them.

For my part, I would rather live my life in freedom, accepting that occasionally bad things will happen. That is the price of being free and is a price we should all be willing to pay. The remote risk that a terrorist act would affect any individual Canadian should not justify a government creating fear and exaggerating that risk.
It’s time for our government and opposition parties to show leadership and consider effective means to combat terrorist organizations rather than knee-jerk revenge measures and totalitarian restrictions on our rights to be free.

David Crump, Toronto

Attention, Shoppers: Don't Let The Terrorists Win!

An important message to all Canadians from Stephen Harper:

Friend Or Foe?

You decide.

A message from Anonymous to ISIS:

We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you…
From now on, no safe place for you online…
You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure…
We own the internet…
We are Anonymous; we are Legion; we do not forgive, we do not forget, Expect us.

On Profound Timidity

H/t The Toronto Star

Yesterday's post dealt with the profound reluctance of Messieurs Trudeau and Mulcair to oppose Harper's latest incursion into our civil rights, Bill C-51, lest they be accused of being 'soft on terrorism' ("Oh, the horror!"). Better, in their minds, to betray the interests of Canadians than to be stuck with that taint, I guess.

Today's Star reports Justin Trudeau speaking with some enthusiasm about the bill, again carping around the edges about the need for more parliamentary oversight:

This bill can be improved but on the whole it does include measures that will help keep Canadians safe,” Trudeau told reporters.

But he conceded that his party will back the new law even if their suggestions are ignored by the Conservatives, adding that a Liberal government would bring in “robust” oversight and review if elected in the October election.

This seems hardly an adequate response to such an onerous bill, given that

it would give agents working for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service a broad new mandate to directly intervene in and “disrupt” emerging terror threats at home and abroad, even if it meant breaking the law.

In the same paper, Thomas Walkom writes about how even the parliamentary oversight called for by both Trudeau and Mulcair would not prevent or address the intrusions the bill makes possible:

In fact, most legislative oversight committees have limited authority. Those with greater powers, such as the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees have, in many cases, given their imprimatur to dubious security practices. Walkom cites the use of torture by the C.I.A. While the Senate produced a report about it, it was years after the event, demonstrating the failure of oversight.

Or how about this?

In 2005, the New York Times broke the story that, in apparent violation of American law, the country’s National Security Agency was engaging in warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens. In this case, the chairs of both legislative oversight committees had known of the program since its inception in 2002. But they had done nothing.

Similar failures abound in other countries with supposed legislative safeguards:

Australia’s parliamentary oversight committee is barred from examining either operational methods or specific operations. It is not permitted to make public any information that the intelligence agencies want kept secret.

New Zealand’s oversight committee is subject to similar constraints. It is also specifically barred from inquiring into whether the country’s intelligence services are breaking the law (an appointed inspector-general does that).

In Britain, that country’s parliamentary oversight committee can look at past operational matters (if the prime minister agrees) as well as other matters that the prime minister wants it to examine. The government can deny the committee any information it deems sensitive. The committee’s annual reports to Parliament are subject to censorship by the prime minister.

What does all of this demonstrate? In my mind it is a piercing indictment of both Trudeau and Mulcair, who, in hiding behind the accountability mask, are revealing themselves for what they really are: political opportunists whose only real passion is for power, not public service.

A Timely Warning From Edward Snowden

But will anyone listen?

Edward Snowden, the man wanted for leaking U.S. security documents in 2013 says Canadians should be “extraordinarily cautious” in reference to an anti-terror bill proposed by the Harper government. Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald spoke to a group of Toronto students Monday evening.

Herr Harper, Who Is Your Goebbels?

Having returned from our Cuban sojourn last evening, I have not yet had time to get caught up on the Canadian political scene, but this item by Heather Mallick deconstructing one of Herr Harper's recent 24/Seven productions caught my eye.

Its martial music, military imagery and depiction of Dear leader's steady hand on the tiller of state, standing strong against those who "hate our freedoms," left me with only one question: Are Herr Goebbels' descendants now gainfully employed by Prop Can?



P.S. I noticed that the closed captions were turned on when playing the video. I guess that is so the true believers don't miss even one word. If you are not thus enamored of the prime minister, you might want to turn them off.

About That Fear-Mongering, Mr. Harper

Thanks to Inse for this. He writes:

Maybe to try and counteract the obviously upcoming increase in security measures and fear mongering by the usual suspects (and don't forget to donate to the party funds!)

I Feel Better Already

....knowing that Mr. Harper's fight against ISIS hasn't distracted him from an even greater threat to all that is holy and good:

As a Canadian, You Can't Help But Feel Proud Here

Let's hope this kind of integrity and decency is enough to combat the fears that the Harper regime is trying to stoke after last week's tragic events.

Tragedy Must Bring Out The Best In All Of Us

That is the sentiment expressed by Craig Wellington of Brampton in this fine lead letter from this morning's Star:

Let’s tone down the hate rhetoric. A tragedy occurred Wednesday and a good man, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo lost his life. Let us use that as a catalyst to illuminate the best, not the worst of us.

Much of the U.S. media and political pundits have shamelessly exploited this tragedy to use as a launchpad for a stream of bigoted, vicious, rhetoric based on innuendo to feed an ongoing narrative of hate. Their apparent delight at this tragedy is disturbing.

CNN and FoxNews have filled their round-the-clock coverage with conjecture and inflammatory innuendo. Bill Maher continued his tireless “us against the Muslims” crusade by tweeting: “Turns out the attacker was Islamic — what are the odds, huh?” Sadly, this type of knee-jerk bigotry, posing as considered, intellectual punditry is far too common. And the public is increasingly unable to discern the difference between considered journalism (disappearing faster than the northern white rhino) and reckless conjecture.

In April of this year, Ft. Hood Army Base in the U.S. was attacked by an armed gunman and multiple servicemen lost their lives. What religion was the shooter? In the mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in which 20 children and six teachers lost their lives, what religion was the shooter? When congressman Gabby Gifford was shot, what religion was the shooter? What about the shooter who fired an assault weapon in a U.S. movie theatre in 2012, killing over 20 people? Timothy McVeigh?

Armed gunmen attacked Capitol Hill in 1998 (killing two police officers) and 2008. What religion were they? What religion was the man who shot Ronald Reagan? Some 84 U.S. policemen have been killed in the line of duty thus far this year. What was the religion of the perpetrators? We don’t know. It wasn’t relevant. The only thing we do know, is they werent Muslim, because if they were, it would have been the headline.

Canada has recently agreed to join the U.S. in a war in the Middle East, a region now rife with sectarian conflict. There is blame all around for that. It’s no coincidence that the epicentre, Iraq, is the country in which the U.S., under the pretense of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, removed Saddam Hussein (a former ally of the U.S. who was armed and funded by them) who was keeping these sectarian forces in check.

Years later, with over 500,000 Iraqis and thousands of U.S. servicemen killed, the area is far more of a global threat than it ever was under Saddam. That has nothing to do with a religion. That’s a convenient excuse and criminal obfuscation.

At the time of the Iraq invasion, Canada refused the U.S.’s call to join them because we did not think it was wise and did not believe the allegations of WMDs and the link to 9/11. Now after the poop has hit the fan, Canada is being asked to help the U.S. clean up their mess. But we are there and not turning back now.

There are potential ramifications to Canada’s joining this war, for Canadian citizens. When England and Germany were at war, both nations anticipated rightly that their heads of state would be assassination targets for agents or sympathizers of the other. That evil is a consequence of war. You send bombs to kill people, some of them are likely to respond.

The Canadian Harper Prime Minister has been asked numerous times in the house to outline the extent of what we have committed to, the duration, the objective of the mission, and the implications in terms of security for Canadians. He has refused to do so.

Clearly there are consequences in terms of our security, especially for Canadians traveling to certain regions, and clearly for our government officials. Wednesday’s incident outlines that not enough steps have been taken to ensure such protection is in place. That needs to change and the Prime Minister needs to have an honest dialogue with Canadians.
But what cannot change is that Canadians cannot devolve from the tolerant, socially progressive nation to a segregated society rife with paranoia, bigotry, finger pointing and hatred as is fast becoming the U.S.’s brand.

Let us honour our fallen soldier by honouring what he served and fought for — a free, open and tolerant society. #Canada

And Thus It Begins

One of the misgivings I expressed in yesterday's post seems to be a little closer to reality today.

The National Post headline reads:

Conservatives mulling legislation making it illegal to condone terrorist acts online.

Says John Ivison,

The Conservatives are understood to be considering new legislation that would make it an offence to condone terrorist acts online.

There is frustration in government, and among law enforcement agencies, that the authorities can’t detain or arrest people who express sympathy for atrocities committed overseas and who may pose a threat to public safety, one Conservative MP said. “Do we need new offences? If so which?”

Sources suggest the government is likely to bring in new hate speech legislation that would make it illegal to claim terrorist acts are justified online.

The Prime Minister told the House of Commons on Thursday that Canada’s law and policing powers need to be strengthened in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. He said work is already under way to provide law enforcement agencies with “additional tools” and that work will now be expedited.

Hopefully, even the naive and guileless will want to ask themselves, after reading the article, if it is wise to let government decide what constitutes unacceptable speech?

I assume no further comment on my part is needed.