a poll done last week by Strategic Counsel for CTV and the Globe and Mail made some disturbing findings about how Canadians view terrorism.
The pollster questioned 1,000 Canadian adults between February 16 and 19 and the margin of error was determined to be 3.1 per cent. In answer to the question, "If you were an MP would you vote in favour of sending troops to afghanistan?" only 27 per cent of respondents said "yes". Sixty two per cent replied that they would vote against sending the troops despite the fact that Canada has 2,300 troops currently on the ground in afghanistan.
although the majority of Canadians opposed the Iraq war and Liberal MPs hooted and hollered in the House of Canada when it was announced that Canada would not be joining the coalition of the willing, we have been part of the war on terror since its inception on September 11, 2001. as the new Conservative Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Connor told CTV news, he has a lot of selling to do regarding the reason that our troops are in that country.
The previous Liberal government had a "don't ask — don't tell" policy when it came to our military. No one asked any questions and the government didn't tell us anything. The only memorable reference to the deployment of Canadians in afghanistan was when former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said that he didn't want the troops to get into a fight over there. Only in Canada.
In the past few weeks, not only has Canada increased the deployment but the troops have left the relative safety of Kabul and are now in the Kandahar area that is rife with Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. although we have been told for some time that the fighting will increase and we should expect more casualties, it seems that the vast majority of Canadians give little thought to the fact that so many young men and women are in harm's way in a faraway place. Fighting terrorism hasn't quite garnered the interest of the average Canadian the way increasing gas prices and global warming has.
another poll question was even more troubling than the one about afghanistan. When the respondents were asked, "Do you think Canada should be participating in the war on terrorism?" less than half, 48 per cent, answered "yes". although the question that was asked was about Canada's participation and not whether or not the war against terror should be fought, it is shocking that such a high percentage of Canadians do not feel that terrorism is sufficient of a threat to the country that Canada should become involved.
Too many Canadians think that we are such a nice multicultural country that no one would ever want to attack us and so terrorism is something that is simply off the radar screens of a lot of Canadians. Many people hold that view in spite of the fact that bin Laden has made specific threats to Canada because of our participation in afghanistan. Pull the troops out of there, do anything else that they ask and the terrorists will be nice to us.
We have been taught over the years to believe that the only legitimate function that the Canadian military can have is one of peacekeeping. While the Canadian troops in afghanistan are not deployed in a combat role, it is not a peacekeeping mission either. The Canadians are involved in rebuilding efforts in an area of afghanistan where they become targets of terrorist attacks. Even though the troops have a non-combat role, less than half of the Canadians surveyed feel that Canada should be fighting terrorism.
The most cogent reason given for why less than half of Canadians support the war on terror is that great Canadian pastime--hating the United States and americans. Some Canadians can only define their country, not in terms of what we are but what we are not--we're not americans. To these people, the war on terror is not the West's war, or democracy's against Islamofascism or even america's war--it's George Bush's war and Canada cannot be seen as supporting Bush no matter what the cause.
Unfortunately, it will take a large scale attack on a major Canadian city before many Canadians wake up to the dangers that Western democracies are in.
It's hard to say whether or not the new Conservative government will be able to convince Canadians of the dangers that the country faces from terrorism. O'Connor's desire to explain exactly why the troops are in afghanistan is a good start. But we have a long way to go.
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