by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
May 7, 2004
On april 27, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, anne McLellan, tabled a document in the House of Commons entitled: "Securing an Open Society: Canada’s National Security Policy."
The timing of the introduction of this paper is suspect. Since assuming office last December, Prime Minister Paul Martin and the Liberals have done next to nothing in the areas of legislation and policy formation. The PM, who spent nine of the 10 Chrétien years as Minister of Finance has spent most of the last five months going from coast to coast to coast, trying to distance himself from the adScam scandal, arguably the most serious allegations of corruption in this country’s history. Now the Libs are in election mode, waiting for an opportunity to hold an election after the polls say they can form another majority. and as former Prime Minister Kim Campbell has told us, election time is no time to discuss policy. The Open Society document just happened to be tabled two days before Paul Martin was to go to Washington for meetings with President Bush and Congressional representatives. Hardly a coincidence.
The paper says that the government will spend $690 million over the next five years on six main areas--intelligence, emergency management, public health, transportation, border security and international security. For a government that utterly failed to comprehend the significance of the events of September 11, 2001, it seems almost too good to be true. and when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
McLellan said that "a government’s most important duty is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens". It seemed that the feds might have finally gotten it right until they added the following sentence: "The National Policy protects our collective security interests in a way that reflects Canadian values of tolerance, openness and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms." although Canadians’ love of the Liberal party and disorganization of the opposition has led Canada to become a virtual one-party state, this country is nevertheless a democracy and as such the government must act with openness. We have fundamental rights and freedoms that are entrenched in the Canadian constitution so it seems obvious that these be protected in any legislation that will be enacted. But according to the feds an open government that protects rights and freedoms is not enough. any new security legislation must reflect "tolerance" as well.
Further on in the document it became clear what the word tolerance was referring to. In addition to creating a federal-provincial forum on emergencies and a National Security advisory Council, proof positive that the government intends to spend more time discussing and less time acting, the paper proposes a "Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security, which will better engage Canada’s ethno-cultural and religious communities around ongoing security-related issues."
What does this babble about "ethno-cultural" and "religious communities" mean? Well, one could hazard a guess that the security concerns of the Buddhists in Banff and the Gabonese in Gander and the Métis in Manitoba don’t differ a lot when it comes to security. People in those and other groups undoubtedly want to be able to go into a building and not have that building hit by a fuel-laden jumbo jet. No, when the government talks about ethno-culture and religion they mean arabs and Muslims.
It is a fact of life that the biggest threat to Canada’s security comes from Muslim extremists. arab and Muslim groups such as CaIR-CaN (Council on american-Islamic Relations Canada) have been lobbying the government for a say in how security is handled. These groups take the position that when any Muslim is investigated on suspicion of terrorism, it is nothing more than racism. They will constantly remind the government that taking any action against such people is merely harassment of innocent people simply because they’re Muslims.
When the Roundtable gets going, there’s no doubt that some sleeper cells in Canada will wake up early just to take part in the discussions.
The safety and security of its citizens is not the main priority of the Canadian government. Political correctness is.