“M-103 and the Battle for the Soul of Canada”
This past weekend I had the great honour of addressing a combined meeting of the leadership of the Ontario division of the Christian Heritage Party (CHP). The CHP is a national political party that dedicates itself to the application of Judeo-Christian principles to a comprehensive set of national policies. My keynote speech was entitled, “Motion M-103 and the Battle for the Soul of Canada”.
The discussion included an M-103 “scorecard” that detailed wins and losses for the Motion’s sponsoring Liberal Party and opposing Canadians concerned with the preservation of their fundamental Charter Rights and Freedoms. It was interesting to note that the “slamdunk” passage of M-103, as foreseen by the Liberal Party, was never realized. Indeed, a widespread national opposition overtook the government’s call to “quell” a “rising tide of hate and fear” in Canada. This opposition was so great that, just before the vote on M-103, only 14% of Canadians thought the Motion was a good idea even as an uprecedented 800,000-plus emails opposing its passage were sent to MPs from citizens across the land. Some “slamdunk”!
The scorecard credited the Liberal government with managing to pass the Motion along Party lines with the power of its majority. This did not come without cost, however, as “M-103” became a household Canadian term denoting government overreach, obstinance and misplaced favouritism. In a similar fashion, the Heritage Committee responsible for “studying” the passed Motion was forced to offer up a final report that confirmed “systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia” even as powerful testimony refuted such unsubstantiated assertions. The Report was very selective in what it presented.
It became obvious to Canadians that the Motion, the related study and its final report were “rigged” from start to finish. It was no surprise, then, when the Government responded to the Report by breaking out $23 million from previously budgeted funds to service M-103 initiatives. These disbursements caused further angst among tax-paying citizens as they included the funding of organizations '.
As for those who opposed the Motion, including you, their wins were many. Consider that a whole nation is now wary of government schemes and programs motivated by the unsubstantiated assumptions and undefined notions associated with Islamophobia. This new reality can be seen to be responsible for the cancellation of planned cross-country, anti-racism hearings on the heels of the Heritage Committee’s submission of its final report. Even more than this was its impact on forcing the government to shelve its long-standing sop to Islamophobia in the form of a “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia”.
This latter initiative would have seen Canadians memorialize their own alleged bigotry on a yearly basis. This would have been the case even though the genesis of such a day, the Quebec mosque attack of 29 January, 2017, is known to have been motivated by mental illness and depression rather than Islamophobia. This was a great win only superseded by the fact that M-103 was never allowed to get to the point where a legislative Bill was fashioned out of its whole cloth. Recall that its very last phrases stated that it intended to “better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”. Does it not appear that this portion of the Motion speaks to using the Charter's equality rights section to combat Islamophobia? This portion of the Motion appears to speak to an intention to turn Islamophobia into a long line of such phobias that end up creating new“prohibited grounds of discrimination” in all federal and provincial human rights codes. Just like the latest entry – Gender Identity and Expression!
How did “Phobias” Overtake the Rule of Law in Canada?
The fact that Motion M-103 can be seen as an initiative designed to install Islamophobia as a “prohibited grounds of discrimination” in our Human Rights Codes is not surprising. Over the past several decades we have seen reactions to “phobias” of one sort or another result in such an outcome. Problem is, as each new grounds of discrimination creates equality rights for yet another “identifiable group” the fundamental Charter freedoms of individual Canadians inevitably suffers. The latest of these prohibited grounds of discrimination is the “gender identity and expression” canard that declares gender to be untethered from biological sex. This unsubstantiated assertion lacks any empirical support but, pushed by loud and well-organized agencies, nonetheless illustrates how the phobia scam works.
The phobia scam has become so commonplace that it can now be seen in cookie-cutter terms. First comes the formation of a victim group identifiable by its adherence to a cause or set of practises that do not resonate within the host community. It matters not that these causes or practises lie outside community norms or even the natural ordering of things. What matters is that offense and dissimilar treatment are seen to be given and redress is demanded. Resistance to these demands is then countered by loud and persistent calls of “phobia” with critics labelled as a “phobics” who spew “hate speech”. This process is not short-lived as assaults on “deniers” are sustained and magnified to the point that opposition, including that from political and judicial authorities, is silenced. This is the point at which these authorities look to make the hurt go away - even at the expense of individual Charter Rights.
Is this where Islamophobia was meant to take us? If so, it didn’t work. It did not work because of folks like you who refused to buckle under pressure. This pressure was generated not just by a victim group demanding your capitulation but by your own government as it called you names and exhorted you to denounce your hateful ways. It’s insulting when you think of it and makes you wonder just who your elected representatives are in the business of representing. Certainly not you when it comes to satiating the demands of the Islamophobia crowd. Hopefully, it also makes one think about supporting organizations like C3RF. Organizations that are prepared to push back on such insults on your behalf.
C3RF Twitter Highlights
Theme-based Twitter highlights this week home-in on the concern created by the speakers list of this year’s Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) “Carry the Light” conference in Mississauga. The conference will be held in the International Conference Centre over the period 6/ 7 October, 2018, and features personalities such as Linda Sarsour.
Ms. Sarsour is an American citizen born to Palestinian immigrants in 1980 and has served as the former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. At this point in time, she continues to advocate on behalf of American Muslims while extending her activism to other civil rights issues such asBlack Lives Matter and immigration policy. It is through these past and current activities that she has proven herself to be at odds with the public security interests of Western societies that host Muslim communities. She has done so by; advising Muslims to obstruct related police investigations, distorting the reasons for these operations, and mischaracterizing Western political authorities as tyrannical and in need of being overthrown through revolution.
All this even as she has admitted to having familial and personal relationships with members of Hamas; an entity that has been declared to be a terrorist organization by the Government of Canada. In short, folks can be rightfully concerned that she will spew hatred potentially capable of inciting violence. It is no surprise, then, that they think she should be turned back at the border or, if not, have her speech monitored by security authorities for "hate speech" violations. Here’s a smattering of related tweets:
Ongoing operations and trends
C3RF continues to monitor and react against attacks on your fundamental rights and freedoms on a number of increasing fronts. It really does appear that there is a “full court press” ongoing with developments forthcoming in the fields of the Global Compact on Safe, Open and Regular Migration, censorship not only of documentaries like “Killing Europe” but those that discuss the censorship process itself as with the follow-on documentary “Killing Canada”, differentiated “hate speech” rules for Islamic conferences, attempts by Islamist organizations like the OIC to bring sharia speech codes to non-Muslim nations and the list goes on and on. With your support, we will continue such efforts even as we seek to educate the Canadian public on threats to their treasured fundamental and individual rights and freedoms.
For those of you who have recently contributed to our coffers, thank you very much. We cannot continue to operate and make progress on such initiatives without such aid. Having said that, we could certainly use a lot more of it from all others and hope you can contribute towards making a difference. If you are able to make a monthly donation, no matter how small, even $5/month, it will help us plan our finances and provide funding for a rainy day which is sure to come.
And while you're considering making a difference, please follow C3RF on Twitter, on Facebook and on our web site and share with friends our great content and a realistic outlook on the continuing battle for Charter Rights in Canada.
Major Russ Cooper (Ret'd)
Co-Chair C3RF
