Motion 103

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Feb 2017

Motion 103 is just the sort of infantile thing that I would expect the House under PM Sunny Ways to debate.  Like many other things, I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

However, the intellectual emptiness of it is noteworthy and, unfortunately, Canadian politics does not have a Senator Ted Cruz to bring them to light.

The most obvious piece of idiocy of M-103 is the condemnation of all forms of systemic racism.  Canada’s Indian Act establishes a systemic racism in its strictest meaning – discrimination on the basis of race; but I don’t think anyone has this in mind when they condemn systemic racism in Canada.  But there it is.  So, they must mean bad forms of systemic racism, not the good ones.

M-103 also condemns religious discrimination, but it doesn’t say by whom and for what.  I think it is a well-established principle in Canadian law that religious institutions are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in respect of their hiring practices.  It would be pretty silly for an Anglican priest to sue the Roman Catholic Church for religious discrimination because he wasn’t considered for the post of Bishop of Kingston.  But without clarification, this sort of thing was also condemned in the motion because it included all forms.

Since degree of discrimination is often measured by the left in terms of statistics, lets look at some numbers.  Before it was suppressed, the number I saw of proportion of Syrian refugees coming to Canada who were Muslim was 97 %.  Since the Muslim population of Syria is 90 %, that seems to show discrimination in favor of Muslims and against Christians.  (You will find now all kinds of statistics on Syrian refugees in Canada: by type, by province, by city, family size, education [over 60 % less than secondary education], age & gender, language - but significantly NOT by religious affiliation, the most important statistic in this matter.)

Here's another number: ZERO.  That's the number of Yazidis resettled in Canada as of 19 Feb 2017.  The Yazidis are a 6,000 year old culture in the midst of Iraq, and were designated as a group subject to genocide by ISIS in a House of Commons resolution of 25 Oct 2016.  The government is expected some time this week to announce a policy of resettlement, but observers are forecasting disappointment.

So, on the basis of statistics, Canada appears in the grip of prejudice called Islamophilia, not Islamophobia.  So, by condemning all forms of discrimination, while the motion names Islamophobia as a specifically condemned discrimination it indirectly condemns Islamophilia, which is also a discrimination - one of favoritism, as well, and by extension the government policies associated with rank Islamphilia.

Returning to the text of the motion and the condemnation of all forms of discrimination, let me speak to the case of the Editorial Page Editor of my home town newspaper.  He has frequently made calls for the extinction of the Separate School System in Ontario, and has published many op-eds in favor of it.  This is also a case of religious discrimination - by him.  At least, that is the Catholic perspective, because he calls for the extinguishing of a black letter right for Roman Catholics in Ontario that existed from the beginning of Canada, i.e. the Constitution Act, 1867.  So, he could stand condemned by this motion for a belief he sincerely holds.

The part of the motion recognizing the "increasing climate of hatred and fear" is also unserious.  This aspect could easily be met by announcing an immediate and permanent halt of all Muslim immigration.  That would certainly put a cap on the problem, but no one in the House debate thought of that.  An opposition member could frame this aspect as a condemnation of the government for moving too quickly and in an unwise direction in respect of Muslim immigration; but members of the House are pretty witless.  You could support the motion and condemn the government at the same time; and make Liberals supporting it look foolish.

It is great that Canada's House of Commons is returning to the custom of having important matters of state debated freely.  But it is exposing Members to ridicule for their witlessness and the unseriousness of the matters they choose to discuss.

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