One of the more unbecoming byproducts of Canada’s five-decade-long experiment in official multiculturalism has been the creeping influence of diaspora politics, as politicians of all stripes subjugate the country’s national security interests to the whims of winning votes among certain ethnic minorities. Only occasionally are the two in perfect alignment.
At 43, Brampton, Ont., Mayor Patrick Brown is too young to have pioneered diaspora politics. But he has emerged as one of its most adept practitioners, and it may just be his secret weapon in his below-the-radar bid to win the Conservative Party of Canada leadership. He aims to sell thousands of party memberships to members of targeted ethnic groups, who can swing the vote in critical urban and suburban ridings, by promising to pay special attention to their concerns.
This might be acceptable if it involved removing obstacles that racialized Canadians face in their everyday lives and promoting equality. Rather, Mr. Brown has been engaging in the more controversial exercise of exploiting antagonism among certain immigrant groups who have transported conflicts from their birthplaces to their adopted country. This is not how anyone who aspires to become prime minister should go about making Canadian foreign policy.
In private appeals to Tamil Canadians, Mr. Brown has promised to deliver an apology as prime minister for Canada’s behaviour during the Sri Lankan civil war that ended in 2009 and remove the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, from Public Safety Canada’s list of designated terrorist organizations. The group better known as the Tamil Tigers, which long waged a violent secessionist campaign against the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government, was put on that list by former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s government in 2006. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government reaffirmed the ban after a review in 2018.
“Although the LTTE was militarily defeated in May, 2009, subversion, destabilization, and fundraising continue, particularly in the diaspora,” Public Safety Canada concluded then.
Canada is home to one of the largest Tamil populations outside Sri Lanka. About 140,000 Canadians claimed Tamil as their mother tongue, according to the 2016 census, while the overall Tamil-Canadian community is estimated at about twice that number. By comparison, Canada’s Sinhalese population is small. In several Toronto area ridings, Tamil voters count for more than 10 per cent of the electorate, making them an attractive target for vote-searching politicians.
Ontario became one of the only jurisdictions in the world to recognize a genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka with last year’s passage of Bill 104, which had been tabled by Scarborough‑Rouge Park Progressive Conservative MPP Vijay Thanigasalam, who narrowly beat the NDP candidate in the 2018 provincial election. Mr. Brown oversaw a similar Tamil genocide proclamation by Brampton City Council in 2019. Neither the federal government nor the United Nations has called the situation in Sri Lankan a genocide.
After the Sri Lankan government reacted angrily to Ontario’s move and called on Ottawa to intervene, Mr. Brown tweeted: “This is foreign interference in Canadian domestic affairs. The Sri Lankan High Commission’s ongoing denial of the Tamil Genocide & their organized propaganda is offensive.”
Both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers are accused by human rights groups of committing war crimes during the country’s civil war, particularly during the conflict’s final weeks in 2009. But Mr. Brown recently told a Tamil event he feels the LTTE were “acting in self-defence.”
The United Nations Human Rights Councilhas been investigating war crimes in Sri Lanka since 2014 and, as recently as February, UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet expressed “deep concern over a number of human rights trends in the country.” In the meantime, the United States and more than two dozen other countries continue to label LTTE as a terrorist organization, making it a crime for their citizens to belong to or fund the group.
As for determinations of genocide, they are best left to the experts. Politicians, particularly provincial and municipal ones, should abstain from throwing around the term for political gain. The Canadian Constitution clearly states that foreign policy is Ottawa’s bailiwick.
If Mr. Brown is persuaded the Tamil Tigers should be removed from Public Safety Canada’s list of terrorist entities, legalizing its activities in Canada, he should make his case loudly and clearly in the public domain, not just in private meetings with groups of Tamil voters. He should explain to all Canadians why he thinks doing so would be in this country’s national security interest.
Diaspora politics should be no part of it.
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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
