Having managed to convince the public (and apparently Justin Trudeau), that C-51 is going to save us from the beheading hordes, the temptation to take political advantage must be great. An Angus Reid reports that 82 per cent of Canadians have been seduced by this crazed legislation; support is even higher in Quebec, at 87 per cent.
As Stalin and Martin Bormann both observed, fear resonates with everyone — even the very intelligent — because its force is emotional, not rational. Harper is very, very good at the business-end of terror politics. He has learned from the best: Republican pollsters and spindoctors like Arthur Finkelstein and Finkelstein’s protege, Frank Luntz, who was instrumental in expanding the Reform base in Canada.
Luntz taught Harper and the Conservatives that a political message had to be linked to the day-to-day lives of the average voter. Images and visuals are important — and images don’t get more powerful than a beheading. Warplanes dropping bombs that kill distant civilians are just video games by comparison. Images of Christians and aid workers decapitated on camera drum up domestic trauma in a way that coffins in far-away battlefields can’t match.
The core of Harper’s approach to terrorism is to keep it scary and alien, ethnic and religious. Compare, for example, the government’s descriptions of Islam-linked ‘lone wolf’ loonies to how the justice system treated Glen Gieschen, the former Canadian Forces intelligence unit officer who hatched a plot to blow up the seventh-floor offices of Veterans Affairs in a downtown Calgary skyscraper.
The Bashaw Building office had 26 employees. Gieshen’s plan was thwarted by his wife, who called police because she said she feared her husband was suicidal.
When Gieschen was arrested in January 2014, police recovered guns, a thousand rounds of ammunition, bomb-making material, schematics of the building and what was described as an “intricate” attack plan. Gieschen was taken to hospital for treatment under the Mental Health Act. He pleaded guilty and received a four-year sentence.
The story got very little coverage. In fact, Gieshcen initially was identified by authorities only by his initials. Those same authorities immediately stated that this was not a terrorist act. Authorities also went out of their way to say that the killing of three RCMP officers and the wounding of two others in Moncton was not a terrorist act — even though the killer, Justin Bourque, went after Mounties because they were “authority” figures.
Bourque said he planned the killings to start what he hoped would be a revolution. His 75-year sentence, the harshest since Canada’s last hanging in 1962, was absolutely appropriate. Gieschen’s sentence was ludicrous.
Compare these two acts to the atmosphere surrounding the murder committed by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a man well known to authorities because he had several brushes with the law, was mentally troubled and a known drug user. He had been turned down for a passport. He murdered a young soldier in broad daylight with an old long gun on one of the busiest streets in the country, then managed to get by parked Mounties on Parliament Hill and enter the Parliament buildings, where he was finally shot to rags in a hail of bullets. According to Postmedia, military police had been investigating sentry safety at the War Memorial for a month before Corporal Nathan Cirillo was shot dead there on October 22, 2014.
Canadians have seen the video of the gunplay inside the House of Commons again and again. Peter Mansbridge and the press corps went into a swoon of hyperbole. (Was this our 9/11? Had the country been changed forever?) Everyone on the Hill was locked down during the chaos, including MPs and journalists. There were baseless rumours of multiple shooters, including one false report of a gunman at the Rideau Centre mall. Everyone was irrationally — but understandably — terrified.
There were immediate (and false) reports that the shooter was linked to an Islamic State webpage and that he wanted to go to Syria. The first news of his identity actually came from a U.S. website. Without any prior investigation, Stephen Harper immediately pronounced it a terrorist act, and the press repeated his phoney story as fact. Bibeau’s mother contacted police to correct the destination her son had in mind: He was headed to Saudi Arabia to study, she said, not to Syria to join terrorists. The police didn’t bother correcting their mistake until after his mother went to the media. (Ironically, Saudi Arabia beheads more people than any other country — and Canada just sold $15 billion worth of armaments to the Kingdom of Misogyny.)
There were days of coverage of the Cirillo funeral, with multiple shots of his child and his adorable dog. Very soon afterwards, polling indicated massive public support for the decision to start bombing Islamic State in Iraq. Who can forget the sick little smile on the PM’s face as he rose in the House to vote for an air combat mission? And yet, to date, Canadians have not been allowed to see the video articulating the reasons for Bibeau’s allegedly terrorist actions.
Bibeau had self-converted from Catholic to Muslim. When a Muslim kills, it’s terrorism. When someone else kills, it’s just murder. For the record, Gieshcen was not a Muslim. Neither was Bourque.
National symbols are important in politics. Luntz was the Republican consultant who advised Harper at a Civitas meeting in May 2006 to link hockey to the Conservatives’ political agenda. Which is why Canadians now see masked troops with machine guns center ice at NHL hockey games. Leni Riefenstahl would have applauded.
Here, then, are the reasons — all of them rancid — that Harper may opt for an early election.
1) It would let Harper campaign on terrorism, not his record. He has his emotional issue: “I am the strong man who will protect you from the beheaders.”
2) A defence brief recently obtained by the CBC under Access to Information implies Canada’s failure to procure the F-35s may be damaging our relationship with our international allies: “Canada often struggles to meet timelines to participate in international co-operative activities.” Read: Canada needs those F-35s so we can protect everyone by bombing the Middle East.
If Harper wins the election, Canada will get those planes, no matter what they cost, even though they may not be fully operational until 2019 due to a newly-discovered computer glitch with the plane’s main gun. Not a small problem, by the way — it could prevent the F-35 from firing during close air support operations. The Pentagon, which milks the American taxpayer like a prize cow, has denied there will be a delay.
3) Harper wouldn’t have to present a budget that he can’t balance.
4) He’d escape blowback from the Mike Duffy trial, where Nigel Wright might have to tell the truth under oath, instead of a carefully constructed version of the truth designed to protect the prime minister. Meanwhile, Patrick Brazeau’s preliminary inquiry is set to begin June 1. Mike Duffy’s trial will still be on at that point — bad timing for the PM.
5) If Michael Sona is successful in appealing his nine-month sentence, how would Harper explain why Ken Morgan, the Guelph campaign manager fingered by the Crown’s star witness as a major robocalls player, came back to Canada from Kuwait and was allowed to leave again without being questioned? The Elections Commissioner has decided not to take the case further, despite a finding by the court that others were likely involved in a vote-suppression scheme that sent voters to the wrong polling stations.
6) The prime minister’s former parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, has been convicted but has not yet been sentenced — another shoe waiting to drop.
7) The trial of Bruce Carson, a former senior aide to Harper, on charges related to a water purification company for First Nations starts September 8.
8) Pamela Wallin has not been charged, despite an investigation of the former Conservative senator for fraud and breach of trust — but that could change at any moment.
9) Arthur Porter is still in a Panamanian jail fighting extradition to Canada related to kickbacks and money laundering. He was once Harper’s handpicked choice to head SIRC, the committee that oversees CSIS. Having Porter come back to Canada before an election would be embarrassing.
10) If Harper calls an early election, there will be confusion at the polls because of changes under the new Elections Act. Many voters will turn up without the proper ID — although you can bet Conservative voters will be well prepared. You now need two pieces of official ID, at least one with your street address. Yes, due to a hard-fought amendment, someone can vouch for your address if they know you — but you both have to swear an oath and that takes time, meaning long line-ups at the polls. Just what you need when you have to pick up the kids at daycare.
11) The Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault case pretrial hearing is set to start March 27. Guess what everyone will be talking about while the Conservatives divert our attention from their record and make a few slick moves at the polls?
Never mind the fixed election date. For Harper, ‘fixed’ will do just fine.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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