The Tamil Refugee Situation is Reform Party Deja Vu

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"The Reform Party is anti-everything. There's a really deep, deep-seated racism there. I still don't know what to make of Reform. I know that for the moment it's growing, but these are one-trick ponies. They're not standing on a whole lot of solid ground - it's all negative." - Brian Mulroney (1)

The recent Tamil Refugee situation was another test for this government. Had they shed their racist views or were they the same old Reform Party?

Are we again going to hear that gays and "ethnics" could be fired or "moved to the back of the shop," if the employer thought that would help business. Or that "a larger number of blacks and Asians are entering Canada; for the first generation, their birth rate is higher and you don't have to be an expert to understand what could happen. Canada as we know it could disappear." (2)

Or maybe that Canada is likely to "regret" taking in large numbers of third world immigrants because they prove "harder to integrate." "Policies which maintain the traditional [European] composition of immigrants, on the other hand, avoid the risk of having to face the longer run costs." (2)

Stephen Harper himself called multiculturalism "a weak nation policy" (3).

On June 25, 2009, he designated Pier 21 as a National Museum of Immigration.

"No country in the world has benefited more than Canada from free and open immigration," Harper declared. "In every region and across all professions, new Canadians make major contributions to our culture, economy and way of life. It takes a special kind of person to uproot and move to a new country to ensure a better future for your family. Anybody who makes the decision to live, work and build a life in our country represents the very best of what it means to be Canadian." (4)

But then a year later, when his words were put to the test:

The harrowing voyage of the MV Sun Sea, in which 492 Tamil refugees endured months of squalor in dangerous waters to escape "mass murders, disappearances and extortion" following 25 years of brutal civil war in Sri Lanka, mirrors the experience of so many migrants who passed through Pier 21.

However, unlike Pier 21, there were no counsellors waiting to hear the Sri Lankan's stories; no team of volunteers eager to swiftly process and fairly evaluate the prospective new residents. Instead, the men, women and children aboard the MV Sun Sea arrived to allegations, leveled by the Harper government, of ties to terrorism and human trafficking; accused by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews of being a "test boat" for an apparent mass immigration conspiracy.

As for the Prime Minister, compare the above remarks made at Pier 21 just fourteen months ago, to this statement he gave following the arrival of the MV Sun Sea: "Canadians are pretty concerned when a whole boat of people comes - not through any normal application process, not through any normal arrival channel -- and just simply lands." (4)

This sounds like the National Citizens Coalition's "Boat People" campaign. Tap into a nation's fears and insecurities, so that we accept inhumane acts.

"This is how this man governs: let's find something to be frightened of," Ignatieff told an audience of several hundred people today (August 22) at the West Vancouver Community Centre. The federal Opposition leader cited the example of Tamil refugee claimants, who travelled in a rickety boat across the Pacific Ocean and arrived in B.C. earlier this month. Ignatieff claimed that federal Conservative politicians tried to make people "afraid of people you don't even know".

He added that officials with the Immigration and Refugee Board should have been left to do the proper screening without interference. "Politicians should shut up and let these people do their job," Ignatieff declared to loud applause. He pointed out that his own father was a refugee who fled Communism in Russia. "We must always be a haven in a heartless world," Ignatieff said. (5)

"We must always be a haven in a heartless world." I like that. It defines the kind of country Canada used to be.

Sources:

1. The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister, By Peter C. Newman, Clandebye Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 10-0-679-31351-6, Pg.244

2. Reform apple basket rotting, by Bradley Hughes, Simon Fraser University's Student Newspaper, September 9, 1996

3. Harper speech to the Institute for Research on Public Policy, May 2003

4. Canadian immigration, Conservative xenophobia, By Alheli Picazo, Rabble, August 25, 2010

5. In West Vancouver, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Stephen Harper promotes fear, By Charlie Smith, Straight.com, August 22, 2010

Roots of Reform: NCC, Racism and Ethnic Indigestion

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"I spotted a lot of movement about 30 feet away to the left of the stage [at a punk rock concert]. I squinted through the maze of sweaty bodies and saw what appeared to be a group of men making salutes. Fascist salutes.

"... I pushed my way through the crowd ... As I got closer, I could not, as the saying goes, believe my eyes. A group of large, muscular young men were, in fact, making Nazi salutes in the general direction of the stage. One of them, a stocky fellow with cropped blonde hair, was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words: "DROWN THE BOAT PEOPLE" (1)

That incident took place in 1980, but those words on the t-shirt, which might sound strange today, packed a wallop back then.

The term "Boat People" was in reference to a decision made by the Government of Canada to take in 50,000 Asian refugees, who were sent adrift as a result of the Vietnam War. However, it became a hot button issue when the National Citizens Coalition launched a series of ads suggesting that this was akin to an invasion, that would threaten our nationality. They used flawed logic and fabricated figures, but eventually, under pressure, the government had to turn them away.

In this recorded interview from the CBC archives, with then president of the NCC, David Somerville*, you will hear him try to justify this racist campaign. One cleric even referred to their impending arrival as 'ethnic indigestion'.

During the campaign, National Citizens Coalition founder, Colin M. Brown, attempted to explain why letting in Hungarians fleeing communism after the Soviet crackdown was justified and why letting in Vietnamese boat people fleeing communism was not. “I think the Hungarians have made marvelous citizens,” Brown declared, “but the bloodlines run the same way. We all come from Europe so they fit in. You wouldn’t know if the people next door to you are Hungarian or not. They don’t all go and gather in a ghetto.”

And then there's Harper's famous quote: "You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society." (2)

In 2000, Alliance candidate Betty Granger caught national attention with her comments about Asian immigrants, and an 'Asian Invasion'. When it was later discovered that she was a riding president, Harper stated: "Betty Granger is a riding president, a member in good standing. She’s somebody that other members I’ve talked to think very highly of, and quite frankly, she was the victim of an unfair slur story in the last election campaign." (3)

During the 2008 election campaign, Conservative MP Lee Richardson suggested that most crime in Canada is committed by immigrants, a statement that the police and others who know, quickly refuted. Yet Richardson said: “Talk to the police. Look at who’s committing these crimes,” he added. “They’re not the kid that grew up next door.” (4)

According to Paul Fromm, after it was discovered that several neo-Nazis were operating within the Reform Party: " The attraction of Reform for [Al] Overfield and like-minded persons, he said was that it was strictly white bread, 100 percent white Canadians, really anti-immigration; there was really no difference between those people and them."

Stephen Harper claimed that he joined the National Citizens when Pierre Trudeau implemented the National Energy Program. That would have been in 1980, just about the time of the 'Boat People' controversy. He claimed that he liked what the NCC stood for. Within the decade, he would be inspired by author Peter Brimelow and William Gairner's book, The Trouble With Canada, became "the de facto manifesto for Preston Manning's Reform Party". A few years later Stephen Harper would be running the National Citizens Coalition.

In another CBC archive from a radio station call-in show, discussing the NCC campaign of hate, you will hear future Reform Party member, Doug Collins, author of the book; Immigration and the Destruction of English Canada, trying to defend their position.

I mentioned Collins in another post, regarding Stephen Harper's Northern Foundation and their pro-Apartheid activities. "Doug Collins is a member of Canadian Friends of South Africa ... and has written numerous sympathetic articles ... Collins is also a member of CFAR ... an extremist right-wing group founded by Paul Fromm." (6)

Just because the National Citizens Coalition was a 'legitimate' agency, and just because men like Peter Brimelow, William Gairdner and Doug Collins, were 'legitimate' authors, does not make them any less racist.

Their views fueled the fires, 'legitimizing' many hate groups and resulting in "A group of large, muscular young men ... making Nazi salutes ... and one of them ... wearing a T-shirt bearing the words: "DROWN THE BOAT PEOPLE"

Footnotes:

*David Somerville was the president when Stephen Harper was named vice-president of the National Citizens Coaliton. Harper then took over from Somerville to become their president.

Sources:

1. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By: Warren Kinsella, Harper Collins, 1994 ISBN 0-00-255074-1 Pg. 3

2. Stephen Harper, in Report Newsmagazine, 2001, when he was president of the NCC

3. Stephen Harper, Calgary Herald, January 15, 2002.

4. Calgary Tory offers no apology for immigrant-crime comment: Local Conservative incumbent Lee Richardson expressed regret Thursday - but offered no apology or resignation - for controversial comments he made suggesting immigrants are to blame for much of the crime in Canada, By Calgary Herald, September 25, 2008

5. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 218-219

6. Dobbin, 1992