Last night, Prime Minister Paul Martin met with a group of 19 imams at a downtown Toronto hotel. The purpose of the 90-minute meeting was to follow up on last week’s statement that a group of Canadian Muslim leaders made denouncing terrorism.
The meeting was nothing more than a public relations exercise on both sides. Despite how much the imams and Martin do not want to see terrorist attacks on Canadian soil, both the religious leaders and the prime minister had their own agendas for the meeting. and it had little to do with protecting Canadians from the type of attacks that have been recently levelled against London.
Riad Saloojee, the executive director of the Council on american-Islamic Relations Canada (CaIR-CaN) was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying that the meeting was important to help improve dialogue and trust between Canadian Muslims and CSIS and other intelligence officials. This follows the earlier allegations of aly Hindy, an imam at a Toronto mosque who accused CSIS agents of roughing up a young woman. aly Hindy doesn’t much like CSIS because they have been giving him a hard time. Hindy’s mosque had been the one that the late ahmed Khadr, patriarch of Canada’s prominent al Qaeda family, had attended.
The entire purpose of this dialogue was nothing more than an attempt to get CSIS to back off investigating and monitoring any Muslims for possible terrorist ties or activities.
Mohamed Elmasry, while not at the meeting, was speaking in Halifax yesterday and expressing the same sentiments of cooperation that took place in Toronto.. The University of Waterloo professor gained international fame last October when he went on the Michael Coren Show and said that every adult Israeli was a legitimate target for Palestinian suicide bombers. Coren, taken aback at the comments, gave Elmasry several opportunities to withdraw or clarify what he had just said but the professor held to his position that all Israelis over the age of 18 years were part of the Israeli army and legitimate targets of suicide bombers. Of course when Elmasry’s remarks went around the world, he issued a press release saying that his comments were "regrettable and misunderstood". and this is one of the people that are going to help Canada protect its shores from terrorists. Right.
While Paul Martin will gush about peace and love and cooperation, you will never hear him confront comments such as the type that were made by Dr. Elmasry on the Michael Coren Show.
Speaking to CTV News, Naresh Raghubeer, the executive director of the Canadian Coalition of Democracy, said that some of groups that met with Martin preach hatred and the leaders of these groups don’t do enough to condemn such comments. Tarek Fatah, of the Muslim Canadian Congress said much the same thing to CTV when he said that the meeting is gives "credibility to the very people who liberal and progressive Muslims are fighting."
If Paul Martin was truly interested in fighting terrorism he would demand; yes demand, that these leaders tell him who, if anyone, in their communities preaches hatred as Raghubeer alleges. Martin will not show much interest in determining exactly who Tarek Fatah was referring to when he described them as being those that progressive Muslims are fighting.
This was just as much of a public relations exercise for the PM as it was for the Muslim leaders. There are ridings in Canada where the Muslim population is such that those voters could determine who will represent the riding in the next election. Taking a hard stand against terrorism could possibly result in the hapless Martin losing his current slim majority in the next election. Finding out the extent of the threat of terrorist links in Canada ranks a poor second to keeping the supporters of the Liberal Party happy.
Group hugs between the prime minister and the imams make a great photo/op. But it does nothing to minimize any future terrorist attacks.