Jason Kenney's Personal War on Terror

(crossposted from Canada's World)

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has never been shy about expressing his opinions. Through the course of his long political career, he has referred to U.S. war resistors as "bogus refugee claimants", compared Hezbollah to the Nazi Party, and made the curious argument that marriage laws did not discriminate against homosexuals because they were always free to marry someone of the opposite sex.

More recently, Mr. Kenny has been engaged in a cat fight with the Canadian Arab Federation, discontinuing funding for their immigrant language programs after their equally outspoken president called him a "professional whore". Kenney has accused both the CAF and the Canadian Islamic Congress of being "anti-Semitic" groups that "support terrorism", and has stated that he is taking "public comments" into account when reviewing all funding to such groups.

The latest casualty of Jason Kenney's crusade is Scottish MP George Galloway.

Outspoken anti-war MP George Galloway has vowed to fight an 'outrageous decision' to ban him from Canada on the grounds of national security.

Mr Galloway said the ban was 'not something I'm prepared to accept' and pledged to use all means at his disposal to challenge the ruling.

But a spokesman for Canada's immigration minister Jason Kenney insisted the decision, taken by border security officials, would not be overturned for a 'infandous* street-corner Cromwell' (*'infandous: too odious to be expressed or mentioned).

Mr Galloway was due to give a speech in Toronto on March 30 but has been deemed 'inadmissible' to Canada under section 34(1) of the country's immigration act.

... Mr Velshi said: 'We're going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to this infandous street-corner Cromwell who actually brags about giving 'financial support' to Hamas, a terrorist organisation banned in Canada.

'I'm sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him. Canada, however, won't be one of them.'

Regardless of what you think of Galloway, barring a sitting Member of the British Parliament as a 'terrorist sympathizer' can only be described as absurd. Especially when the Obama administration is reaching out to some of the very groups and governments that Galloway and others targeted by Kenney are accused of supporting.

Mr. Kenney seems to think it's still 2002. Or maybe 1950.

You can tell you're a real party when...

... people start digging up dirt on your candidates.

John Shavluk will not be a Green candidate

NEW GLASGOW – The Green Party has announced that John Shavluk will not be the candidate for the party in Newton—North Delta, following revelations that he made comments in 2006 on an online discussion forum that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

“Respect for diversity is a fundamental principle of the Green Party,” said leader Elizabeth May. “We condemn anti-Semitism and our members work to encourage respectful dialogue, diversity, peace and cooperation.”

Kudos to David Akin for giving credit where credit's due - to a blogger who picked this up when none of Akin's colleagues did. And for displaying just the right mix of amusement and disgust at Robert McClelland's comments insisting that someone explain to him exactly what's racist about the term "Jewish world bank".

I recommended teh Google (actually, "Zionist world bank" works even better).

It's quite fascinating to go in and read the original context of this and other comments that Shavluk has made. In fact, it's remotely possible that the "Jewish world bank" comment really was some sort of attempt at irony or sarcasm or... I dunno. Something. Unfortunately, it's impossible to discern his intent because the man's writings are all rambling, incoherent and borderline illiterate. One would think that that alone would disqualify him from running for public office.

Oh, yeah - and he's a 9/11 Truther. Groan.

The Green Party of Canada has struggled with the paradox of being both left-wing and right-wing ever since the Harris regime, so I suppose the idea of an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist who supports legalized marijuana appearing among their ranks isn't quite as bizarre as it might first appear. I also suspect this won't be the last time this sort of thing surfaces. But kudos to May for dealing with swiftly and efficiently.