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Newsletter for MPs - May 2017

Newsletter to MPs

Chief Editor, Marshall Garland             Contributors, Joan Felvinci and Mark Jaskela

Volume Number 1, Issue Number 1, May 2017

This publication is intended for and distributed to all Members of Parliament and selected members of their staff.
We welcome your feedback.

Motion-103 Awareness

 

In this issue:

 

  1. Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms, who we are

  2. An Essay on Freedom of Speech, what we stand to lose

  3. Religious Apartheid Comes to Canada, a concerned Christian Canadian speaks

  4. News Roundup, world events relating to our opposition of Motion-103

Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms

 

This newsletter for Canadian MPs is produced by Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms, a coast-to-coast grassroots organization of native-born as well as immigrant Canadians. We come from all walks of life and many diverse religious and ethnic communities. Many members of our group have long histories as human rights advocates.

 

Our group supports the rule of law in accordance with Canadian traditions and strives to ensure freedom of expression and the equality rights of women and the LGBTQ community.

 

We are united by our concerns about the negative impact that Motion-103 will have on Canadians' rights and freedoms currently enshrined in our Constitution. We stand together to address Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid’s Motion M-103, a motion that stands to adversely impact the ability of Canadians to express themselves freely and live without fear in a tolerant democratic society.

To learn more about the Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms, please visit our web site: www.canadiancitizens.org

What we are working to uphold:

Canadian Rights and Freedoms

from the Constitution Act 1982,
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms



A. GUARANTEE OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

1. Rights and freedoms in Canada


The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.


B. FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS

2. Fundamental freedoms


Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
 a. freedom of conscience and religion;
 b. freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
 c. freedom of peaceful assembly; and
 d. freedom of association.

An Essay on Freedom of Speech
by Joan Felvinci

 

The author is a retired teacher of English as a Second Language. She has an MA in Art History from Columbia University and currently writes short stories and articles. She lives in Montreal.

 

In her short essay, Joan describes the threat that Motion-103 poses to our Freedom of Speech.
 

The other evening, Tucker Carlson on Fox News interviewed the movie star, Richard Dreyfuss. I thought I was going to hear the opinions of another Hollywood feather-brain. What I heard was astonishing. Dreyfuss stated that the Constitution defines the United States. He also said that the Ten Commandments are among the foundations of Western Civilization. He went on to say that we have lost our values, that teaching Civics in High School ended in 1976 and as a result, people under fifty-five have lost the understanding of what the Constitution stands for. Since then, we have been on a downward trajectory toward civilizational oblivion brought on by attacks on freedom of speech, resulting in political correctness. This coming from a liberal West Coast actor was incredibly refreshing, yet unfortunately, true.

The undermining of our values and culture is becoming increasingly evident: allowing illegal immigrants into the U.S. and Canada, while legal immigrants wait years to get in. In addition, we are bringing over huge numbers of refugees, many of whom have no knowledge of our laws, culture or democracy and most likely have no interest in assimilating. We are kowtowing to those who would enact motions like M- 103. This motion only addresses Islamophobia, whatever that is. Yet it does nothing to prevent attacks on Christians and Jews. According to recent statistics, anti-Semitic attacks far outnumber attacks on Muslims in North America. Only on conservative blogs does one hear of Imams in Canada preaching, “Kill the Jews”. This will never be reported in the mainstream media. How many Muslims speak up for our values or condemn these rants against Jews? Very few. Only B’nai Brith or CIJA have protested these Imams, most likely to no avail. Motions like M-103 will eventually end in limiting freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech means you should be able to say anything you want about any group of people so long as you do not instigate violence. Saying “kill the Jews” is instigation to violence and this kind of language will only get worse until it results in violence. It is already happening in Europe. The United States, thankfully, has the First Amendment that protects freedom of speech but even there, freedom of speech is under attack on University campuses. Yet, even though Canada has laws to protect freedom of speech, these laws can easily be eroded by motions like M-103. The result could be imprisonment for posting politically incorrect statements on social media. Conservative bloggers could be fined or jailed for what is called, “Islamophobia”. If the undermining of freedom of speech continues, we will be living in George Orwell’s “1984” within a very short time.

The other evening, Tucker Carlson on Fox News interviewed the movie star, Richard Dreyfuss. I thought I was going to hear the opinions of another Hollywood feather-brain. What I heard was astonishing. Dreyfuss stated that the Constitution defines the United States. He also said that the Ten Commandments are among the foundations of Western Civilization. He went on to say that we have lost our values, that teaching Civics in High School ended in 1976 and as a result, people under fifty-five have lost the understanding of what the Constitution stands for. Since then, we have been on a downward trajectory toward civilizational oblivion brought on by attacks on freedom of speech, resulting in political correctness. This coming from a liberal West Coast actor was incredibly refreshing, yet unfortunately, true.

The undermining of our values and culture is becoming increasingly evident: allowing illegal immigrants into the U.S. and Canada, while legal immigrants wait years to get in. In addition, we are bringing over huge numbers of refugees, many of whom have no knowledge of our laws, culture or democracy and most likely have no interest in assimilating. We are kowtowing to those who would enact motions like M- 103. This motion only addresses Islamophobia, whatever that is. Yet it does nothing to prevent attacks on Christians and Jews. According to recent statistics, anti-Semitic attacks far outnumber attacks on Muslims in North America. Only on conservative blogs does one hear of Imams in Canada preaching, “Kill the Jews”. This will never be reported in the mainstream media. How many Muslims speak up for our values or condemn these rants against Jews? Very few. Only B’nai Brith or CIJA have protested these Imams, most likely to no avail. Motions like M-103 will eventually end in limiting freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech means you should be able to say anything you want about any group of people so long as you do not instigate violence. Saying “kill the Jews” is instigation to violence and this kind of language will only get worse until it results in violence. It is already happening in Europe. The United States, thankfully, has the First Amendment that protects freedom of speech but even there, freedom of speech is under attack on University campuses. Yet, even though Canada has laws to protect freedom of speech, these laws can easily be eroded by motions like M-103. The result could be imprisonment for posting politically incorrect statements on social media. Conservative bloggers could be fined or jailed for what is called, “Islamophobia”. If the undermining of freedom of speech continues, we will be living in George Orwell’s “1984” within a very short time.

Summary:

 

  • Richard Dreyfuss' opinions on the Constitution of the U.S.

  • The concern about illegal immigrants, refugees and the undermining of our values and culture.

  • Concern that Motion 103 will ultimately result in limiting freedom of speech.

  • The significance of the limitations on freedom of speech.

Religious Apartheid Comes to Canada
by Mark Jaskela


Mark is a writer, artist and activist residing in the Greater Vancouver area.

Mark writes about how Motion-103 sows discord in our society and poses a menace to all Canadians by introducing religious apartheid. He describes how Motion-103 makes Canadian Christians vulnerable and threatened.

a-par-theid, n.

  1. (in South Africa) a policy of racial segregation that began appearing shortly before 1900; a form of fascism.

  2. segregation on grounds other than race, e.g., sexual or religious apartheid.

Domestically, our country's recent welcoming of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees bespeaks a Canada that is benevolent to a fault. Motion M-103, a political concoction that, if unchecked, will inevitably result in the trampling down of the rights of all Canadian citizens, is something distinctly other than benevolent. Unheeded or otherwise absent from the public dialogue about M-103, to whatever extent there's even been any, have been the voices of Muslim immigrants who will cite the menacing authoritarianism the motion augurs as the kind of thing that prompted them to leave their countries of origin.


The federal government disregarded over nine hundred thousand emails of protest from Canadian citizens, doing so with a callous indifference to the will of the people not seen since Marie Antoinette supposedly said "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", ("Let them eat cake") to the starving French peasantry. M-103 was carved in stone by liberal MP Iqra Khalid, purportedly to combat the dangerously still undefined neologism 'Islamophobia'. The implicit, bargain basement psychology assumes that all hatred and bigotry is rooted in fear. To eliminate hatred and bigotry, the reasoning goes, we must attack the fearful bigots, thereby throwing a good scare into them and creating an ideal society.

What ought to concern more than a bigoted minority is what could happen once a Motion M-103-commissioned study to terminate Islamophobia with extreme prejudice comes to its inevitable conclusions. How 'liberal' will whatever tatters are left of free speech in Canada sound when it becomes a felony offense to say anything critical of Islam, Muslims or Mohammad? M-103 affords no such explicit protection for any other group or faction. As was the case in Orwell's 1984, wherein children had their parents arrested on suspicion of disobeying Big Brother, might Canadian children report their parents to the RCMP on suspicion of insufficient respect for the Quran?

Presently, outside our borders, the United Nations is seeking to implement Resolution 1618, already in effect in some European countries. The resolution makes it a crime to blaspheme Mohammad. To the south of us, the U.S. State Department has stricken all references to Islamic terrorism from their training manuals on the grounds that they are Islamophobic. American history is also instructive of what Canadians might expect. From 1947 to 1956, a paranoid, alcoholic Senator Joseph McCarthy spearheaded The Second Red Scare. For nearly a decade, often wild and unsubstantiated accusations citing communist infiltration and subversion of America's most cherished institutions, including Hollywood, were treated with the utmost seriousness and ruined countless lives.

Be assured that if the government of Canada is going to pay your money to researchers to uncover Islamophobia, they'll find plenty. You might even have some in your bathtub right now disguised as mildew. Yet to follow the mythical rationale of M-103 to its logical end, the federal liberals would have you believe that they're capable of legislating a state of mind out of existence.

Canadian Christians aren't the only ones troubled by the Jesus-phobia-informed decisions and policies of the Justin Trudeau administration. As with a number of modernity's more monolithic tyrannies, Motion M-103 is not just a move toward drastic social and political control outwardly. It is an attempt to tyrannize the very hearts and minds of all Canadians.

Few Canadians are familiar with Canada's official motto, the Latin phrase on our coat of arms "A Mari Usque Ad Mare" ("from sea to sea"). Fewer still may know that the motto is derived from Psalm 72:8, "He [The LORD God] shall have dominion also from sea to sea. And from the River to the ends of the earth". That increasingly more Canadians will yearn to see that prophesy actualized will be an inevitable consequence of the establishment of religious apartheid in Canada. For by the same standard, the same God who has placed eternity in every human heart offers the only antidote, that those whom Jesus Christ sets free shall be free indeed.

Summary:

 

Mark identifies a clearly apartheid-like principle in Motion M-103:

  • The motion isn't just oriented toward establishing an oppressive, two-tiered form of social reorganization.

  • It is also a preliminary step to imposing drastic limitations on both freedom of expression and freedom of thought. 

News Roundup for Spring (March-May), 2017
by Marshall Garland

 

The author and editor is a former computer security analyst and has been active in various social causes for over 45 years. He currently lives in Winnipeg.

History has borne out that political and fundamentalist Islam has demonstrated time and again since its inception in the 600s that, in nature and in practice, it is

 

  • xenophobic

  • intolerant of other faiths and other "infidels" such as atheists and those who have left Islam

  • chauvinistic

  • misogynistic

  • hateful towards LGBT people

  • expansionist and colonialist


Dreams of a global Caliphate empire where all citizens are subservient to the will of Allah, the teachings of Muhammad, and live under Muslim theological Sharia law, have never died.

We offer you news stories from different countries to illustrate that while the vast number of Muslims in Western democracies are quiet, law-abiding people who want to live normal lives just like the vast majority of non-Muslims, there are those who want to use our democratic institutions and process to our detriment and to advance their goal.

We pose the question: Is it irrational to be afraid of a religion that wants to kill or imprison you because you don't follow its doctrine?

 

  • There is no place in Canada for those who would destroy it.

  • There is no place in Canada for those who would suppress our guaranteed freedoms.

  • There is no place in Canada for those who incite hatred, violence, bigotry, racism, or intolerance.


Organizations that espouse those goals must be outlawed and disbanded:
 

  • NO to the Muslim Brotherhood.

  • NO to Hamas.

  • NO to Al-Qaeda.

  • NO to ISIS.

Dateline: Egypt

Gunmen Attack Coptic Christian Convoy in Egypt, Killing at Least 26
On May 26, 2017, The New York Times reported an attack on Coptic Christian civilians in Minya Province. At least 26 were murdered, and 23 were wounded in the attack on a truck carrying laborers and two buses taking worshipers to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor. Bishop Makarios of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Minya Province is quoted as saying, "The gunmen got on the bus and they shot people point-blank". He added, "the dead included children, older adults, and laborers."

Original story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/world/middleeast/egypt-coptic-christian-attack.html?_r=0

Dateline: Denmark

Copenhagen Imam accused of calling for killing of Jews
The BBC reported on May 11, 2017, that Imam Mundhir Abdallah, during a sermon at the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 31, 2017, was filmed preaching a hadith (teaching of the Prophet Muhammad) inciting Muslims to fight and kill Jews. Inger Stojberg, the Immigration and Integration Minister, expressing outrage is quoted as saying "We cannot and should not accept this!"

Original story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39885745

Dateline: Indonesia

Jakarta governor Ahok found guilty of blasphemy
The BBC reported on May 9, 2017, that Governor Basuki Purnama, a Christian, "was accused of insulting Islam by referring to a verse in the Koran in a campaign speech last year." he was charged with blasphemy, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Original story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39853280

Dateline: Canada

Outrage as Jordanian imam 'recites anti-Semitic verse calling for Jewish people to be killed' during sermon at Montreal mosque
On March 25, 2017, the Daily Mail Online reported that Jordanian Imam Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr at a sermon given on December 23, 2016, at the Dar Al-Aqram mosque in Montreal, is reported to have quoted a verse from the Quran calling on Muslims to kill Jews. The incident was condemned by the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal and others in the general Muslim community.

Original story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4348892/Imam-recites-anti-Semitic-verse-Montreal-mosque.html

Dateline: Egypt

Egypt: Government must protect Coptic Christians targeted in string of deadly attacks in North Sinai
Amnesty International, on March 1, 2017, has called on the Egyptian government to provide better protection for its Coptic Christian minority and "provide essential services and accommodation" for those who have come under attack from ISIS groups.

Egypt has not adequately protected its Christians from sectarian violence for decades.

Original story:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/03/egypt-government-must-protect-coptic-christians-targeted-in-string-of-deadly-attacks-in-north-sinai/

"No one should face discrimination - let alone violent and deadly attacks - because of their religious beliefs."

 

Najia Bounaim,
Deputy Director for Campaigns at Amnesty International's Tunis regional office

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

 

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage will interview parties who want to provide input regarding Motion-103. We will provide updates. As of this writing, we expect the interviews to begin around the end of May.

For more information about the Canadian Heritage Committee's hearings:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/Committees/en/CHPC

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