It's hardly the "right stuff" to quash civil liberties because the police are too incompetent to find the people who are doing the actual assaulting, murdering and terror financing.
The politicians and police like to go after speech because it's easy and makes them look busy. It does nothing to solve the problem except create another level of bureaucracy to monitor what the public is saying.
I once attended an RCMP Ball (E. Division) with Dosanjh there as the Solicitor General for B.C.
Even though in the NDP, he earned my grudging admiration for his ability to play the role appropriately.
"Air India was an earlier wake-up call that some of us took a long time to heed."
I'll say. I was a reporter on that story and the great tragedy was in the early going. The Punjabi and Sikh intelligentsia in Canada was crying out for some serious political and police attention to the thugs who were terrorizing the community. Ujjal, to his eternal credit - and no matter what other differences I have with him - was among those brave voices. The Khalistanis nearly killed him.
I watched - and dutifully reported - as Talwinder Singh Parmar, the Air India bombing mastermind - casually slipped in and out on India, and strode in and out of Canada, and no one did anything. All the politicians were afraid of upsetting Sikh sensibilities.
I travelled to Amritsar for the Globe and dutifully reported as the self-proclaimed Khalistani army listed off the playwrights, socialists, poets and politicians they'd assassinated, and they proclaimed Parmar their instructor, guide, and leader.
Everyone I interviewed in Amristar was dead shortly after - the former governor of Punjab (Harchand Singh Longowal), Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale (the Sikh Osama), even my interpreter, Bhai Amrik Singh. As it happens, I flew to India the first time on the very airplane that went down with all those innocents off Cork Harbour, and I was in Cork three days before it came out of the sky, which is an unsettling series of coincidences, let me tell you, and now, all these years later, the same dynamics are in play, with Canadian politicians all tied up in knots about civil liberties and the sensitivities of minority religious leaders.
I dont know about putting "the glorification of terror and violence" in the Criminal Code. I expect it's an unnecessary and probably dangerous inhibition of free speech. It could be useful to amend the law slightly, but it's amending our attitude about "minority sensibilities" that would be a better start. Mainly, members of minority groups are actually not as ridiculously "sensitive" as the rest of us tend to think they are, and when there is no shortage of brave voices in those communities crying out for our help - as Ujjal, was back in the early 1980s - there is no excuse. No excuse at all.
While I completely agree with Mr. Dosanjh, does anyone remember how he voted on the Sunset clauses on the Anti-Terror Act? Was he one of the ones who had Parliamentary flu or did he vote against it?
Posted at 2007-11-27 17:17:09 [PermaLink]Bravo, Terry. And, er, wow.
Mark
Ottawa
Same old, same old. Mass immigration of distant peoples means further limitations on Canadian liberties. Freedom of association went with the Drummond Wren case in 1945 and freedom of speech has been continually eroded since the Cohen Commission in 1966.
Posted at 2007-11-27 23:10:06 [PermaLink]Terry..you son of a bitch...**SANT(saint)** Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale waz not the Sikh Osama...He waz not a terrorist. Indira Ghandi opposed Bhindranwale Ji's views, she believed that he was trying to take over her political seat. So as a safety guard she attacked the Sikh's holiest temple, the Golden Temple. She killed thousands of innocent sikhs. After she saw what she had done, she regretted it. But Sikhs were not going to let the attack their holy shrine, kill their people, and burn there holy book. She was later killed by her sikh body guards. Days later a great Sikh genocide took place. Where thousands and thousands of innocent sikhs were killed by hindus...This is not over..Sikhs deserve their own nation..one day we will get our own nation. And India will loose a lot of their military power, as sikhs dominate it. India will REGRET THE GENOCIDE THAT TOOK PLACE IN 1984!!! Long live the sikhs, their turbans, and their religon!!!!
Posted at 2007-12-01 21:53:11 [PermaLink]