So What Does Larry Miller Think of Jason Kenney's Hitler-Like Move?

'Walking past the hundreds of stately Somali refugees lined up outside the gates of the UN High Commission for Refugees here in Nairobi -- men in tidy shirts and slacks, women in baby blue, fuchsia or copper chadors -- the pasty face of Jason Kenney floats into my mind.

Later, watching the images of the nearly 400,000 starving Somali women, children and men crammed into the Dadaab refugee camp on Kenya's border with Somalia, there he is again, forcing his way into my imagination: Jason Kenney, Canada's minister of immigration and xenophobic rhetoric ....'  (1)

In Kenney's world only the tidy shirts and slacks need apply.  Unless of course you're a tidy shirt and slacks wearing Muslim.  His department has made it clear "No Muslims!" (Harperland)

Astonishingly, Kenney has been able to redefine the term "refugee" as "queue jumper," "illegal alien," or his favourite xenophobic term: "terrorist."
 
Fortunately for Peter Van Loan, someone like Jason Kenney was not immigration minister when his family fled Estonia after it fell to the Soviets.  They were able to avoid arrest and execution, when given asylum in Canada.  Or as Bruce Cheadle reminds us of Vic Toews.

There's a global recession and Canada's economy is not immune. Shiploads of strange, foreign refugees — economic migrants and oppressed minorities — have been landing on our shores, fleeing civil war, economic upheaval and famine. No one is certain how they can be assimilated and there are concerns about criminals, subversives and agitators in their midst.  "If (their) ... government is threatening to deport them ... it is probably because they refuse to obey the laws of the country, and we should have full information regarding the facts," one mainstream advocacy group objects.

The year was 1929 when migrant Mennonites were fleeing deportation to certain starvation in Siberia under Stalin. Fortunately for Toew's Ukrainian refugee parents and grandparents, they were able to find safe haven in Canada.  Those queue jumping, illegal alien terrorists.

However, today Toews refers to those like his parents and grandparents as "customers".  From his June 2011 press conference he explained the reasoning behind his mistrust of potential "smugglers".  "What we're trying to do is to put a big question mark in the minds of the potential customers.  About the prospect of quick family reunification and we're trying to say to them that you, even if you get asylum status in Canada, it won't necessarily be permanent. We believe that those doubts seeded in the minds of potential customers  will significantly depress demand and the price point ..."

"No one is certain how they can be assimilated and there are concerns about criminals, subversives and agitators in their midst."  The "customers" of the Toews family perhaps?  Just as fortunate for them, Vic was not yet in the picture and indeed there would not have been a Vic at all if Kenney was running the show in 1929.  At least not in this country.

In an unprecedented move, Jason Kenney has presented legislation that will create "safe" lists.  Bill C-31 would also block claimants from so called “safe” countries from appealing a negative decision to the new Refugee Appeal Division and it would eliminate a provision that called for a committee of experts to decide which countries would be placed on the safe list.  It also ultimately gives the Kenney full discretion over the yet-to-be-established safe list.

His list.

Where's our Nazi spotter Larry Miller?  It's a dangerous thing when one man can make and control a list that determines the fate of entire groups of people.

One country on Kenney's list is Czechoslovakia, and concerns the Roma of that country.  Those queue jumping terrorists need to stay home.  After all, as he points out, Czechoslovakia is a democratic country and champion of human rights.

Or are they?

According to Canwest European Correspondent Peter O'Neil:

A ghastly arson attack that has left a two-year-old girl fighting for her life contradicts Canadian and Czech government assertions that an exodus of Roma refugee claimants to Canada is driven by economics, rather than fear of persecution, say members of the Roma community here.  ... They say they face a constant threat of neo-Nazi attacks and hateful demonstrations, where marchers head into Roma communities and call them "parasites," organized by increasingly sophisticated organizations such as the far-right Workers' Party.

"We are afraid for our lives," said Martin Duna, 31 ... "We are worried that Hitler is coming back." ... Duna's reference to Hitler, who sent Roma, as well as Jews and homosexuals, to extermination camps during the Second World War, isn't as extreme as it may sound ... Czech municipal politicians have won nationwide public praise for evicting Roma from apartments to live in metal containers in city outskirts; and human-rights groups have reported involuntary sterilizations of Roma women from the late 1960s to as recently as late last year.  Growing neo-Nazi violence, as well as discrimination and even segregation in areas such as health, housing, education, criminal justice and employment, have been reported in numerous publications issued by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International.

Does this sound like a country committed to human rights?

And how does someone like Jason Kenney qualify as the supreme keeper of lists and authority of what constitutes oppression?

He has a high school education, dropping out of prep school at a time when that prep school, St. Ignatius was accused of running a cult.  He made headlines in San Francisco for his attacks on the gay community.  He challenged the Pope Paul because he opposed the Iraq War. He established the Christian Coalition in Canada, a group determined to take North America back to the time of the Reformation.

Or according to one of Kenney's teachers the '50s.  Not the 1950s but the 1550s.

He has had no job outside of politics, running a pyramid scheme called the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, inspired by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.  Much of his time was spent traversing the country forcing politicians to sign a pledge not to raise taxes.  Mike Harris signed Kenney's pledge.  Enough said.

This new legislation is nothing more that a power trip by a narcissistic nincompoop.

I can't wait to hear what Larry Miller thinks of all this.  Maybe I'll give him a call.

1. In Africa, It's Sickening to See Tories Play Refugee Politics: Here at the bleeding edge of the Somali crisis, I can't shake the face of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, by Cam Sylvester, The Tyee, July 20, 2011

If Vic Toews Had Lived Then ...

I spent several years researching my family history, not only to create a genealogy, but to find the stories that brought my ancestors to Canada.

The first arrived in 1632 as an army surgeon. His future wife would join the colony at Port Royal, a few years later, but it's what brought her here that is interesting.

Her father was escaping the law. Apparently he was among a group, that included a Catholic priest, who were caught stealing firewood from a nobleman's estate. Had they not they would have froze to death, but that didn't matter. All the wealth was in the hands of a few, and you didn't try to get any of it for yourself.

Had that been today he would no doubt have been detained and shipped back, but he found refuge in Canada. His daughter would marry my ancestral grandfather, raise a large Acadian family, and contribute to Canadian history.

One of their descendants would later meet the son of an Irish immigrant, better known as my grandparents.

What brought his family to Canada is also an interesting story.

My dad had always told me that his grandfather was a "freedom fighter". An Irish Catholic who had joined a group of rebels opposing British rule.

I mentioned this to an aunt several years ago, when I was visiting her in New Brunswick, and she brought out an old Irish newspaper that she had from 1833. In it there was a small story about three men who had blown up an "outhouse" and were still at large.

I laughed thinking it was just a prank. A desire to watch the crap fly. But she informed me that the "outhouse" was actually a munitions shed, and had they not escaped to Canada, would have probably been executed.

They were just teenagers then, and by today's standards, "terrorists". But given the suffering of the Irish at the time, especially Irish Catholics, who were refused basic human rights, it's easy to put it into context.

Those rebels found wives in Canada, raised large families, and produced many mayors, judges, and even a provincial fisheries minister.

Bruce Cheadle has a great story on the ancestors of our current Public Safety minister, Vic Toews. He reminds us that had someone like Toews been in his job in 1929, the future Vic Toews would not exist.

There's a global recession and Canada's economy is not immune. Shiploads of strange, foreign refugees — economic migrants and oppressed minorities — have been landing on our shores, fleeing civil war, economic upheaval and famine. No one is certain how they can be assimilated and there are concerns about criminals, subversives and agitators in their midst.

"If (their) ... government is threatening to deport them ... it is probably because they refuse to obey the laws of the country, and we should have full information regarding the facts," one mainstream advocacy group objects.

No, it is not 2010. The year is 1929. The migrants are Mennonites fleeing Joseph Stalin's Soviet Russia and deportation to certain starvation in Siberia. Canada's doors are slamming shut to refugees. Among the massive Mennonite influx who had helped fuel that public and political backlash were the Ukrainian refugee grandparents and parents of current Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

I had written a similar story when Peter Van Loan was Public Safety minister, and I learned that he was engaged in horrific workplace raids.

With the stage being set for war, the small Republic of Estonia declared neutrality, not wishing to take sides in any conflict.

However, a month before the Invasion of Poland that precipitated World War II; Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was a treaty of nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

This sealed the fate for the Estonian people, as they soon fell under the Soviet sphere of influence. Mass political arrests, deportations, and executions followed, as Stalin's scorched earth philosophy was inflicted on the country.

Peter Van Loan's mother and grandparents fled during this horrible time, and were among three thousand Estonian immigrants, given asylum in Canada.

Toews refuses to discuss his family history, I suppose believing it to be irrelevant. But it is very relevant.

We could argue that the world is a dangerous place, but the world has always been a dangerous place, and Canada throughout our history, a refuge, where many sought safety from oppressive regimes, starvation, and in the case of my Irish ancestor, political asylum.

Do we really want to be a country that closes the door, and turns back those suffering? For example, Jason Kenney once claimed that the Roma from Czechoslovakia, were not legitimate refugees, only opportunists.

But Peter O'Neil, European Correspondent for Canwest News Service, wrote in May of 2009:

A ghastly arson attack that has left a two-year-old girl fighting for her life contradicts Canadian and Czech government assertions that an exodus of Roma refugee claimants to Canada is driven by economics, rather than fear of persecution, say members of the Roma community here.... They say they face a constant threat of neo-Nazi attacks and hateful demonstrations, where marchers head into Roma communities and call them "parasites," organized by increasingly sophisticated organizations such as the far-right Workers' Party."We are afraid for our lives," said Martin Duna, 31 ... "We are worried that Hitler is coming back." ...

Duna's reference to Hitler, who sent Roma, as well as Jews and homosexuals, to extermination camps during the Second World War, isn't as extreme as it may sound ... Czech municipal politicians have won nationwide public praise for evicting Roma from apartments to live in metal containers in city outskirts; and human-rights groups have reported involuntary sterilizations of Roma women from the late 1960s to as recently as late last year.

Growing neo-Nazi violence, as well as discrimination and even segregation in areas such as health, housing, education, criminal justice and employment, have been reported in numerous publications issued by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International.

We are becoming a country without a heart, and one that ignores its rich history.

I'm just glad that Vic Toews, Peter Van Loan or Jason Kenney, were not around in 1632 or 1833. If they had, I would not be in 2011.

Transparency Without Accountability. Reading Between the Lines

We need an unconstrained, unrestricted, full-fledged, unspoiled market economy, and we need it now ... We want to achieve the transition from a state-dominated economy to an economy based on the private sector, private initiative and private entrepreneurship . .. We are increasingly convinced that our country, or any other, is less unique than is often claimed ... The basic economic laws are valid across continents, economic systems, as well as ideological beliefs . . . The 'third way' [between central planning and the market economy] is the fastest way to the Third World. Vaclav Klaus, Czechoslovakian Minister of Finance, 1991 (1)

This two decades old quote was found in the introduction to the book Unfinished Business, written by former New Zealand finance minister Roger Douglas.

So what does a former Czechoslovakian Minister of Finance, and a former New Zealand Minister of Finance, have to do with us? Everything.

Rogernomics and Canada's Neoconservative Movement

Roger Douglas was the minister of finance in New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. Though elected with the left-wing Labour Party, he would take NZ sharply to the right, before the tables were cleared at his victory dinner. This was not by accident, as he would later advise the eager Canadian neocons:

"... beware the risks of candid disclosure before a fickle electorate, strike quickly once in power, define a total agenda, establish the essential control agencies, move simultaneously on a variety of policy fronts, embed the reforms as deeply as possible in legal and market channels so as to prevent early reversal, keep your nerve when faced with popular or electoral resistance and allow the programme to do its work." (2)

His policies were really not that new. Borrowed form Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan , they were just about dismantling a country's social safety net and paving the way for multi-nationals. And like Britain and the United States, under their neoconservative leaders; it was the ordinary citizens who suffered.

Saskatchewan political economist, Dr. John Warnock, travelled to New Zealand to study the effects of what New Zealanders dubbed 'Rogernomics.' The figures tell a story of devastation - a word used by New Zealand's own agricultural minister to describe the state of agriculture in four years after the 'reforms': A 40 per cent drop in farm income; a 50 per cent drop in the value of farm land; a policy of paying 3,000 farmers incentives of $ 45,000 to leave and the suggestion that another 15,000 (out of 79,000) should follow them.

Unemployment, which had been at 4 per cent before Douglas's reforms, jumped to over 12 per cent in just over a year and is still increasing.

"Douglas completely eliminated regional development grants and subsidies to rural services. Says Warnock, 'They had things like subsidized petroleum - regardless of where you were the price was the same - subsidized train service, bus service, airport service. They privatized all these things and the prices immediately skyrocketed.' A massive de-population of the countryside resulted, and approximately 40,000 New Zealanders per year have since left the country for Australia to find work since 'restructuring' took effect. (3)

But a handful of people got filthy rich, and isn't that all that really matters?

I picked up Unfinished Business at the library yesterday, because apparently it was the book that led Ralph Klein (Alberta Premier 1992-2006) and Mike Harris (Ontario Premier 1995-2002) through their years of slash and burn. I can't speak for Alberta, but in Ontario those years were horrendous.

More importantly, though; Roger Douglas also mentored Preston Manning and Stephen Harper, first speaking at the Reform Party's 1991 assembly, two years before his book was published.

He spoke of a ten point plan, which included messages, like "implement reforms by quantum leaps. Moving step by step lets invested interests mobilize. Speed is essential. It is impossible to move too fast. Once your momentum starts, never let it stop. Don't blink or wobble." (4)

Have you seen Stephen Harper "blink or wobble"? And another important thing to think about is that when Ralph Klein invited Douglas to speak to his caucus, a man by the name of Stockwell Day was in attendance. Our new unblinking head of the treasury. And when Douglas spoke to Mike Harris's crew, it included Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement, John Baird and Peter Van Loan.

Vaclav Klaus and Those Threatening 'isms'

Like Douglas, Klaus; now the President of Czechoslovakia, pursued a slash and burn agenda. He has been dubbed the Czechoslovakian Margaret Thatcher, and his policies called 'gangster capitalism", but it never stopped him or even slowed him down.

He gave a lecture a while back, where he warned his audience not to get trapped by 'isms'. His list included " ... feminism, environmentalism, socialism, multiculturalism, humanrightism and NGOism " (Jason Kenney got the vapours) (5)

He is also a staunch climate change denier and vetoed the Anti-Discrimination Law passed by parliament in 2008, that would have included protection for homsexuals, saying it was a dangerous threat to personal freedoms. (Jason Kenney swooned)

A Light Headed Jason Kenney Enters

So I mentioned that I picked up the book Unfinished Business, in an attempt to try and figure out what the Harper's government's agenda was, but was surprised to find that the first page would lead right to current headlines.

Not based on the dismantling of our social safety net, but the recent actions of our anti-multicultural, anti-immigration minister, Jason Kenney.

Earlier this month, Embassy Magazine ran a story: Federal Court asked to rule on Kenney's refugee claims: A Toronto-based lawyer is alleging the immigration minister might have interfered in the IRB's decision making.

Last June, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney publicly questioned the legitimacy of refugee claims made by Roma coming from the Czech Republic, saying they faced no real risk of state persecution.

The month prior to Kenney's announcement about Roma refugees, Stephen Harper visited Czechoslovakia, where the subject was discussed.

Harper also discussed with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek the soaring number of Romas, or Gypsies, entering Canada and claiming political asylum since late 2007, when Canada lifted visa requirements on Czech visitors. More than 80 Czech asylum-seekers have had their claims accepted, reflecting widespread concerns about discrimination and far-right violence directed against the community.

But Topolanek said the Roma are going to Canada for economic reasons rather than fleeing persecution, and blamed Canada's "soft" refugee determination process. Harper, meanwhile, indicated that Canada will bring back the visa rule if the situation isn't resolved.

Hmmmm. "Canada will bring back the visa rule ..." Not Kenney's idea after all.

But are these claims really "bogus"? Not according to Canwest European Correspondent Peter O'Neil.

A ghastly arson attack that has left a two-year-old girl fighting for her life contradicts Canadian and Czech government assertions that an exodus of Roma refugee claimants to Canada is driven by economics, rather than fear of persecution, say members of the Roma community here.

... They say they face a constant threat of neo-Nazi attacks and hateful demonstrations, where marchers head into Roma communities and call them "parasites," organized by increasingly sophisticated organizations such as the far-right Workers' Party.

"We are afraid for our lives," said Martin Duna, 31 ... "We are worried that Hitler is coming back." ... Duna's reference to Hitler, who sent Roma, as well as Jews and homosexuals, to extermination camps during the Second World War, isn't as extreme as it may sound ... Czech municipal politicians have won nationwide public praise for evicting Roma from apartments to live in metal containers in city outskirts; and human-rights groups have reported involuntary sterilizations of Roma women from the late 1960s to as recently as late last year.

Growing neo-Nazi violence, as well as discrimination and even segregation in areas such as health, housing, education, criminal justice and employment, have been reported in numerous publications issued by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International.

These claims don't sound "bogus" to me. It seems more like Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, are just protecting one of their own.

But their actions could have very devastating effects. It will be almost impossible for Roma to obtain Visas, but since all Czech citizens will now fall under that rule, there could be increased violence as they blame the "victims" for the problem.

Don't you just love neoconservatism, where their goddess Margaret Thatcher once said: "There is no such thing as society."

Footnotes:

1. Unfinished Business, By: Roger Douglas, Random House, 1993, ISBN: 1869411994, Pg. 1

2. "The New Zealand Experiment: A Canadian Perspective", By Peter Clancy, Electronic Journal of Radical Organizational Theory, June 1996.

3. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 113-114

4. Preston Manning: The New Canada, By: Preston Manning, MacMillan Canada,ISBN: 0-7715-9150-0, pg. 276

5. Czech President Warns Against “Europeanism”, The Brussels Journal: the Voice of Conservatism (oops, another ism) in Europe, Paul Belien August 8, 2005