Warmest wishes to friends and subscribers for a safe and happy holiday. Blacklock’s pauses to bid you the best of the Christmas season. We’re back on January 2 — The Editor
By 2021 one of the nation’s largest observant religious groups will follow the Koran. Canadian Muslims already outnumber Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Mennonites, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Within seven years they will outnumber Anglicans and United Church members.
Professor Abdolmohammad Kazemipur, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge, asks The Muslim Question: how exactly will this work out? Never before in Canadian history has national life been directed in no small part by Muslims. For generations officialdom frankly considered the group irrelevant; in 1944 the Dominion Bureau of Statistics deleted “Muslim” from its census questionnaire. “Canada’s encounter with Muslims is unlike that of any other major immigrant-receiving countries,” he writes. “It has a very short history with no colonial past, and Canada has a Muslim population that is both diverse and carefully selected.”
Dr. Kazemipur is originally from Iran. The Muslim Question is candid and compelling. It chronicles a society grappling with a fundamental change. Note Kazemipur’s plea for his co-religionists to be freed from hectoring: “The amount of media coverage they receive is a distinct feature of the lives of Canadian Muslims,” he writes; “One find’s one faith community and identity almost constantly under discussion, mostly in a negative way.”
In evidence Kazemipur cites the Herouxville Town Charter, a snide proclamation endorsed by six Québec municipalities in the manner of the Red Deer Legion that once insisted Sikhs remove their “hats” as a sign of respect for the Queen. Among the Charter’s declarations:
Professor Kazemipur explains: “This perceived unwillingness and/or inability of Muslims to live peacefully in secular democracies is tied to a set of perceptions about Muslims: for example, their strong attachment to their faith, the illiberal contents of their religion, the ‘all-encompassing’ nature of Islam…their proclivity for violence, the predominance of tribal-like loyalties among Muslims, and so on. Such perceptions heavily inform the debates involving Muslims and, from time to time, result in the advocacy of harsh and extreme measures.”
Of course there is more to this. Many Canadians outside the town limits of Herouxville know Muslims as neighbours, co-workers, employers and sweethearts who celebrate traditional Canadian values: hard work; self-reliance; community; family; mind your business and live-and-let-live. “If your fundamental values are not in danger,” one Muslim tells Kazemipur in an interview, “then I think associating yourself with the country you live in is of paramount importance.”
Canada is so big there is room for everybody. This is so fundamental they wrote it into the Constitution. We have no state religion, no official culture, no prohibition on the right of mobility. Kazemipur’s timely book asks, is Canada big enough for 2 million Muslims, too?
By Holly Doan
The Muslim Question in Canada: A Story Of Segmented Integration by Abdolmohammad Kazemipur; University of British Columbia Press; 224 pages; ISBN 9780-7748-27300; $32.95 
The Department of Foreign Affairs is out billions in lost profits on real estate in Tokyo, accounts show. Diplomats bought high and sold low in the costly 1991 construction of a new embassy now worth a fraction its original value: “There was no transparency then, and it’s worse now.”
Santa must not fly under the influence of narcotics, Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s office yesterday wrote in a statement. The news release followed a failed gag last Christmas by a Privy Council think tank that quipped Santa was a climate change refugee forced to flee the North Pole.
Garneau’s office in a statement Newly-Licensed Mrs. Claus To Join Santa As Co-Pilot For This Year’s Flight wrote: “While revising this year’s pre-flight checklist with Mrs. Claus, Minister Garneau stressed how important it is for her, Santa and the reindeer to get adequate rest and to avoid consuming alcohol or drugs to ensure that everyone is fit to fly on this very important mission.”
Cabinet on October 17 made Canada only the second country after Uruguay to legalize recreational marijuana under Bill C-45 An Act Respecting Cannabis. A companion Bill C-46 An Act To Amend The Criminal Code permits random roadside testing by police.
Garneau’s statement also quipped Santa would replace reindeer with remote-controlled drones for future Christmas deliveries. “Transport Canada inspectors traveled to the North Pole to inspect Santa’s sleigh and its safety systems,” wrote staff: “While at the North Pole, the inspectors also had the opportunity to visit Santa’s recently completed drone testing facility where they observed the elves piloting gift delivery drones, a new technology that Santa is exploring for future Christmas deliveries.”
“You Lie To Kids About Santa”
The Santa gag followed a December 19, 2017 statement by the Privy Council agency Policy Horizons Canada headlined Santa Is Moving To The South Pole. “Thanks to rising global temperatures, rapidly melting Arctic ice and human operations in the North, Santa Claus has signed an agreement with the international community to relocate his village next yar to operate in an exclusive zone in the South Pole,” wrote staff.
“Santa’s relocation agreement marks the first time the international community agrees on a common legal definition of climate change that includes refugees as corporations, as well as individuals,” the notice said. “This deal is expected to lead to the deployment of a global climate change refugee visa system that in the near future could help to more easily relocate individuals and corporations facing the impacts of climate change.”
Access To Information records indicate staff thought the Santa joke would “make us cool”, but instead prompted a flood of protests from offended parents. “Seriously, f—k off,” wrote one complainant. “What a thoughtless thing to do.”
Others described Santa quips by Government of Canada employees as “idiotic”, “disgraceful” and “insulting”: “This is pathetic: shame on you,” read one email to Policy Horizons. Others wrote: “You lie to kids about Santa”; “If this is satire, it is an epic fail”; “I can’t believe you would post a falsehood”; “Wow, just when I thought government could not get any worse.”
By Staff
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday confirmed cabinet is 36 percent short of meeting its climate change target. Higher fuel costs are likely but “minimal”, said McKenna. The admission came hours after Blacklock’s published an internal memo stating cabinet knew it could not achieve its target even with a 12¢ per litre carbon tax on gasoline: “It’s not really about our target.”
The Federal Court in 2019 will hear its first complaint of discrimination since cabinet proposed legislation mandating accessibility for disabled Canadians. A British Columbia man seeks a Human Rights Act probe of conduct by two airlines and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority: “You cannot reason with these people.”
Cabinet has ordered the Royal Canadian Mint to issue a $1 coin commemorating Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 repeal of criminal sanctions on homosexuality. The loonie depicts a figure wearing an earring and the word “equality”.
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the firing of a Canada Revenue Agency employee who flashed her employee badge while negotiating a house sale. The firing followed a 2015 complaint from a homeowner selling a property in Laval, Que.: “I work for the Agency.”
The Treasury Board in an Access To Information memo confirms cabinet cannot meet its climate change target with a 12¢ per litre carbon tax on gasoline. The statement contradicts repeated claims by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna: “We have a plan to meet a target.”
Senate Liberals yesterday shrunk to their smallest caucus since 1896 with the departure of a longtime member. Liberals now risk losing official party status in the Senate for the first time since Confederation: “It’s very painful.”
Cabinet is dropping its own deadline for a national plan to promote electric cars. Transport Minister Marc Garneau repeatedly promised results by year’s end. Garneau declined comment: “It would be very, very challenging to reach those targets.”
Alberta dirt bikers face large fines for killing a rare species of fish in a motocross race. A Lethbridge court cited racers for breaching the Fisheries and Species At Risk Acts by speeding through streams that are home to trout near extinction: “Trout died as a result of this race.”
The Federal Court of Appeal has cleared the way for a human rights challenge of elections under the Indian Act. The decision came in the case of a woman who claimed she was disqualified from running for council because her husband was Caucasian: “She was not a person of good character.”
A newspaper lobby group, the Canadian News Media Association, has received nearly $385,000 in federal grants – the equivalent of more than half its annual budget – to encourage people to buy newspapers, according to Access To Information records. The funding was never announced. Costs include having $160-an hour publicists encourage celebrities to pose for Instagram photos reading a newspaper.
“We simply don’t have the resources to plan and execute campaigns of this scope and scale on our own,” wrote Bob Cox, publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, in a letter to the Department of Canadian Heritage: “Even well-informed people often do not realize what is at stake.”
“The Winnipeg Free Press might also be in trouble,” wrote Cox, chair of the News Media Association. The daily has been in print since 1872. “This is the most serious crisis we have faced in our history,” wrote Cox.
The department approved the funding but yesterday did not comment. The Association’s grant application Call To Action proposed to seek endorsements from unidentified “high-profile Canadians, from traditional media ‘influencers’ to authors to politicians to business leaders, to showcase their passion for newspapers on their social media channels by asking them to share a photo of themselves on Instagram reading their favourite newspaper.”
“We will undertake a proactive national awareness campaign,” said Call To Action. “This campaign will be designed to drive consumers to take action, showing their support for the Canadian newspaper industry by signing an online petition. The success of this campaign will subsequently be leveraged with advertisers to encourage them to advertise in newspapers.”
The lobby group also suggested local papers sponsor screenings of “a high-profile film that promotes the essential role of newspapers in society, i.e. the 2015 film Spotlight.” The Academy Award-winning movie is about an American newspaper, the Boston Globe.
“I Couldn’t Agree More”
Heritage Canada approved a grant totalling $384,870. The subsidy is more than all federal grants of $284,532 paid to the News Media Association in the period from 2013 to 2018, and worth 52 percent of the Association’s annual budget of $729,174.
Subsidies include payments to News Media staff billed at $75 an hour, according to accounts, and $160 an hour for the Association’s publicist, Craft Public Relations of Toronto. The Association also proposed to spend $75,000 on Facebook ads, though publishers in their grant submission complained American social media like Facebook get too much advertising.
“As local advertising dollars move to international digital giants like Facebook and Google, we need to take every opportunity to tell our story and reaffirm the critical role our newspaper, and newspapers like us all across the country, play in Canadian democracy,” wrote Peter Kvarnstrom, president of community media for Glacier Media Group Inc., a Vancouver-based chain of 71 weeklies.
“Canadians have said they believe democracy would be threatened if established news organizations were no longer able to fulfill their civic news function and I couldn’t agree more,” Kvarnstrom wrote the department. “In an era of clickbait reporting, #fakenews and filter bubbles, strong, independent local news has never been more important.”
Cabinet proposes in 2019 to detail a $595 million, five-year subsidy for news media deemed reliable. The Department of Canadian Heritage as recently as September 29, 2017 vetoed any newspaper bailout.
“Our approach will not be to bail out industry models that are no longer viable,” said then-Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly. “Rather, we will focus our efforts in supporting innovation.”
Joly’s department has estimated any bankruptcy of the nation’s largest newspaper chain, Postmedia Networks Inc., would leave 28 cities without a daily newspaper. Postmedia is a member of the board of the News Media Association.
Postmedia this year paid its CEO $5.04 million in salary and bonuses, according to a Management Circular obtained November 28 by the online Halifax Examiner. Other executive pay included $2.2 million to Postmedia’s chief operation officer, and $1.2 million to its chief financial officer.
By Staff
Parliament must preserve bullet holes from a lone gunman’s 2014 attack on the Centre Block, says a Conservative MP. Multi-billion dollar renovations to the building should not conceal evidence of the incident, the Commons committee on House affairs was told: “These are records of something important that happened here.”
