Race baiting becomes essential re-election strategy for Harper team

On the face of it, I too would be inclined to agree with the proposition that "a prospective future citizen of Canada should not be allowed to hide their identity at a citizenship ceremony."

Except, when you look into it at all, nobody is "hiding" their identity.

If and when Zunera Ishaq is permitted to wear her niqab at her citizenship ceremony, the entire country will know exactly who that veiled woman is.

By the time she makes it to the ceremony, Zunera will have revealed and unveiled herself countless times to various government functionaries in their semi-private offices. Zunera can do that because her faith dictates that she cover up in public.

As in a public ceremony.

At no point has Zunera Ishaq's niqab been about "hiding her identity."

Our local MP Larry Miller had to do a little back-pedalling when he got on national TV for proclaiming "those people should get the hell back to where they came from" back in March.

But Big Steve himself has been playing the same ugly game.

We're either a tolerant and diverse society, or we're not.

Owen Sound reeling in wake of terror attack

Yup, wouldn't you know it, this quiet small town in Ontario has been hit by a terror attack, just months after opening an "Islamic Community Centre."

Coincidence?

It's no "terror" attack of any sort, of course, and even the most anti-Muslim locals like our MP Larry Miller will admit that.

But this situation demands that we focus on local home-grown crime, instead of focusing on Big Steve's whipping boys of choice.

But Big Steve has the cure for local crime too, doesn't he?

We just gotta get tough on crime...

Larry Miller gets famous

Larry is the local MP for these parts. Affable hard-working local politician. I wouldn't vote for his party, but other than the fact that he's a back-bencher on Big Steve's team, I've got nothing against the guy.

Larry beat out Liberal incumbent Ovid Jackson in the 2004 election. How Ovid was MP for ten years is a bit of a mystery. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is red-neck country; maybe sending the only black man in town to Ottawa for ten years was the best available strategy to get rid of the guy?

So Larry goes to the House of Commons, and unless you're reading the Wiarton Echo a lot, he really doesn't attract a lot of press coverage.

Till today.

Today Larry is splashed across the pages of every major newspaper in the land, and far beyond...
he even made it into The Guardian, and I'm not talking about the one in PEI.

What is Larry's claim to overnight international fame?

In a misguided attempt to ingratiate himself simultaneously both with his boss and the local electorate, Larry got tough on would-be Canadians from Muslim lands who want to wear a veil to their citizenship ceremony.

"... they can stay the hell where they came from!"

From Larry's point of view, he was merely reiterating Big Steve's position on the matter, albeit in somewhat more colourful terms. What could go wrong?

Wellll!!!...  Even the PMO opportunistically backed away from backing up Miller, which strikes me as highly hypocritical since it's the PMO challenging a court decision that permitted the veil in the citizenship ceremony!

The Harper team doesn't mind using divisive rhetoric as a vote-grubbing strategy, but they also know how to distance themselves from it when it gets too obvious.

Larry came up with an apology in short order.

To my way of thinking, the niqab question is another one of those faux "Canadian values" boondoggles that politicians like to exploit. Remember when the "Canadian identity" was mortally threatened by the prospect of having Sikh mounties wear turbans?

Now they do, and the Canadian identity has survived.

It'll survive the niqab crisis too.