The Senate is among our most derided institutions. Yet there has never been a shortage of candidates for it — party hacks, “ethnic leaders” or politicians rejected at the polls. The late Larry Zolf of the CBC had a running joke that his turn at the upper chamber was imminent, if for no other reason than that his entry would instantly improve its collective IQ.
I thought of Larry while following the hearings of the Senate committee on national security and defence on terrorist threats facing Canada.
The proceedings were expectedly mediocre, as the senators asked routine questions of the RCMP, CSIS the spy agency and other agencies. But it soon became clear that this was a kangaroo court.
Parliament is partisan, understood. Its committee hearings are places to ask tough questions, get at the truth. Still, the Conservative majority on the committee — Daniel Lang (chair), Lynn Beyak, Jean-Guy Dagenais, Thanh Hai Ngo, Carolyn Stewart Olsen and Vern White — seems interested only in having its prejudices confirmed: terrorism involving Muslims is “Islamic,” it is manufactured in Canadian mosques that get foreign funding from oil sheiks and where the imams preach “hatred” and radicalize the young. No proof needed.
The committee did not invite groups broadly representative of Canada’s more than one million Muslims. Instead it packed the hearings with ideological soulmates. Take the last session on Feb. 23. The star witness was Marc Lebuis of the Montreal-based Point de Bascule (Tipping Point), which analyzes terrorism.
He accused Muslims of having infiltrated Canadian institutions to undermine them. He had a long list — so-and-so was “linked” to this-and-that nefarious figure in North America, Europe or the Middle East, who had said such-and-such, dating back to the early 19th century. He named names. I asked three of them for their side of the story.
Lebuis called Toronto lawyer Faisal Kutty “the spokesperson of two Al Qaeda funding organizations,” who “consistently defends and promotes people who are known and banned in certain countries.”
Kutty teaches law at Osgoode and also at Valparaiso University, Indiana. He has written extensively on radicalization, including what Muslims must do to stop it. He has worked with the RCMP and CSIS, and been consulted by the U.S. House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence.
He told me Friday that he has already complained to the Senate, saying that Lebuis and his group are “anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic crusaders, searching for subversives under every bed . . .
“I’ve never served as a spokesperson for any terrorist organization. A lawyer representing a client is a far cry from a spokesperson . . . By their spurious logic, all criminal lawyers must be closet criminals as well . . .
“I have unequivocally condemned violence of all kinds. I have always urged Canadians (including Muslims) to fulfil their patriotic obligation to defend our country, but also to be vigilant in holding our government and its agencies accountable.”
Kutty told me he was surprised that the Senate committee is letting individuals and groups enter “unsubstantiated and unchallenged assertions on the official record, which they would recycle where they can. And sure enough, it’ll end up in an affidavit, somewhere.”
Lebuis named Hamilton lawyer Hussein Hamdani as the one who successfully lobbied Ottawa to stop using “Islamic” in relation to terrorism by Muslims.
Hamdani told me that in 2012 he did speak to Vic Toews, then minister of public safety, at the minister’s invitation. “Mr. Toews came to the Hamilton mosque, with four officials from his ministry, and nine or 10 of us met him there. I did say that the language used by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and others in Ottawa was counterproductive. I compared it with that of President (Barack) Obama, who always asserts that Muslims are part of the American family and part of the solution to terrorism. Yet nowhere has Harper made clear that Canadian Muslims are part of the Canadian family, that they are partners in this battle against terrorism.”
The RCMP and CSIS have since stopped associating terrorism by Muslim individuals with Islam or mosques, and instead are more specific about terrorist groups and individuals.
Still, “the suggestion that I somehow strong-armed the government of Canada into changing is amusing. Clearly, the Conservatives have not changed.”
He added: “It is shameful that Islamophobes who used to be on the fringes are being brought into the centre by this government. Such people defame others without providing any evidence — ‘the world is flat and Islamists are taking over Canada.’ And the people maligned do not have the wherewithal to defend themselves. That’s what’s really disconcerting.”
Another person Lebuis mentioned is Jamal Badawi, former professor at the Sobey School of Business, St. Mary’s University in Halifax, who is also a prolific author on Islam.
Lebuis said Badawi “started” or “is behind” several Muslim organizations that are part of “the network of the Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in North America,” and that he has urged Muslims “to become judges and officials” in order to “take advantage of their position of influence to stop applying current national legal provisions that are incompatible with sharia law.”
Badawi told me:
“Muslim Brotherhood is not a registered entity in Canada or the USA, nor does it have any branch in North America.”
He said he has never urged Muslims to infiltrate the government in order to advance sharia. “I challenge those who make this false allegation to produce evidence, such as a recording in my voice or quotes from my writings to back up their allegation. I consistently urge Muslims in Canada, USA, Europe and elsewhere to positively integrate in their societies, to fulfil their duties as citizens and to be beneficial to all.”
