Recently, we were reminded we live in a dangerous world.
Aaron Driver, a suspected ISIS sympathizer was taken down by police at his home in Strathroy, Ontario. The lone, radicalized Canadian youth had apparently been planning to carry out a suicide bombing in a public place.
And so the political dance between freedom and safety was re-engaged as the summer waned.
Anti-Trudeau detractors immediately chastised the prime minister for being “missing in action,” as if he was somehow expected to be in Strathroy sporting black body army and leading the charge to take down this misguided zealot.
Trudeau, of course, was not “missing,” he was on vacation, as all of Parliament was, because it is the summer and it is Canada. In fact, quite the opposite of missing apparently, the Opposition made a huge deal out of the fact the P.M. was spotted shirtless with a surf board on the beach in Tofino, BC when a wedding photographer snapped a now iconic photo the Conservatives tried to use in an attack ad before the shooter forced them to cease and desist for copyright infringement.
The shirtless Trudeau pic is emblematic of a seismic shift in style between the current prime minister and his immediate predecessor. In fact, it was used in a social media meme to mock the prime minister for being undignified unlike the stiff-as-a-redwood Stephen Harper who never appeared unscripted in public without an American president-style armed escort.
That approachable, spontaneous, free-spirited style is what a lot of Canadians love about “Justin” and what others hate. One person I talked to recently said they liked the picture because it showed he is soft-hearted. Within hours, another person told me it demonstrated he is softheaded.
I neither love nor hate Trudeau, but the new government is a breath of fresh air after the stagnant, fear-mongering of Harper’s reign of paranoia. And it is not just a matter of style. It is emblematic of a fundamental shift in policy, one that will be on the legislative agenda in the next session of Parliament as the Liberals attempt to fix the draconian and unconstitutional travesty of a public safety bill (Bill C-51: The Anti-terrorism Act, 2015) the Conservatives rammed through Parliament in the dying moments of their term.
Amid the anti-Islamic rhetoric being whipped up around Aaron Driver—who, for the record was not an immigrant or a member of the terrorist organization he is purported to have ties with— it is instructive to note terrorism is nothing new in Canada.
In fact, it pre-dates confederation. In 1840, Anglo-Irish Benjamin Lett bombed a monument to English general Sir Isaac Brock.
In the 1920s, right here in Saskatchewan, it was Svobodniki “freedomites” using arson and bombings to protest materialism and government pressure to enrol their children in school.
Between 1966 and 1980, there were numerous attacks related to Cuba. During that same period, the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ) was also active. In fact, as recently as 2012, terrorism related to Quebec nationalism was carried out when Richard Bain attempted to assassinate parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, then the premier-elect of that province.
Terror attacks have also been carried out in the name of anarchism, environmentalism, Sikh nationalism and numerous other causes that have been subject to extremist views over the decades.
Unfortunately, extremism breeds extremism. Our response must be measured for that very reason.
Interestingly, much of the current Trudeau-hate, particularly here in the west, dates to the first Trudeau. His use of the War Measures Act related to the 1970 FLQ kidnappings was an unmeasured response suspending the freedoms of all Canadians to target a tiny group of malcontents. It was an overreaction, one he has been condemned most vehemently for by the same people who now want to restrict the civil liberties of all muslim-Canadians because of the actions of a few.
That is a big problem because rights must apply equally to all people. Similarly, when you restrict the rights of some, you restrict the rights of all.
The Liberals actually voted for the horrible bill that is currently the law of the land promising to fix it if they were elected. If anything deserves criticism in their response to terrorism it is that. The Supreme Court would have eventually struck the terror act down, but in the meantime the Liberals showed they are not above playing politics with our freedoms.
At the end of a Cabinet retreat in Sudbury last week, Trudeau (not missing in action, after all) noted the government has a tough agenda ahead of it for year two of its mandate. Balancing our freedoms and safety by fixing C-51 is part of that plan that should be top of mind.
