Reply from @SalimMansurLNC:
“Canadians fought and sacrificed defending freedom and saving Europe from totalitarian serfdom. Children of those Canadians who died in Dieppe and Normandy will not be bulldozed into silence by Balgord and his Antifa thugs.”
Opinion: I am a PPC candidate and I am not a racist
I am a member of the People’s Party. In fact, I am likely more “evil” than most. You see, I worked on the PPC immigration policy and I am a PPC candidate in London, Ont.
People's Party Cambridge candidate David Haskell, left, poses with author Salim Mansur, middle, and party leader Maxime Bernier, right, during a private party rally in a home in Cambridge last month. - David Haskell
On Wednesday an op-ed appeared in the Spectator's opinion section. Written by Evan Balgord, Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, it called for Mohawk College to cancel an event at which Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, and YouTube talk-show host, David Rubin, were to discuss the erosion of freedom of expression in Canada.
Reacting to Balgord's call to arms, a local group of Antifa activists has vowed to cause mayhem should the event at Mohawk College go ahead as planned. Their name, incidentally, is short for anti-fascist; a paradox given their totalitarian behaviour.
Of course, Balgord's insistence that the free expression rights of a federal party leader be quashed underscores the importance of this topic and the scheduled talk. I'll return to that in a moment.
But first I want to examine the justification Balgord gives for employing the methods of totalitarian regimes.
He makes the claim that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly must be quashed because Maxime Bernier and the People's Party promotes racism.
By that kind of fractured logic, I must be a racist too.
I am a member of the People's Party. In fact, I am likely more "evil" than most. You see, I worked on the PPC immigration policy and I am a PPC candidate in London, Ont.
Does this make me a racist? In Balgord's logic it does.
But the Senate of Canada considered my years of effort in reconciling people of different faiths, especially Jews, Christians and Muslims, and together promote peace, as worthy to award me in 2017 with the Senate Sesquicentennial Medal celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of our Dominion.
I am professor emeritus, political science, at Western University where some of my work was dedicated to defending Canada's liberal democratic values of rights and freedoms against those seeking to erode them.
