Roundup: A curious recommendation

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The Senate’s national security and defence committee released an interim report yesterday on countering the terrorist threat in Canada. The report made some 23 recommendations, many of them critical of what the government has and has not yet done, such as making it a criminal offence to be part of a terrorist organization, or having a “no-visit” list to keep known ideological radicals out of the country. The one that got the most attention on Power & Politics and subsequently the Twitter Machine was recommendation 9, which suggests the government “work with the provinces and the Muslim communities to investigate the options that are available for the training and certification of Imams in Canada.” And then they were off about how this was criminalizing speech and thought, and how it was likely to be a Charter issue, but actually reading the report itself, the preceding section noted the problems of amateur prison proselytizers, and that members of the Muslim community were concerned about foreign-trained imams spreading extremist ideology, and noted that certification is already the case in Europe. Not much further down in the report is a reputable Calgary imam talking about how extremist ideology is being protected on campuses under the guise of “academic freedom.” In this context, the recommendation doesn’t seem nearly as extreme as it was presented, but hey, it’s not like that context made it into some of the articles (not that surprising, unfortunately). This having been said, there remain problems with the report, which is why the Liberal senators dissented from the report, looking for more counselling, early intervention, study of the roots of radicalization, and more importantly resources for RCMP that the government seems reluctant to do. Is it perfect work? No. Is it better than we’d get from the Commons? Yes. It’s also still an interim report, and more work will be done on it in the next parliament, so perhaps things will improve with it before the final version is issued. In the meantime, it’s not a bad thing that senators are actually talking about this issue without relying solely on slogans.

Good reads:

  • Health Canada has now stepped up with regulations on non-smokeable forms of medical marijuana, but that didn’t stop Rona Ambrose from being petulant about it.
  • It has been estimated that EI fraud has crossed the $100 million mark, but for some unknown reason, the government keeps pushing off debt collection to future years.
  • Here’s a good piece that digs into the issue of family violence and missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
  • The Parliamentary Budget Officer had to cancel a report on the planned new Arctic icebreaker after DFO stonewalled him for information.
  • Mike Moffatt argues that with the economy headed toward recession, now is the time for the government to start running a deficit.
  • Jason Markusoff writes about the election campaign dress rehearsal that was the Calgary Stampede.
  • Paul Wells writes about how people use the term “democracy” to suit their own meanings, as with the Greek vote.

Odds and ends:

Questions are being asked about the Conservative nomination race in Nepean.

Noah Richler, son of Mordecai, is planning to run for the NDP in Toronto–St. Paul’s, against Carolyn Bennett.

There is now a call for a monument to foreign service workers killed in the line of duty.