Trudeau’s Parliamentary Secretary: recruit Arabs and Muslims to RCMP to better identify terrorists
Posted by: Jonathan D. Halevi December 12, 2015
Omar Alghabra (MP Mississauga Centre) was appointed on December 2, 2015 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Consular Affairs).
According to the official site of the Canadian federal legislature, Parliamentary secretaries help ministers maintain contacts with parliamentary committees and the department. The prime minister may assign parliamentary secretaries specific policy-related priorities. While overall responsibility and accountability remain with the minister, he or she may delegate specific policy development duties to a parliamentary secretary.
Omar Alghabra (Mississauga-Centre) was born in 1969 in Khobar Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents and came to Canada alone at the age of 19. He was previously a Member of Parliament from 2006 to 2008 and represented Mississauga-Erindale before the boundaries were redrawn.
Recruit Arabs and Muslims, remove the motive requirement from the definition of terrorism
In 2005, Omar Alghabra, then (2004-5) the President of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), testified on the Anti Terrorism Act and the security certificates in front of the Parliament’s Subcommittee on Public Safety and National Security.
The Canadian Arab Federation, headed by Omar Alghabra and CAIR-CAN (Council on American Islamic Relations – Canada; later changed its name to The National Council of Canadian Muslims – NCCM) submitted to the Subcommittee on Public Safety and National Security a joint position paper entitled: “Brief on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act”.
The CAF – CAIR document contains a series of recommendations that “should guide reform of national security law, policy and institutions in order to restore respect for the rule of law, human dignity and the confidence of Arab and Muslim Canadians.”
The recommendations include, among others, the following:
Trust and Real Security…
“Diversify national security agencies and bureaucracies by hiring qualified Arabs and Muslims as staff and policy makers;
“Engage meaningful input, advice and direct participation from Arabs and Muslims on national security policy and law;
“Design robust training programs for intelligence and national security staff that is based on dialogue with communities and substantive education; and
“Rectify mistakes committed through national security investigations and the national security system (e.g. listing of terrorists, no-fly lists, FINTRAC notices)…
“Oversight and Accountability…
“Involve Arabs and Muslims in the establishment and operation of the oversight system
“Profiling..
“The federal government work with Arab and Muslim communities to design an investigative study that will be undertaken by an independent panel of mutually agreed upon experts;
“The panel should be sufficiently resourced to undertake a comprehensive and meaningful study;
“The panel should examine the policies and operational practices of our security agencies where terrorism is involved and identify inconsistencies between policy and practice;
“The panel should travel across Canada to meet with Arabs and Muslims and listen to their narratives…
“Law Reform…
“Recruit qualified Arabs and Muslims as security cleared counsel, policy makers and judges;
“Abolish security certificates because they offend the rule of law, equality and fundamental justice;
“Remove the motive requirement from the definition of terrorism…
“Redraft the facilitation offence to avoid criminalizing innocent charitable and community activity.”
Unlike Arabs and Muslims, RCMP and CSIS officers lack the cultural background to identify terrorists
In his testimony on September 20, 2005, Omar Alghabra explained the idea behind recommending the security agencies to hire Arabs and Muslims by suggesting that they, meaning the Arab and Muslim Police officers, have an inherent advantage over others because of their cultural background that may help them better identify the terrorists.
Omar Alghabra said: “First of all, on the reasons why we’re asking for Arabs and Muslims to be within the police force, they’re going to identify who the terrorists are, and because a lot of these practices are a result of ignorance of the tradition and culture of Arabs and Muslims, the only way to sensitize the agencies is by diversifying them.”
Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Brigades should not be designated as terrorist organizations
On September 17, 2004, Omar Alghabra, then the President of the Canadian Arab Federation, slammed the “biased reporting” approach espoused by CanWest. As a glaring example to the “biased approach” the statement noted that CanWest described al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades a “terrorist” organization.
It should be noted that the Palestinian militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs was officially designated by the Canadian government as a terrorist organization since April 2, 2003.
“CanWest, one of the largest media conglomerates in Canada, is failing its responsibility towards all Canadians, not just Arabs and Muslims,” said Omar Alghabra, CAF president. “The media has moral and ethical obligations to report the facts when it comes to news reporting, not the opinions of their editors.”
The “social” network of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad is legitimate and should be financially supported by Canadians
Two years earlier, the Canadian Arab Federation called on the federal government not to designate Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations. The following are excerpts of the CAF’s press release in this regard issued on December 9, 2012:
“The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) called on the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Solicitor General to proceed with extreme caution on the matter of adding to the Canadian list of terrorist organizations.
“In letters to Bill Graham and Wayne Easter, CAF urged the ministers to assess genuine and credible security concerns, rather than political motivations, before adding organizations to the list.
“CAF explained that it views Hezbollah as a legitimate Lebanese political party, in that it has representation in the country’s parliament and an extensive network of badly needed social service programs.
“CAF implored the ministers not to succumb to political pressure, and to use only the rule of law and substantiated evidence in determining the status of Hezbollah in Canada.
“With respect to the recent addition of Hamas and Islamic Jehad [sic] to the list of terrorist organizations, CAF indicated that these two organizations were borne out of 35 years of violent occupation of Palestine.
“The listing of these organizations does not recognize the reality of the occupation and the context within which the violence is taking place,” the letters said. “The Canadian government as such has censured one form of violence while remaining silent on another – hardly an even-handed approach.”
“CAF also pointed out that the listings will severely curb legitimate fundraising for charitable and humanitarian causes, and might affect the remittances from Palestinian Canadians that many families in the impoverished West Bank and Gaza have come to depend on.
“Provisions need to be made to avoid worsening the already appalling humanitarian situation in Palestine by the application of the terrorist label to these two organizations”, CAF stated.
Appendix – excerpts from the Canadian official list of designated terrorist organizations
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