Oops, How About That?

Some situations have their own clarity of vision and wisdom. Or, on occasion, an unfortunate lack of both. Something along the lines of chickens coming home to roost, or the road to hell being paved with bad intentions, or actions and consequences...?

Khaled Mouammar, national president of the Canadian Arab Federation in Toronto, having written an indignant, self-exculpatory letter to the editor of the National Post, takes issue with questions arising about his impartiality in accepting future citizens of Canada while he was with the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Never, he asserted, did he even give a passing thought to undermining the safety and security of his adopted country by admitting refugee claimants who might present with a lack of suitability to adapt to Canadian values.

What an amazing assertion, from someone who came to Canada in the very same way, was accepted as a landed immigrant, and now presents as a prime example of an individual who has proven himself to be personally unsuitable by virtue of his importation of hatred and his socially divisionary tactics.

He describes the protocol involved in judging cases that come before the IRB, the gruntwork done by public service employees of the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration researching the claim, the potential for intervention by a Refugee Protection Officer, the potential presence of a member of the Law Society, and lastly the obligation of the signal figure whose final decision whether or not to admit a refugee to ensure there is no history of criminality, etc.

The refugee applicants appearing before Mr. Mouammar during his ten-year stint with the IRB had the great good fortune to be approved by him at an astounding one hundred-percent approval rate. He satisfied himself that these applicants, from the Middle East and elsewhere, had no history of belonging to terror groups, never committed crimes. And little wonder, since he considers Hezbollah and Hamas to be perfectly legitimate and honourable political entities.

Mr. Mouammar righteously rails against the slurs implied against his integrity during his stint at the IRB. Writing as the national president currently of the Canadian Arab Federation he minces no words in describing his support of the "struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination" and his opposition to "Israel's violations of international and humanitarian law"; political positions that should have disqualified him from serving with the IRB.

In the melee of vetting and accepting hundreds of thousands of refugee claimants and immigrants from various countries around the world, background checks are not always as meticulously carried out as they might be. The result being that from time to time people with criminal records, people guilty of human rights abuses, people belonging to outlawed organizations characterized as terrorist in nature, have been admitted to this country.

When their presence is discovered it is often very difficult to extradite them, to remove them from the safe haven of this country, although Canada has, on occasion, taken measures to free herself from their presence before they go underground and out of sight to meld into the greater community. Canada's trial of a former Rwandan accused of mass murder a case in point. Another the requested extradition to France of Palestinian Hassan Diab accused of the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.

Mr. Mouammar passionately upbraids Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for a "distasteful attack on my character" representing it as "regretful and disturbing, attributing it to Jason Kenney's attempt to smear "the refugee determination process to score partisan points". It is "irresponsible" of the minister, he huffs, to accuse the former Liberal government by association, of a biased and faulty system.

Finally, he accuses the current Conservative government of choreographing an opportunity to pit Canadian citizens against refugees, tut-tutting it as "unacceptable and not befitting of an Immigration Minister". And, that by implication, the minister has smeared public service employees, along with the innocent refugees now citizens of Canada, who deserve better from the minister. When cornered, attack. And he's done that, in spades.

Mind, a spokesperson for the CAF characterized it as "unfortunate" when Mr. Mouammar did a little incendiary slandering of his own in calling Jason Kenney a "professional whore" for stating his and his government's position in support of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and the country's inherent right to defend itself against ongoing attacks by the very 'respectable political entities' Canada lists as terrorist groups.

Why would any government in its right mind wish to fund, through taxpayer dollars, any ethnic- or religious-based group that has demonstrated a distinct unwillingness to recognize the social imperative within this country of respecting the civil rights of others? Which, furthermore, mounts public exercises for the very purpose of defaming other groups of Canadians? And finally, which holds ministers of the Crown in such disdain that it sees nothing amiss in gross slander?

Above all, which group, such as the Canadian Arab Federation, permitted its standards to fall so low as to elect to its national presidency a volubly vocal and obviously racist individual who cries foul when legitimate criticism of his anti-social and socially subversive activities are brought into question and seeks to form a multitudinous cabal with like groups to condemn the country's administration?

Canadian citizens, taxpayers all, would like to be assured that their tax dollars go to settlement groups legitimately concerned both for the welfare of new immigrants and for society as a whole. New immigrants who learn re-settlement social politics from hate-mongers such as Mr. Mouammar are certainly not guaranteed to learn from example Canada's social contract in extending the quality of freedoms and equal respect to all.

Which goes a long way to explaining precisely why it is that the Canadian government is reacting to the Canadian Arab Federation based on unpleasant interactions with its governing body. And for that reason and perhaps others, considers it an unlikely recipient of tax funding for the resettlement of immigrants. The funding will go to other such groups representing the interests of the same immigrants who devote themselves to the task at hand.

"As you are ... aware, serious concerns have arisen with respect to certain public statements that have been made by yourself" reads a letter addressed to Khaled Mouammar, signed by the associate assistant deputy minister operations, Department of Immigration, "or other officials of the CAF. These statements have included the promotion of hatred, anti-Semitism and support for the banned terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.

"The objectionable nature of these public statements in that they appear to reflect the CAF's evident support for terrorist organizations and positions on its part which are arguably anti-Semitic raises serious questions about the integrity of your organization and has undermined the government's confidence in the CAF as an appropriate partner for the delivery of settlement services to newcomers."