He Is Still Pretending It Is Sept. 10

If you wanted an insult someone who purports to be a leader this would have to be the ultimate insult.

Dion's politics shift with wind
By EZRA LEVANT
February 19, 2007

Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader, says he's against renewing the provisions of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act.

Because the Conservatives don't have a majority, and the Bloc and NDP are notoriously soft on the war on terror, Dion holds the balance.

And he's voting not to renew our security laws.

He's pretending it's still Sept. 10.

This is the same Stephane Dion, of course, who was part of the Liberal cabinet that brought in the Anti-Terrorism Act, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

There has been no legitimate criticism of the law -- it has not abridged anyone's civil liberties.

In fact, it really hasn't even been used in Canada, including in the arrest and charges against 18 Muslim radicals in Toronto last spring who were allegedly plotting to blow up the CN Tower and the CBC, and behead the prime minister.

There is only one reason why Dion wants to scrap this law: Because the increasingly powerful Muslim wing of his party demands it.

That wing includes Omar Alghabra, an MP from Mississauga. Before being elected a Liberal MP, Alghabra was a vocal political activist who campaigned against border security.

This wing also includes Mohammed Elmasry, the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, a radical lobby group. Elmasry made headlines for telling a TV talk show that every Israeli Jew aged 18 and up was fair game for terrorist attacks.

Far from being shunned for this extreme view, Elmasry was a prominent delegate to the Liberal leadership convention that chose Dion.

Elmasry and Alghabra claim they were big players in Dion's victory. Dion's decision to gut Canada's security laws is a payback to them.

Of course, not all Muslims agree with Dion's decision to defang our police and security services.

Wajid Khan, another Muslim MP from Mississauga, supports the law. But he defected to the Conservative Party after Dion's election.

It would be terrifying enough if Dion were to hand over foreign policy and security policy to the Alghabras and Elmasrys of the world.

But it is even more terrifying to know Dion once supported the Anti-Terrorism Act, and is likely changing his views not out of any conviction, but out of political expediency -- he's thanking his organizers by giving them control over his policies.

At least if he was an ideological appeaser of terrorism, or a pacifist of conscience, we could understand Dion, and predict what he would do. But he's not.

He's someone who shifts his views, on the most important of issues, depending on the political winds.

In 1999, he voted against same-sex marriage.

In 2006, he did an about-face and said it was a fundamental human right. Then he switched again, claiming it was a political choice. Each time, he simply read the mood of his party.

Same thing with Afghanistan: he was part of the Liberal government that dispatched our troops there. Now he's for cutting and running.

Today, Dion's flip-floppery favours the Islamic activists in his party, and they should be properly grateful to him -- and those who value security should be properly appalled.

But worse than all of this is the knowledge that, should Dion ever be given the reins of power, no-one -- not the Arab lobby, not our security forces -- could count on a word that he says.

A man who opposes our security laws is dangerous. But a man who supports or opposes them simply based on the latest breeze is even worse.