Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan

The Canadian federal election is a year away, but an unofficial election campaign is already underway with a visit to a mosque possibly becoming an issue. This worries many Muslims who feel that irresponsible politicians and the media might inflame Islamophobia.



In an election, the civil behavior of Canadians gets overshadowed by dirty politics and inaccurate accusations to smear political opponents. This tactic worked for the Conservative Party in the last two elections. After Liberal prime minister Paul Martin Jr. was ousted from office by a corruption scandal, the Conservatives savaged his successor, the respected academician Stephen Dion. He and the Liberal Party lost ignominiously. Dion was replaced as Liberal leader by another respected academic, Michael Ignatieff. The Tories asserted that he was teaching in the United States and had returned to his homeland only to become prime minister. The attacks worked and the Liberals lost. Ignatieff quit.



These attacks were successful and Canada’s natural governing party lost so many seats that it did not even become the official opposition party in the 2011 election. The New Democratic Party won more seats than the Liberals’ 34 and became the official opposition for the first time. Pundits speculated that with the Conservatives firmly entrenched in power under the competent, though authoritarian Stephen Harper, the Liberal Party faced oblivion. Canada would then have a strong Conservative Party and a left-wing New Democratic Party which had won some provincial elections but had never won power at the federal level. The Conservatives looked set to replace the Liberals as Canada’s natural governing party.



Then came Justin Trudeau as the new Liberal leader. What worked in his favor was that his father the late Pierre Trudeau remains the country’s most popular former prime minister. He sparked Trudeaumania, with the masses just adoring him. He brought the Canadian constitution home from England, fought Quebec separatists tenaciously and gave the country a Charter of Rights and Freedom which protects all Canadians from arbitrary deprivation of rights.



Also boosting Justin Trudeau is the fact that though Prime Minister Harper has won three elections, gaining a majority of seats in the 2011 vote, Canadians see him as competent, calculating and wooden, but not warm. With the votes of Canadians divided between the centrist Liberals and the leftist New Democrats, sometimes the right-wing Tories get elected even though most voters vote against them.



Justin Trudeau, by contrast, wins support by his courage, warmth, humility and willingness to meet ordinary Canadians, listen to them and come up with new ideas. Only 41, he decided to run for Parliament in Quebec in a strong separatist riding and challenge the separatists in their own stronghold. He has won that riding in two elections.



His popularity led him to easy victory in the leadership of the federal Liberal party over veteran politicians. The party has surged under his leadership. Where the Liberal Party raised only $6.4 million from 34,000 donors in 2010, last year it raised $11.3 million from 71,000 donors. The party now has 160,000 members compared to 58,000 in 2011. Polls show that the Liberals enjoy 38 percent in public support compared to 25 percent for the governing Conservatives and 23 percent for the New Democrats. But Trudeau is not satisfied. He is combing the country to listen to the people and come up with suitable policies. He is also trying to attract outstanding Canadians to run for the Liberals in the next election.



This has the Conservatives worried even though some pollsters had described them as likely to become the country’s “perpetually dominant ruling party.” So the Tories have been attacking Trudeau as immature with dangerous ideas and lacking in experience.



Now the right-wing media and the Tories are attacking Trudeau for hobnobbing with “terrorists.” Trudeau addressed the annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto in 2012. In 2011, he visited the Al-Sunnah Al-Nabawiah mosque in his Montreal riding. Trudeau explained that he likes to exchange views with all sections of the Canadian people. He stated that he visits people and institutions in his riding to get to know his constituents’ concerns.



The New York Times reported in April 2011 that according to a leaked US Defense Department report of 2008 some Al-Qaeda followers were recruited, facilitated or trained in that mosque. But other politicians, such as former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, also visited the mosque. Indeed, many Canadian politicians go to mosques, synagogues and temples. Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has accused Trudeau of associating “with a group that allegedly radicalizes Canadians to join Al-Qaeda and engage in acts of unspeakable violent extremism.”



If so, some commentators have asked, why hasn’t the government charged those who are engaged in or are promoting violent extremism?



Sun News has been doing its best to portray Justin Trudeau as a sort of Islamic fifth columnist. However, a columnist in another newspaper wrote: “And since many Sun viewers already suspect that Trudeau was born in Kenya along with Barack Obama, its Muslim Menace programming presumably plays well to the network’s base.”

 

— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.