Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much

In a letter released today, Justin Trudeau, Liberal MP and immigration critic takes Jason Kenney, Minister of Immigration, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism, to task for alleged abuses of his office for partisan purposes. Now, I know Minister Kenney. I've had the pleasure of meeting him and talking with him on a number of occasions since 2003. Of course he is a proud and feisty conservative. But he is first and foremost a proud Canadian and Minister of the Crown - one who has presided over a revamped immigration process and has seen the number of immigrants increase to record highs beyond those of the supposedly most-immigrant-friendly Liberals.

Trudeau's petulant complaint got me reminiscing about my childhood. In 1984, I was an 8th grade student at one of the largest Jewish day schools in the country. We often received visits from the perennial Liberal MP in our riding, Father Roland De Corneille. Our class went on a school trip to Ottawa, and we had the honour to meet Mr. Trudeau's father, the Right Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who was then the Prime Minister. A 20 minute meeting with the PM, followed by an hour closed door session with the AG, the Honourable Robert Kaplan. For 25 eighth graders. That is some detailed engagement strategy, though I didn't understand it at the time.

Here's some more things about the Liberal ethnic engagement strategy I wonder about. As I asked Liberal MP Elinor Kaplan at an all candidates meeting a number of years ago when she was running against the Canadian Alliance candidate and accusing the CA of harbouring neo-Nazis, what explanation for Liberal hypocrisy did she have on the Nazi file? As the Deschenes Commission (set up by the Conservative Mulroney government) demonstrated, successive Liberal governments ignored the presence of Ukranian, Baltic, and German war criminals in Canada for decades (at least publicly. As John Loftus describes in his book The Secret War Against the Jews, Western governments including Canada's were using ex-Nazis as intelligence assets and the Liberals specifically as ethnic organizers, maintaining their electoral stranglehold on those immigrant communities). What did Mr. Trudeau's father do about this travesty done to our immigration process? 

Here's another: When convicted and deported anti-Semite and Holocaust denier - and new immigrant at the time - Ernst Zundel ran for its national party leadership in 1968, why did he feel the Liberal party was appropriate territory, and why did the party allow him to deliver a speech at the convention?

The truth is, Justin Trudeau's own words demonstrate why he is launching off at Kenney. As he told Corriere Canadese last May, "In the past, the so-called ethnic vote, in other words the vote of specific communities, has always been the prerogative of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, we Liberals have for too long considered this support a proven and sure thing. It was a strategic error."

Mr. Trudeau - it's time to stop taking Canadians for granted. Engagement and policy are related. Minister Kenney is good at it. You and Mr. Ignatieff, well, let's say you have some work to do.