Canadian Politicians Won’t Stop Invoking Hitler While Debating Terrorism

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

While Canadian warplanes are bombing the Islamic State in the Middle East, two of the main Canadian political parties have developed a bad habit of breaking Godwin's Law while debating anti-terror laws back home.

On two separate occasions over the course of just 12 hours, both Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney managed to take something that has absolutely nothing to do with Hitler and make it all about Hitler.

"None is too many."
Kicking off a two-day set of inappropriate references to the Holocaust was aspiring prime minister Trudeau.

The Liberal chief was delivering remarks on liberty Monday—though conspicuously not on the civil-liberties-infringing legislation that he's supporting. Trudeau used part of his speech to underline other kinds of liberty. Namely, he doubled down on his already full-throated support of a woman's right to choose—birth control, abortions, the niqab—and the ability of religious and sexual minorities to express themselves.

But he wasn't there to focus on promoting increased access to abortion services. He was there to talk about Muslims.

The Liberal leader began by introducing a history of Canadian racism—the Chinese head tax; the internment of Japanese, Ukrainians, and Italians during the world wars; the discrimination pitted against Franco-Quebecers; and so on. From there, he took a long jump to the current political climate.

"We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy toward Jews in the 30s and 40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today," Trudeau said.

That " none is too many" line is a reference to Canada's policy of turning away Jewish refugees before, during, and after the Second World War. One such example, the S.S. St Louis, was forbidden from even docking in Canada—most of its nearly 1,000 passengers were sent to concentration camps after returning to Europe, where about a quarter of them died.

Part of Trudeau's basis for comparing state-based racism of 70 years ago was the recent decision of the Harper government to appeal a federal court ruling.

The Conservatives have become quite adamant that immigrants—specifically Muslim women wearing a niqab—have to show their faces at citizenship ceremonies. (Even though women sporting the niqab are already willing to do that, so long as it's only in the company of women.)

The courts have already called the policy illegal, and struck it down. The Conservatives' appeal doesn't have much of a chance of succeeding. Still, Trudeau forged on.

"Fear is a dangerous thing. Once stoked, whether by a judge from the bench or a prime minister with a dog whistle, there is no way to predict where it will end," he said.

"The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chamber; it began with words."
Meanwhile, in the most flagrant abuse of the correlation-doesn't-equal-causation rule, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney went around blaming words for mass murder.

"The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chamber; it began with words, so we have to be careful. That's why I feel this measure is so important," Blaney told a Parliamentary committee.

The minister made the comment while defending his much-maligned anti-terrorism bill, C-51, which would criminalize the dissemination of terrorist propaganda—and, also, give spies the power to spy on groups of Canadians without warrant, and possibly use information obtained by torture.

Without it, the public safety minister warned, we'd be in trouble.

But the opposition wasn't having any of it. NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison asked the minister to walk back the remarks.

"I would assert that there is no equivalence to anything we're talking about here today to the Holocaust. At best, the reference seems to trivialize the Holocaust," Garrison said. "I'd like to offer the minister an opportunity to withdraw that comment."

Blaney did not.

"Violence begins with words. Hate begins with words. I could talk to you about the genocide in Rwanda, which started on the radio and contributed to a horrible genocide," Blaney said in French. "If it's a cat, it's a cat."

Blaney then repeated his original Holocaust statement.

"It's for this reason why it's important to respect the rights and liberties of Canadians, but we will not tolerate inciting violence."

On the issue of rights and liberties, the government has finally admitted that, no, CSIS won't need a warrant for most of its operations under this new legislation.

While different ministers have riffed on the theme, the government had consistently insinuated that CSIS will need to go before a judge every time it wants to "disrupt" a possible threat.

"If there are any legal implications, the intelligence agency will have to obtain a warrant and judicial authorization," Blaney said in February.

But VICE asked the minister if that was really the case or whether, as experts have said, a warrant is only required if CSIS plans on ignoring a Canadian's Charter rights. Blaney admitted, yes, that's the case.

"Any time that the activity conducted by CSIS could infringe the rights of Canadians, they will have to seek a warrant," he said on Monday outside of a committee where Senators were studying his other bill to widely expand CSIS' powers without increasing oversight.

Of course, CSIS itself will decide whether or not it thinks its operation might infringe someone's rights. Since they won't, necessarily, have to go before a judge after the fact, we'll probably never know.

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