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Letter: MPs sometimes make false accusations

Does Mr. Singh speak for the party?
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MPs sometimes make false accusations

Letter writer Dara Quast makes some good points. It should be unacceptable to use insult and profanity to “degrade an MP or anyone…in social media or in letters to a local paper”. And people should be “held accountable for the falsehoods in their statements.” Unfortunately, MPs themselves at times indulge in making false accusations. When they do make fatuous and damaging statements, including about the Freedom Convoy, they should be held accountable.

On Jan. 29, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted, “Conservative MPs have endorsed a convoy led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline and equate Islam to a disease.” Really? How do you derive that from concerns about vaccine mandates and government lockdowns? Does Mr. Singh speak for the party? Is he aware that a large percentage of Canadian truckers are Sikhs and that Sikhs were among the protesters?

On p. A7 of this paper on Feb. 10, Alistair MacGregor surmised that support for the protest was “being used to promote extremism, white supremacy, antisemitism, and other forms of hate”. One sentence in the whole article acknowledges “many people participated peacefully in the protest”; the remainder of the article focuses on a few objectionable elements as though they typified the whole movement. What of the thousands who welcomed RCMP officers, put out food for the homeless, ensured the collection of garbage, stood together singing ‘O Canada’ and waving Canadian flags? Those don’t count? Our MP announced his Feb. 3 motion to bring representatives from GoFundMe to answer questions and insinuated that “foreign and anonymous funding is fueling extremism in Canada.” Well, that meeting took place one month later on March 3, with the president of GoFundMe. Sarah Turnbull of CTV News reported, “Speaking before the House of Commons public safety and national security committee, Juan Benitez said 88 per cent of donated funds to the movement originated in Canada and 86 per cent of donors were from Canada.”

It was easy to loudly and publicly infer the worst. Now that we know differently, perhaps a public apology would be in order?

Edward Field

Duncan