Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined mourners at the funeral today this morning for Reese Fallon, the 18-year-old woman who was one of two people killed in a shooting rampage last weekend in Toronto. I would imagine that his personal security it was very tight.
What about Canadian citizens security? They getting shot left and right every day? What he’s doing about the gun laws and refugees those escaping from US into our country every day?
We need to do things that work on a practical level, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has to look at things from an economic point of view. We need to look at refugees, all prospective immigrants, from a fair, unbiased, non-racist perspective — not like Trudeau is doing right now.
On Wednesday “ISIS” (the Islamic State Group) reportedly claimed responsibility for the shooting that left a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman dead and 13 others injured.
And the free world that ISIS is still a significant threat to the peace and safety of innocent citizens across the free world. We all must continue to be vigilant in the face of what is clearly an ongoing threat to us all.
As an immigrant myself, my heart does go out to Muslims who will surely feel the effects of this ongoing terrorism with, at best, victims of suspicion and at the very worst, victims of outright racism. I believe that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding people, just as I believe one of the intended outcomes of these terrorist attacks is to be a catalyst for anti-Muslim reaction that will serve to divide Canadian society and perhaps ultimately promote radicalization.
I strongly believe the best weapon to fight radicalization in Canada is to fight racism against our Muslim citizens; racism that could isolate this community and create a cohort of disaffected youth who may, as a result, look to more radical elements of the faith.
Also, Muslim community need to work closely with our Law Enforcement Agencies as an integral part of the solution to home grown terrorism, or indeed to fight any act of terrorism here, or anywhere where ISIS may strike. While I remain convinced that this principle is key to early detection of radicalized elements in any community and probably the best hope for preventing terrorists from succeeding in their attacks on the innocent among us all, the greater community has an equally important role to play in putting a stop to racism in all of its forms.
In his speech of 1858 that launched his political career, Abraham Lincoln famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Along this same line, I believe a nation’s people divided against each other cannot ever live peacefully or prosperously, and racism is that thing which I believe provides the greatest threat to our peace, and to divide us from each other.
To date, the major and effective acts of savagery in the name of ISIS have been in the United States, the old-world nations of Europe, and against western and American targets abroad. Trucks and cars plowing into people have become new weapons against innocent citizens going about their daily lives. Terror arrives in explosions and fire on public transit systems crowded with commuters.
In the face of this senseless violence, we must strengthen the bonds that unite our communities. To allow anything to divide us will be to invite on ourselves a greater threat of violence at home, and give those who would create terror in our society a greater chance of success here, in Canada.
Brampton-based Surjit Singh Flora is a veteran journalist and freelance writer.
