Are Conservative Ridings More at Risk of Hate Crimes?
The alternative, sadly, is that only those people living in Conservative ridings are most eligible for protection from hate crimes.
Stockwell Day, in (related) news, has a blog of sorts. Recently he advanced the bizarre claim that a Christian cabinet minister in Pakistan was assassinated by terrorists because being Christian is a capital crime in that country is a capital crime. It isn’t, it would be rather strange for a Christian to become a government minister if it was, and although the man’s death is very sad, BigCityLib rightly castigated Day for his slipperiness with the truth. But then I noticed something else. In Canada, Day wrote, the Ministry of Public Safety gives out security funding to community centres and churches that fear “hate-motivated crimes or vandalism.” (Quite a range of crime, then.)
After five years of Conservative government, you probably won’t be surprised by the contents of this table:
Recipient | Amount | Riding |
|---|---|---|
| Akiva Academy | Unknown | Conservative (Stephen Harper) |
| Chabad Alberta | Unknown | Conservative (Stephen Harper) |
| Edmonton City Centre Church Corporation | Unknown | Conservative (Laurie Hawn) |
| Immigrant Centre Manitoba | $26 686.50 | NDP (Pat Martin) |
| Interior Indian Friendship Society | Unknown | Conservative (Cathy McLeod) |
| Manitoba Islamic Association | $15 514.16 | Conservative (Rod Bruinooge) |
| Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture | Unknown | Liberal (Ussaj Dosanjh) |
| White Buffalo Youth Lodge | Unknown | Conservative (Kelly Block) |
So 6 to 2 in favor of Conservatives, including no less than two (25%) in Stephen Harper’s own riding. I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Incidentally, the new round of funding (and presumably others recently) comes after a 2009 amendment which states that sites applying for protection money had to demonstrate a history of crime against the community they represented, rather than a history of crime against their actual organization or site of operation.
While it’s typical and unsurprising of government patronage, it’s a point that needs to be repeated, especially because we’re supposedly talking about protecting Canadians from violent crime here. When the Mafia demands money from shopkeepers in exchange for protection, we call it an illegal protection racket. When the Conservative Party demands votes from Canadians in exchange for protection, we call it… what, exactly?
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Anon.
Why are the CPoC amounts unavailable? More of the usual PMO secrecy?
I can sort of understand seven of the eight organisations being on the list but the Edmonton City Centre Church Corporation, known as E4C? It’s a Christian charity.
Seems a little out of place although I have heard that christians are terribly oppressed these days /snark.
Sixth Estate
Probably not — I’m going by press releases because there doesn’t seem to be a central list of recipients anywhere on the government website. But I doubt the numbers are actually restricted information.
I couldn’t tell you how a Christian church managed to establish a risk of hate crimes, but it would be definitely be interesting to see how they explained it on their application for funding.
chris
Maybe there is no list because they really don’t want you see it?
(I’ll be better when I get my new hat!
chris
Er….)
Sixth Estate
Chris,
More of the funding should be listed in older press releases as well as in the Proactive Disclosure database (but only for those over $25,000; some are smaller). I’ll do some more digging.
My suspicion is that something funny happened, though. This “pilot” was supposed to end last year. The fact that it’s still giving out funding raises questions. It’s a pretty minor program, though, only a few million dollars total.
Sixth Estate
Oh, and nice hat.