Local MP urges compassion during hate-filled times

The local Member of Parliament is calling for a deescalation of protest violence and vitriolic comment in wake of the Charlottesville incident these past few weeks.

“It’s disturbing that there seems to be militant need to express oneself,” says Glen Motz, a former police officer who is the MP for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. “We have people who just this past weekend who marked the 75th anniversary of the Dieppe raid.

“We have people who gave their lives for us to have the freedoms we enjoy. That includes the freedom of speech, and the freedom to express oneself. We don’t all agree but we should be able to debate issues we disagree on without hating each other.”

Motz says he has taken comfort in a quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. as he has watched news of unfolding events since Charlottesville.

“I think Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: ‘Evil committed against one is evil committed against all. Dignity, respect and love overcomes.’ That’s my position on the events which happened in Charlottesville, and anything connected to it on all sides. That statement is absolutely true.”

Motz says there must be no ambiguity when it comes to condemnation of ideologies of hatred, such as white supremacy and neo-Nazism.

“What place does that kind of ideology have in any society? None.”

But he also says there is absolutely no justification for any form of violence in protesting such ideologies.

“We should be able to debate issues and ideologies, whatever they are, that are contrary to our own without hating the person who has either beliefs or positions,” he says.

Motz also stated he has never had a professional relationship with The Rebel, which has been accused of giving a sympathetic platform to extremist alt.-right views in recent weeks, and he does not follow its website.