Motions of controversy

Re: Tories defer motion after Sikh uproar, March 2

It is interesting that a motion that begins by praising the contributions that Sikhs and other Indo- Canadians have made to our national life should be considered by some Sikhs as being “extremely wrong” and involving frivolous allegations.

If someone introduced a motion in the U. S. Congress praising the contributions that white Protestants of British and Irish ancestry had made to American society, but condemning the Ku Klux Klan, it would not be seen as reflecting negatively on white Protestants as a whole. In the past, many racist groups in the U. S. were dominated by Protestants of Anglo- Saxon origin, but people still recognized that there were many good people of that religion and ethnicity.

It should be possible to word a motion that condemns terrorists within a specific ethnic or religious group without condemning that group as a whole. I believe the Conservative motion requires further refinement but its intention is reasonable. Bruce Couchman, Ottawa The Conser vatives were right to drop their motion on Khalistani extremism. We don’t need a motion that singles out any particular flavour of extremism or terrorism any more than we needed a motion on “Islamophobia.”

We already have laws that combat all forms of terrorism and racism. David Montgomery, Cambridge Ont.