TARNISHING TOLERANCE
City smeared for helping needy
Calgary has been rejected by Ann Coulter as the 51st U.S. state. Finally, she says something I agree with.
We hadn’t exactly asked for statehood, but never mind. Coulter, the far-right American provocateur, disowns us for being tolerant and helpful.
It started with Anna Brooks’s recent story in the Herald about the halal food and clothing drive that helps Muslim immigrants and refugees.
What did Coulter say on Twitter after spotting the story online?
“Keep it up Calgary and we may not be able to make you our 51st state! Massive jump in poverty as ‘underprivileged’ ‘refugees’ pour in.”
It’s gratifying that most Canadian conservative leaders still reject this garbage.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would criticize an effort to help people in need, just because of their religious commitments,” newly crowned Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney said of Coulter’s tweet.
“Ann Coulter’s comments are just plain bigotry. Catholic charities operate according to Catholic teachings. Jewish charities respect kosher rules. Why shouldn’t charities serving Muslims respect halal precepts?”
Coulter’s also wrong about refugees bringing “massive poverty.”
A city of 1.2 million people welcomed 3,400 Syrians last year. That’s about one-tenth the number of newcomers who moved to Calgary in boom years.
We’re used to handling big population surges. Any uptick in poverty is due to the recession, not those Coulter calls “refugees” — in quotes, as if they’re bogus claimants, which they are not.
The trigger word for Coulter is Muslim. Her foreign policy toward Muslim countries is: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
She called for all U.S. airlines to refuse tickets to Muslims. Asked how they would travel, she said, “They could use flying carpets.”
It’s tempting to just turn away, but the reality is that agitators like Coulter have growing reach in the age of Donald Trump, the honorary president of the club.
Coulter has 1.4 million Twitter followers. Her books sell millions of copies. She has appeared hundreds of times on U.S. news and talk shows.
Right after putting up her tweet Tuesday, she was off to Sean Hannity’s hugely popular radio show.
Spewing bile is big business. Profitable business.
Of liberalism, Coulter said, “You will always find liberals rooting for savages against civilization.”
She has a special message for environmentalists:
“God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’”
Trump loves her books, especially the one called: Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole.
Coulter has a lot of fans in Calgary, too. In fact, this is where she got her idea for statehood.
When she spoke here in 2010, after being run off by the University of Ottawa, the crowd gave her a huge cheer when she proposed making Calgary the 51st state.
Coulter said Canada was the least diverse country she’d ever seen, on grounds that everybody in the audience looked like her.
In a TV interview, she said, “I’m more determined than ever to turn pretty much from Calgary through the west into the 51st state.
“We’ve got to save the good Canadians ...
“How did Canada go from being the country that sent us all of our best comedians to a bunch of whining, crying babies that can’t take a joke?”
It is all a joke, you see. Whatever these provocateurs say — like the time she told a Muslim student to catch the first carpet — they’re just kidding.
We should know that, Coulter said, because there’s no such thing as flying carpets. To paraphrase Trump — so funny!
Anna Brooks’s story, the one that started this, was a familiar piece of Canadiana, a description of how our communities help each other.
Last May 5, Postmedia reporter Annalise Klingbeil wrote another that turned into an international sensation.
She described how Syrian newcomers to Calgary were quietly raising money — $5 each — for victims of the fire then raging in Fort McMurray.
“Canadians gave us everything,” one woman said, “and now it’s time to return the favour.”
The story caught the world’s eye.
Within hours, nearly 600,000 people read it.
Many were powerfully moved that people so recently driven from their own homes would help others suffering the same agony.
I prefer those people to Ann Coulter as fellow citizens. She can keep her bloody statehood.