Tory hopeful absent at debate
Abdi skips Ottawa West-Nepean event organized by Muslim group
Conservative candidate Abdul Abdi was a no-show at an all-candidates’ debate Friday in Ottawa West-Nepean organized by the Muslim Association of Canada.
His absence was surprising because Abdi, who had participated in an all-candidates’ debate the previous night, presumably should be eager to cultivate support among those who share his Muslim faith.
He had initially confirmed his participation in Friday’s event, but his campaign contacted the Muslim Association of Canada on Wednesday to say he had another obligation. Christian Heritage candidate Rod Taylor also skipped the event.
Abdi’s absence was certainly noted by the 50 or so people, predominantly Muslim, who showed up for the discussion between the four candidates who participated — Liberal Anita Vandenbeld, New Democrat Marlene Rivier, Green candidate Mark Brooks and Marxist-Leninist Sam Heaton.
One questioner asked organizers if Abdi had been invited, saying many in the room would like to vote for him but he was running for “the wrong party.”
Another lamented that he had wanted to ask Abdi about the Conservative position on the niqab, which has emerged as a hot-button issue, particularly in Quebec.
“The Conservative candidate didn’t even come, folks,” said Green candidate Brooks. “So we need to get rid of this government.”
Questions from organizers of Friday’s event focused on issues of interest to the Muslim community, including immigration, the government’s controversial anti-terrorism law and Bill C-24, the new law that allows the government to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism.
All candidates said they would make it easier to sponsor family members to Canada. Vandenbeld won applause when she declared: “We will not pick and choose who can come to this country based on political considerations.”
All also declared their party’s intent to repeal Bill C-24. “They’re bringing back banishment,” Heaton said, describing the process as “medieval.”
Rivier called Bill C-51, the antiterrorism law, “a dangerous bill that reflects the worst of thinking on this matter” and said an NDP government would repeal it.
She reminded the audience that, unlike the Liberals, her party voted against the bill on principle “when it was quite popular in the polls.”
Brooks made the point that Green party Leader Elizabeth May was the first to oppose C-51 and proposed 60 amendments to it, while Vandenbeld said the Liberals would “amend and repeal the egregious elements of this bill.”
When asked where they stood on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq and Syria, several candidates seized the opportunity to lament the Conservative government’s approach to foreign policy. “We can no longer be the honest brokers for peace that we have been in the past,” said Rivier.
Vandenbeld, who has worked extensively abroad for the United Nations, talked about a program she ran designed to bring Israeli and Palestinian women together. “I couldn’t get the Canadian government to fund it,” she said. “I had to get money from Norway and Spain.”
Organizers also asked what the candidates would do to create jobs, noting the unemployment rate for Muslims in Canada is 13.9 per cent — double the national average. That gave Vandenbeld an opening to tout the Liberal plan to run modest deficits for three years to help pay for $125 billion in new infrastructure.