This week, Israel formally opened the newest and most impressive Holocaust Museum the world has ever seen.
This statement on the extreme of inhumanity, and at the same time, the incredibly brave people who risked it all to help victims they never met, and would never know, is an equal statement to the greatness that also lies within the human soul.
On Sunday March 13, 2005, I wrote about Christiane Martel, whose eyes glazed over when I compared ethnocentric nationalism in Quebec to the commonality of the motivating force behind the Nazi movement in Europe.
The fact that someone can feel so blase about the most heinous of crimes in the annals of human history is beyond me.
Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations is someone I hold in very little regard. But he said something at the opening ceremonies of this Holocaust Museum which is carved into the rock atop where Yad Vashem sits in Jerusalem.
To paraphrase what Annan said:
The Holocaust was an event not just about Jews, but more about humanity. It is important for the whole world to learn the lesson of how barbaric a civilized nation can be once the thin layer of humanity is peeld back to see the savage beast of ethnocentric nationalism.
I’m not writing about the Holocaust though.
What I am writing about is how utterly ashamed I am of Canada. Yet again.
Amongst the Canadian delegation sent to Israel in honor of this new museum dedicated to the memory of the worst instance of ethnocentric nationalism, was Canada’s Liberal Minister of Transport, Jean Lapierre.
In a Letter To The Publisher written by Robert O’Brien (Please see ARCHIVES March 16, 2005), O’Brien implores Peter Goldring (Conservative MP for Edmonton East) to demand from Jean Lapierre an apology for anti-English remarks he made when he was a Radio Talk Show host in Montreal on CKAC.
(This is a letter that is very much worth your time to read)
Lapierre said that he would take to the streets and protest if the Eaton retail chain displayed more English signs in Montreal.
Jean Lapierre was a federal Liberal Member of Parliament in Canada until he stabbed his Party in the back in 1990 to cross the floor for the purpose of creating a “federal” Quebec Separatist Party, the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa.
Like its provincial cousin in Quebec (the Parti Québécois), the Bloc Québécois is all about French language supremacy, and Quebec’s desire to leave Canada to form an ethnocentric state.
Lapierre is on record as being a STAUNCH proponent of Quebec’s language laws which forbids the unrestricted use of the English language.
What Quebec’s language law (Bill 101) has successfully accomplished, was the near total invisibility of all minorities and non French cultures in the province of Quebec. And the disappearance and history of Montreal’s English language community.
And this is the man Canada sends to Israel to represent us at the opening of the world’s largest and perhaps most important museum that recalls the venom and misery created by ethnocentric nationalism brought to the extreme.
Lapierre was brought on-board the Liberal Party of Canada because Paul Martin, Canada’s Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada thought he (Lapierre) would bring ethnocentric Quebec votes to his Liberal Party.
Paul Martin was wrong!
Jean Lapierre brought nothing to the federal Liberals but disgrace. And now he’s bringing disgrace to Canada by representing us at a Hallowed Site created to expose the kind of sickness Lapierre supports.
Shame on Lapierre. Shame on Paul Martin. Shame on Canada.
One Comment
A great story Howard. If everyone could get along like that the world would be a much better place…..Hmmm,,,maybe we should all ride 🙂
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