By BRIAN LILLEY,
Parliamentary Bureau Last Updated: October 27, 2010 5:11pm
OTTAWA – The RCMP have been told to drop any participation in a “peace” conference scheduled for Thursday night in Ottawa. The RCMP’s “ethnic liaison office” was promoting the event to members of the national force and one of the participants is a member of the Mounties’ cultural diversity committee. On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told the Mounties to have nothing to do with events promoting hatred.
“As soon as I learned about this event I asked the RCMP to explain its involvement. I have asked it to immediately cease any participation,” Toews told the Commons.
“Let me be clear. Canada’s national police force must have no involvement in any event organized by those who promote extremism and hatred.”
Davood Ameri of the Islamic World Peace Forum is listed as a speaker for the event called, “Just and Sustainable Peace – A Global Challenge.” Ameri’s group runs a website that features graphic anti-Semitic cartoons and a series of articles that call the U.S. a terrorist state and document what it deems human rights abuses in the U.S.
The event is being held at the Government Conference Centre across from Parliament Hill and also features several professors from the University of Tehran. Sayeh Hassan, an Iranian-Canadian lawyer and activist in the pro-democracy movement, told QMI Agency that the professors coming are closely linked to the oppressive regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The event is to be moderated by Imam Zijad Delic, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Delic had a speaking engagement at National Defence headquarters cancelled earlier this month after Defence Minister Peter MacKay deemed him and his organization “too controversial.”
Delic told QMI that he is taking part in the event as a moderator and only agreed to take part because it is a conference on peace.
“If these people propose anything that goes against Canadian values, I will oppose,” Delic said.
Calls to the organizers of the conference for comment were not returned.
