Federal "Conservatives" and the Fear of Crime.

Despite the fact that crime rates in this country have declined in recent years the federal conservatives are still trying to make a connection between immigration and crime.

Now Canada, as of four years ago, had the highest level of immigration in the world. Yet our homicide rate is close to 2 per 100,000 which is about half the American average. In fact the average murder rate down south is about the same as the rate in Regina, Saskatchewan for 2006, the highest in this country! This city and this province have the highest overall crime rates on a fairly consistent basis. Immigrants tend to go primarily to Ontario and Quebec with some heading out to Alberta. It is interesting to note that eastern Canada not only has most of the newcomers to this country but has consistently lower crime rates. The Shag finds it a bit funny that not only do crime rates increase from East to West on average the numbers of policemen tend to be highest on a per capita basis in the most crime ridden areas. Shouldn't it be the other way around if we are to believe the apostles of "law and order"? As well political ideology tends to move from left to right as we move in from the Atlantic coast. Prairie cities are the most violent with Regina and Saskatoon usually leading the pack. Winnipeg, Manitoba and Edmonton, Alberta are major players in the crime casino among larger centres. Anyway, here from the Harper Index, are a few more goodies on the federal election campaign and the role of Canada's neo-cons or what the Shag likes to call "private enterprise marxism".

TORONTO, September 26, 08: This week's immigrant-bashing comments by Calgary Centre Conservative candidate Lee Richardson highlighted the contradictions of his party's strategy to court voters from recent immigrant groups.

Stephen Harper and multiculturalism secretary of state Jason Kenney have worked hard to court "ethnic" voters with grand gestures, public announcements, and hundreds of community meetings. They're working against long-standing impressions that the Conservatives are anti-immigrant, however. These impressions are reinforced both by daily experience and by comments like these, which regularly seem to come from Conservatives.

Even Harper's ethnic diplomat Kenney has had his problems. In 2000, he suggested that "overheated Sikhs" may be "playing the race card" during the general election that year. He later apologized for the comment.

Now Harper is facing demands that Richardson resign or be fired as the party's candidate in Calgary Centre for suggesting that immigrants are prone to commit crimes. "Look at who's committing these crimes ... They're not the kid that grew up next door," Richardson told the Calgary newsmagazine Fast Forward Weekly.

"Particularly in big cities, we've got people that have grown up in a different culture," he said.

"And they don't have the same background in terms of the stable communities we had 20, 30 years ago in our cities and don't have the same respect for authority or people's person or property." Richardson later apologized, saying he was only talking about a "small minority" of people.

Many new Canadians and members of ethnic minorities see comments like these as representing the true feelings of Conservatives, rather than being merely "gaffes".

There is a "perception that the Tories, especially the people behind the new Conservative Party, the old Reformers, are not friends of immigration or immigrants," according to Mohammed Boujanene of the Canadian Arab Federation. He acknowledges "They did make an effort to recruit candidates from different ethnic groups... but at end of day it's not the outreach strategy that counts, it's the policy." Immigrants, he says, feel negative impacts of Conservative policy constantly in everyday life.

"They put forward legislation and policies that are completely against new immigrants and racialized minority groups." The cancellation of the Court Challenges program, anti-terrorism laws, and recent changes to the Immigration and Refugee Act all contribute to a sense of rejection for many. He says it doesn't help that Harper is linked to the US Republicans and that Harper's position on Israel is so "completely biased" that even when Canadian citizens were ducking Israel bombs in Lebanon, in 2006, Harper would not call for a ceasefire.