Now, the Thought Police Are After Ezra Levant for Criticisms of Gypsies
“Hate laws” exist to shield privileged groups from criticism and to shut down or stifle debate on key topics, like immigration. Beginning in the 1930s, the Canadian Jewish Congress began lobbying mightily for “hate” laws. Finally, in 1970, thanks to socialist Pierre Trudeau, they succeeded and we got Canada’s notorious “hate law” — Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code.
The latest potential victim is Ezra Levant, himself Jewish but no admirer of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Levant is a lawyer, writer and news commentator on Sun News television.
The delightful thing about “hate laws” is that a privileged minority can holler “hate” and now their critic becomes the object of attack. It’s an old sleazy lawyer’s trick: accuse the accuser. The neat thing is, by whooping up this noise about “hate”. the privilege group avoids having to answer or refute the criticism or deal with unflattering facts because the mere mention of these facts is “hate.”.
The Toronto Star (October 24, 2012) reported:” A complaint about broadcaster Ezra Levant’s rant that likened Gypsies to ‘swindlers’ has prompted a Toronto police investigation. Toronto’s Roma Community Centre, which has called the rant ‘vertly racist, prejudicial, and demeaning,’ lodged the complaint with police on Oct. 11.
Const. Wendy Drummond confirmed Toronto police had received the complaint and were investigating the comments aired on Levant’s Sun News show, The Source, on Sept. 5.
An Oct. 15 statement from Roma Community Centre executive director Gina Csányi-Robah described Levant’s comments as “nearly nine minutes of on-air racist hate-speech targeting our community.” Early in Levant’s segment, “The Jew vs. the Gypsies,” he likened Gypsies with ‘swindlers,’ and said ‘too many have come here as false refugees.’ Levant attempted to qualify his comments by saying politically correct terms are being used to obscure the truth.
Csányi-Robah said called the comments “one of the longest and most sustained on-air broadcasts of hate-speech against any community in Canada that we’ve witnessed since our organization was established in 1997.”
Levant argued: “‘These are gypsies,’ he tells us, ‘a culture synonymous with swindlers. The phrase gypsy and cheater have been so interchangeable historically that the word has entered the English language as a verb: he gypped me. Well the gypsies have gypped us. Too many have come here as false refugees. And they come here to gyp us again and rob us blind as they have done in Europe for centuries. . . They’re gypsies. And one of the central characteristics of that culture is that their chief economy is theft and begging.” (Toronto Star, September 15, 2012)
Forget all the fog about “hate”: the only relevant question is whether what Levant said was true. Do Gypsy “refugees” — not all, of course — commit many crimes, especially theft and shoplifting? Even though our press tends to downplay immigrant crimes, or, as in a recant television news story about Gypsy gangs descending on stores to shoplift that identified the bizarrely dressed perpetrators as dressed in Eastern European costumes, there have been many reports of considerable criminality among the Gypsy “refugee” claimants, many who seem to hit the ground thieving not long after they land.
Even Bernie Farber former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, in a feverish denunciation of Ezra Levant, reluctantly admitted: “There will always be those who claim the Roma engage in lawlessness and crime. And in Europe, statistics do demonstrate a significant increase in theft by those living in Roma encampments. These numbers have been used by French authorities to justify large scale deportations of Roma.|” (National Post, September 25, 2012)
“The Canadian Border Services Agency is asleep at the wheel allowing more than 400 alleged Roma gypsies – many of whom have extensive criminal records – into the country and specifically the GTA, critics say.
This week, the Durham Regional Police Service confirmed they had arrested 34 people and laid 263 charges in the largest investigation of its kind in the region,” CNEWS reported (September 8, 2012)
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“Former Conservative MPP Toni Skarica, an Ontario Crown Attorney who, speaking at a parliamentary committee, said Roma refugees from Hungary come to Canada because ‘we have the most generous welfare package for refugees in the world. That’s why they’re coming here, because they get the best deal here.’” (Toronto Star, September 15, 2012)
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has repeatedly denounced the wholesale welfare scamming being perpetrated by many Gypsy “refugee” claimants. And, as to Ezra Levant’s charge that many are phoney refugee claimants, that is the conclusion of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, which rejects the overwhelming number of claims. Think about it. Hungary is a democratic country and part of the European Union. If Gypsies felt persecuted in Hungary, they could move, let’s say to Germany. The rub is that, while they get welfare and many social benefits including housing in Hungary, most other European countries would require them to work. They would not get welfare. So, hey, head to Pollyanna Canada, say the magic “:refugee” word, scarf up welfare and other social services and maybe do a little bit of thieving on the side.
A healthy nation would not rely on political police to investigate “hate.” We should have a full debate. Let the complaining Gypsy leader Gina Csányi-Robah offer evidence that her people are not disproportionately involved in shoplifting Perhaps, she can bring forth evidence that the shoplifting is really being perpetrated by clever Icelanders in dark face, dressed up in “Eastern European folk costumes.”
A full 98 per cent of Gypsy refugee claims worldwide end up in Canada and the vast majority of these claims are abandoned or rejected.
The government is bringing in new legislation to limit Gypsy “refugee” claims. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney ” hopes to create a list of countries that generally don’t produce refugees, to make it easier for the Canada Border Services Agency to separate unfounded refugee claims from those that have merit. Hungary, where a bulk of Roma refugee claims come from – and from where the vast majority are abandoned, withdrawn or rejected – would be on that list. ‘Countries whose nationals have an acceptance rate of 25% or less, or where 60% or more of claimants from a country have abandoned or withdrawn their claims … would be subject to designation,’ he said.” (CNEWS, October 16, 2012).
Canadians seem to approve. They were asked: “Do you think the federal government should attempt to limit Roma refugee claims?”
An overwhelming 85.7% said yes; 10% said no; and 4% were not sure.”? (CNEWS, October 16, 2012).