Vancouver Province
for July 30, 1999

I have long known that I couldn’t support the Reform Party editorially or with my vote if they had any chance of forming a government. I sensed why this was so but could never put my finger on the reason. So what if one Reform MP went to Singapore to see what role flogging had in the administration of justice, he was just one MP. And so another was homophobic and got suspended from caucus – nothing to worry about. Can’t tab the whole party with the idiocies of one or two MPs. I had a lot of trouble with the breast-beating flag incident (which cost Reform the Port Coquitlam by-election) but some Reform MPs saw through that didn’t they?

But now I think on it, from the beginning moderates have been making excuses for the behaviour of one Reformer or another. There must be something wrong here – but what was it?

Thanks to John Reynolds, MP, I now know the answer. The Reform Party is mean-spirited but worse, it cares nothing about the rights of people much less the Rule of Law.

Canada is a charter member of the United Nations and sits on the Security Council. It adheres, therefore, to the United Nations policy about refugees. Yet here is what Mr Reynolds had to say about the 123 Chinese who came ashore a few days ago. "These people are criminal", said Mr Reynolds, the [Reform] party’s chief justice critic. "They should be sent home. These people paid to do something illegally, and its going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars."

It would never occur to Mr Reynolds that this answer begs a very important question – how the hell do you know that until you’ve had a hearing?

And there’s a practical matter here. How does a person become a refugee if he doesn’t come to the country in which he is seeking refuge? The very essence of seeking refuge requires that you physically throw yourself on the mercy of those from whom you seek help.

Here’s another disturbing fact. The United States, for whom we are supposed to be playing guard dog in these matters (because "these people" always wind up in the bowels of New York City, so we’re told) accepts Cuban refugees by the boat load. It even sends the coast guard into Cuban waters to rescue would be refugees. They do that because Cuba is a vicious communist dictatorship.

Well, Mr Reynolds, the last time I looked, China was a vicious communist dictatorship that threatened the freedom and life of any who spoke ill of the regime. How come Cubans in a leaky boat are welcome and Chinese in a leaky boat are not?

Mr Reynolds and his party need some basic instruction in civics. We live under the Rule of Law. We do not presume that people are criminals or, as others have put it so neatly, "bogus" refugees - we hold hearings to determine that.

There are three choices open to us. We can reject all refugees and declare them, irrespective of circumstances, to be "bogus" and "criminals". That violates our responsibilities under the UN but at least it’s an honest position. We can accept our responsibilities and that there’s a cost of doing this. Or we can pretend that we accept refugees but throw everyone who claims to be such out of the country forthwith – especially if they’re from Asia.

I owe Mr Reynolds my thanks. I now know why I can’t ever support Reform if they have a chance to be government. They’re mean spirited bigots who play to the cheap seats instead of taking the responsible position of telling the crackers they cater to that Canada does have obligations and that we do not believe in making decisions based upon prejudices but only after a fair hearing. Instead of making plain the fact that there is a vast difference between immigrants and refugees, the Reform party blurs that distinction and probes for the bigotry it knows it can find. While always proclaiming that it has the purest of motives, the Reform party can be counted upon to raise the flag of bigotry wherever the opportunity arises.

I have in the past supported Reform because of its constitutional stance, so eminently correct in my view, but having watched their performance on social issues, I’ll vote Liberal (may my ears be boxed for saying it but that’s how bad it is) before I’d put a cross in front of a Reform candidate again.