CBSA
CBSA Officer Right-Wing Bias
The only cases of inadmissibility of Egyptian refugees are by the Minister’s representative Mr. Wicharuk and his team in Vancouver. Community members in Vancouver discovered that Mr. Wicharuk had posted several images of the US flag that is grayed out with a solid blue line.
The ‘Thin Blue Line’ originated as a means to show solidarity with police and law enforcement. However, the ‘Thin Blue Line flag’, has been embraced by right wing supporters in the US, especially by the Blue Lives Matter movement, which sprung up in 2014 as a counterforce to the anti-racism Black Lives Matter movement.
In 2017, the Thin Blue Line flag was flown during the Charlottesville incident, then reported as the biggest gathering of white nationalists in over a decade.
Thin Blue Line and other agencies and the Ottawa Convoy
An RCMP directive has banned officers from using this symbol while on duty because it has resulted in a divisive environment and doesn’t help to strengthen ties between law enforcement and the people they are meant to serve.
The Ottawa Police Service has banned the use of this insignia.
Montreal Police were seen with the symbol on their uniform during the Ottawa Convoy which raised concern. The police service is now reviewing this due to critics arguing that it is controversial and divisive due to its association with right-wing and white nationalist groups.
Cases Tainted By Islamophobia
- The CBSA has relied on material from right-wing and/or anti-Muslim institutions that have demonstrated a pattern of Islamophobic prejudice in order to demonstrate that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the MB is or was engaged in terrorism and or subversive activity.
- The CBSA has retained the support of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), an Israel-based think tank founded by high-ranking Israeli military personnel with former and present ties to Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service), the Israeli National Security Council, and the Israeli Defense Forces. Human rights organisations have described the ICT as a right-wing think tank that consistently produces Islamophobic and anti-Arab analysis on terrorism.
- The CBSA has relied on material gathered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), an anti-Muslim group created by Steven Emerson in 1995. The primary goal of IPT is to portray Islam as a faith that is inherently radical, violent, and antagonistic.
Thomas Quiggin
The CBSA submitted a report by a well known Canadian Islamophobe, Thomas Quiggin, called “The Muslim Brotherhood in North America (Canada/USA)”. According to a 2014 article in Maclean’s magazine titled ‘Muslim Brotherhood: the new Islamist bogeyman in Canada”: “Quiggin’s report reads more like a doomsday manifesto, predicting the end of Western civilization at the hands of Muslims” and portrays Canada’s Muslim community as “a secretive cabal plotting the downfall of Western civilization from within“. Mr. Wicharuk has exploited elements of this research to target genuine Canadian Muslim organisations, accusing them of terrorism. This is an extreme form of Islamophobia, because it discriminates against Muslims living in Canada.
Quiggin recently served as a leading figure of the Ottawa Convoy responsible for the intelligence.
Quiggin, is the author of a fictional account of Trudeau’s assassination in a self-published novel about a global plot to destroy freedom.
Bias To Egypt’s Military Coup
Mr. Wicharuk has supplied evidence that characterises the 2013 military coup as a revolution, which is erroneous information, except from the framing by the current Egyptian regime. Even worse, the evidence submitted by Mr. Wicharuk justified the killing and massacre of over a thousand Egyptians in Rabaa by the military government. The fact that he has submitted material that is commissioned by the state that has persecuted the refugees in question demonstrates his partisan leaning which is in violation of the code of conduct.
Mr. Wicharuk has worked closely with the Egyptian authorities and has relied on a study commissioned by the present Egyptian regime for his evidence. In response to the 2013 military coup in Egypt, thousands of Egyptian nationals have applied for refugee status in nations all over the world. Political activists, opposition figures, journalists, and human rights defenders are among those who have applied for refuge in Canada. This government commissioned report has been utilized by the Egyptian authorities to target Egyptian refugees in an attempt to prevent them from submitting claims for asylum.