A terrorist attack in Canada and the politicians who primed it

On Sunday, Islamophobic violence surfaced once again in Canada. It was former PM Stephen Harper who stoked it.

Not surprisingly, it took him a while. Almost two days after a family on an evening walk in London, Ontario was mowed down like a set of bowling pins while waiting at an intersection by a terrorist driving a pick-up truck intent on killing Muslims, Canada’s former prime minister, Stephen Harper, briefly emerged from his agreeable life running a lucrative consultancy business to say something about the “tragedy”. I suspect Harper’s tardiness in penning his obligatory tweet condemning “cruel acts of racial and faith based hatred” was likely the product, in part, of his vulgar record while prime minister as the accelerant-in-chief of fomenting suspicion and animus towards Muslims he was duty-bound to have, instead, welcomed and celebrated as loyal, devoted Canadians.