.@jaketapper: You want to talk about ignoring terrorism? Why hasn't the President offered his sympathy to our neighbors in the North? pic.twitter.com/Km426sl0mX
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) February 7, 2017
Donald Trump's people put out a list of terrorist attacks that they claim mostly were underreported. The attacks in Quebec and Ottawa in October 2014 are on that list. I saw U.S. cable news showing coverage of Parliament following those attacks. The attack in Quebec might have been a little undercovered but you can find plenty of media accounts for the first attack. We can always call for more coverage of Canada, but we have no criticism for the coverage of the 2014 shootings.
The Trump people haven't responded to the Quebec City mosque shooting last month. Fox News erroneously reported a Muslim suspect; that person of interest turned out to be a witness who called in the shooting. The alleged perpetrator is a Quebecois man who reportedly has far-right and anti-Muslim views.
This exchange between CNN host Jake Tapper and pressed Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway happened on Tuesday:
"In Quebec City last week, a white right-wing terrorist opened fire on a mosque. A mosque filled with innocent men, woman and children. Six people were killed. President Trump has not said or tweeted one public word about this," Tapper said. "You want to talk about ignoring terrorism? Why hasn't the president offered his sympathy to our neighbors in the north?"
"I know he's sympathetic to any loss of life," Conway responded. "It's completely senseless and it needs to stop regardless of who is lodging the attack. We of course are very sad about loss of life here."
Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer switched quickly from offering sympathies to Canada after the Quebec City shooting to using the attack to justify the Trump travel ban.
The Trump list ignores attacks from white supremacists, Islamophobes, or right-wing extremists.
Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) was given a similar question from CNN's Alisyn Camerota: "Why isn't the president talking about the white terrorists who mowed down six Muslims praying at their mosque?" Rep. Duffy gave us some insight into the GOP mentality, saying "there’s a difference" between attacks carried out by Muslims vs. non-Muslims.
"I don't know, but I would just tell you there's a difference," Duffy replied. "You don't have a group like ISIS or Al Qaeda that is inspiring [attacks] around the world. That was a one off, Alisyn."
Quebec City and U.S. right-wing talk radio might be inspiring attacks such as the mosque shooting, but the GOP doesn't factor in those elements.
Joe Biden reinforces Canadian leadership in state visit
We discussed the increase in preclearance from Canada to the United States late last year. This is where people in Canada can clear U.S. customs on the Canadian side to expedite travel from Canada to the United States. The newest airports to get this deal are Billy Bishop (Toronto) and Jean Lesage (Quebec City).
"Any U.S. preclearance activities in Canada have to be carried out in a manner consistent with Canadian law, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Human Rights Act." — Andrew Gowing, spokesman for Public Safety Canada.
The travel ban has been temporarily shut down by U.S. judges. Even if the Trump travel ban clearly violates Canadian law, the violation doesn't guarantee that charges will be filed. If the ban somehow gets reintroduced, we will be curious as to how the Canadian government deals with the Trump travel ban.
CanadianCrossing.com Canadian politics coverage
The Canada Border Services Agency has reported that Nexus cards have been revoked for Canadian permanent residents with citizenship in any one of the seven majority-Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) from the Trump travel ban. We have heard stories of individual cases where dual citizens have had Nexus cards revoked.
What is on your phone is not normally a concern for U.S. border guards, but Canadians should start rethinking that based on stories we are hearing. The people who were stopped around the inauguration had their phones searched. Fadwa Alaoui is a Moroccan-born Canadian citizen from the Montreal suburb of Brossard. The four of them — her, 2 of her children, and an adult cousin — were denied entry into the United States at the Philipsburg border crossing over videos on their phones.
"They said, 'You're not allowed to go to the United States because we found videos on your phone that are against us," Alaoui said.
Despite the absurdity of the travel ban, we still need to point out that Morocco is not on the Trump travel ban and is nowhere near the countries that are on the ban.
There are the obvious concerns (religion) in this story. But a growing theme in this story and the 3 from the inauguration weekend are agents asking about whether people support Trump. The implication is that being against Trump increases your chances of not being allowed into the country. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to be politically neutral, conducting their business the same regardless of the president. Anecdotally, this isn't happening. The question that needs to be answered is whether agents are going rogue or whether orders are coming from the Trump people.
CanadianCrossing.com Donald Trump coverage
This is Day 20 of Donald Trump being in power in the United States. We still don't have a proposed U.S. ambassador to Canada.
We now have a link to all of our Donald Trump coverage. You can find that here or along the right-hand column of the blog. This includes why Canadians think the United States is already great; the Cape Breton relocation message; and the "legitimate concerns" with a wall with Canada from presidential candidate and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and mocked by South Park.
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