Andre Drouin’s lips curl up in a mischievous grin as he recalls the insults hurled at him at the height of the Herouxville affair in 2007. “Twit, moron, xenophobe, racist, stupid – all of it,” says the retired engineer who penned the infamous municipal charter barring the stoning, burning and genital mutilation of women in this hamlet north of Trois-Rivieres, Que.
But the recent storm over the niqab suggests l’affaire Herouxville was no anomaly. Drouin is now lending his support to a nascent coalition that aims to drum up opposition to immigration and multiculturalism in English Canada. “Three years ago, they thought I was a mad person, but right now I don’t think they think the same thing,” Drouin said.
In recent months, Drouin has spoken to small groups in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, where his tough talk on minorities strikes a chord with longtime critics of Canada’s immigration policy, such as Martin Collacott, a senior fellow at the conservative Fraser Institute.
Collacott and James Bissett, both retired diplomats who frequently write on immigration issues, and Drouin are among the founders of a new group that will push for a radical reduction in immigration and a tougher stand on minority accommodation.
Collacott said organizers are putting the finishing touches to a website and will launch the group, tentatively called the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, in June.
Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi, who is on a visit to South Africa, met South African leader Nelson Mandela and gifted him some of the books he authored on Islam and the Holy Qur’an.
The Ministry of Defence has taken down structures resembling mosques that were used on its training grounds.
The Koranic verses are ringing out from a stereo on Hamza Myatt’s market stall on Barking’s pedestrianised high street. The 36-year-old ginger-haired and white-skinned Muslim convert swapped his life as a financial adviser in South Wales to proselytise for his new faith in the outer reaches of East London three weeks after the 9/11 attacks. He now spends market days noisily selling Islamic literature.