Reality Check: Stephen Harper on the Root Causes of Terrorism

April 26, 2013

Yesterday, Parliamentary Secretary Pierre Poilievre offered Canadians the latest in Conservative insight when he declared:

“The root cause of terrorism is terrorists.” (CBC Power and Politics, April 25, 2013)

Canadians should not be surprised, though, as Mr. Poilievre is only following the Prime Minister’s lead, who was again playing politics with national security yesterday, stating:

“In terms of radicalization, this is obviously something we follow… I think though this is not a time to commit sociology.” (The Canadian Press, April 25, 2013)

However, less than a year and a half ago, Stephen Harper was singing a very different tune on the root causes of terrorism and preventing further atrocities.

“The fact that Afghanistan became a failed state, where you know, people just essentially lived in not just poverty, but brutality, to the point where a kind of Islamic fascist regime literally invited terrorists, international terrorists to set up camp in their country. I think that that kind of situation obviously bred a threat, and that’s why we are so worried when we look around the world now at other places where the same thing could happen… That’s the kind of thing I think we really have to worry about, where you have not just poverty, but poverty and literally lawlessness becomes the nature of the state. And I do think it’s in our broader interests and the right thing to do to try and help people and help countries so that they don’t get into that situation. That’s why, you know, we obviously are helping with the famine in East Africa. It’s why we’re so involved in Haiti. Not to have that kind of a state in our own backyard. So those, I think those kinds of situations are very dangerous.” (Stephen Harper, CBC News – The National, September 8, 2011)

Stephen Harper was willing to invest taxpayers’ resources to address the complex root causes of global terrorism in 2011. Why is he now prepared to irresponsibly play politics with this serious issue?