UCP leadership candidate Rajan Sawhney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

United Conservative Party leadership candidate Rajan Sawhney yesterday issued a statement saying “it is a significant problem” that the new chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission made “pejorative comments about Islam” in a 2009 book review published by a right-wing website. 

Collin May was appointed chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission on Thursday (Photo: Dalhousie University).

In her statement, Ms. Sawhney called for further investigation of the comments made by Mr. May, who the UPC appointed to the job on Thursday despite news and commentary about his 2009 book review. 

This hardly seems necessary since his review can still easily be found online at the C2C Journal website, and because Mr. May has publicly admitted that he wrote it. 

Moreover, she seems to suggest the uproar about Mr. May’s appointment may indicate that media reports are not to be trusted. Whatever flaws Alberta’s media may exhibit, the few journalists and commentators who covered this story can plead not guilty to that charge for the simple reason that Mr. May has confirmed the accuracy of everything he is reported to have said. 

Still, despite the flaws in her argument, this is an important development because Ms. Sawhney is the first and so far the only UCP leadership candidate to speak out against Mr. May’s appointment, even if she is a long shot to win the leadership race. 

She has set the bar – albeit a rather low one – for the other candidates to lead the UCP to live up to. Or not to live up to, in which case no UCP supporter should complain if this remains an issue through the leadership race and into the election campaign that follows. 

Lord Chief Justice Hewart (Photo: Public Domain).

The former transportation minister said she had taken the time to read the review herself and found that the author largely accepted an interpretation of Islam “which takes a highly controversial and negative view of the faith of tens or even hundreds of thousands of Albertans.”

“These comments have created considerable and understandable hurt within the Muslim community, but also among all Albertans who value our pluralistic society,” she said, noting that “it is a significant problem when the person who expressed those unacceptable views is responsible for adjudicating human rights issues.”

This is an important point because even though Mr. May says he has changed his opinion of Islam since he wrote the review 13 years ago, that does not alter the natural perception of his views as bound to bring the proceedings of the commission into disrepute. 

It would have behooved the UCP Government to remember, as Lord Chief Justice Hewart famously said in 1924, it “is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

As Ms. Sawhney observed yesterday, “no person of Muslim faith would have confidence that they are being treated neutrally by the Human Rights Commission if the Chair has pre-existing and negative views of that person’s faith.”

“This allegation of bias is also a reminder that the vetting of prospective candidates for sensitive and important jobs in government must be thorough,” she added, quite rightly. 

Mind you, Ms. Sawhney was in cabinet when Mr. May was first appointed to the commission in a lesser role, so she should have some first-hand insight into how he was chosen the first time. Perhaps Cabinet simply accepted the minister’s recommendation without reflection or question. 

Whatever vetting there was of Mr. May, it was disgracefully lax. It would almost be better if no checks had been made at all, which, while negligent would at least not have raised the additional possibility of malice in his selection!

Join the Conversation

14 Comments

  1. “I was a member of Cabinet when Cabinet appointed this man to the Commission. That decision was a significant problem. Please vote for me as the new leader.” OK, then.

  2. Back when Jason Kenney was a young and budding player in Harpo’s government, he took a very special interest in so-called ‘new Canadians.’ According to Olivia Chow, who collaborated frequently with Kenney on the immigration file, he was particularly interested in the prospect of introducing these new Canadians to partisanship. After all, the Liberals had always been very successful in promoting their party to immigrants from South-East Asia, resulting in long-lasting allegiances among these groups of voters. Kenney was wild-eyed with the notion that the CONs could also carve out their own partisan allegiances among immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, as these populations were among the fastest growing in the immigration pool. As Immigration Minister, Kenney was cited as being very successful in not only clearing the years-long immigration backlog but also building the CON partisan brand among these groups. It reached a point where in the aftermath of the 2011 federal election, Harpo could boast that CPC values were the values of New Canadians.

    How things have changed.

    For one thing, the notion that CONs would ever be welcoming to New Canadians regardless of their origin has also been a pipe dream. The CPC is hopelessly white and Christian in its voter make-up. Though there may be flirtations with non-European ethnic groups, the CPC has always run back to its default, white Christian, European, and predominantly elderly voters. Of course, this is not the sort of demographic that the CPC can ever hope to build from, as they keep dying off. It also isn’t helped by the fact that the CONs’ tendency to dog-whistle to their favorite demographic, those who are fearful of non-Whites and change of any kind in general, keeps placing the party under the suspicious gaze of New Canadians.

    The endless dog-whistling to the FreeDUMB-loving, who are really bothered that whites are well on their way to becoming a minority in Canada, is that voter base that Kenney and Skippy Pollivere covet and cultivate with as much fear as they can possibly feed it. It should come as no surprise that a character like Collin May is going to chair the Alberta Human Rights Commission. He’s not exactly a person who appears to be receptive to the notion that Canada is changing from what many white CONs are comfortable with. If anything, I suspect he will likely oppose the New Canada and Alberta that is unfolding, and he will oppose it vigorously.

    Rajan Sawhney is seeing what many New Canadians fear, the CONs pretend to change their stripes but they never do. Indeed, judging by the growing darker tone of the UCP leadership race, now that conspiracy theory mongering seems to be the way to get the support of the membership, there can be no doubt that weird conspiratorial notions, such as the Replacement Theory, will soon come to the forefront of the UCP membership’s mind.

    I remember back in my mid-guided time with the RPC, I got into it with a somewhat well-known media personality over racism among Reformers. First off, he was convinced there was no racism in the RPC because everyone in the party is color blind. When I cited some of the weirder things that when on the RPC that were clearly racist, he retorted in what I noticed was the usual way among Reformers. “You think I’m a racist?!” was his reply, as if trying to make the whole discussion some kind of a personal attack on him. Since Reformers, for whatever reason, always took everything way too personally, I was pretty certain I was hanging around with a bag of wingnuts.

    A CON can claim they’ve changed their stripes, but they never do.

  3. “… the only UCP leadership candidate to speak out … even if she is a long shot to win …”
    This is the fundamental characteristic of political discourse out here on the flats. If yer not singing the commonly accepted tune yer not gonna be accepted by the common folks. That there might be something new, that there might be a different way of understanding, that an opposing view might actually enhance understanding and discourse – well all that is just foolish nonsense to yer average Albaturdan.

    At the risk of stirring some faux outrage I have a couple thoughts about Mr. May’s book report.
    It’s actually quite tame. Unless one wants to dig in a bit to the comparative analysis of world religions; only then would one have to face some harsh and unpleasant truths but truths nonetheless. Religions, all religions are rarely, perhaps never, an unalloyed good.
    Mr. May would do well to speak and/or write a defense of his report rather than remain quiet but that would sail right over the heads of 99% of his audience; see above. So we all will just pretend that we understand.

    That brings me to a second observation; if Islam is an important religion to so many then it is important to discuss what it actually is. No one, including me, wants to do this, mostly I think, out of fear. Instead we pretend that every individual is entitled to do and think and be whatever they want.
    This too is deserving of an in-depth analysis but as previously discussed, just ain’t gonna happen.

  4. Good column, David. Collin May was one of many people the UCP installed on various boards etc. when they were elected in 2019. I am wondering if Mr. May is a personal friend of Jason Kenney, or if he has been a loyal conservative in general. In other words, what is the likelihood that a new leader, other than Ms. Sawhney, would replace him?

  5. Of course there are some Muslims who have used religion as the basis for violent acts. There are also Christians, Buddhists, Hindus & Jews who have done the same. For example, from the Spanish Inquisition to the IRA to Indian Residential Schools right here in Canada, adherents of Roman Catholicism have committed brutal acts of violence over the centuries. Israeli Jews have been particularly violent towards the Palestinian people of the occupied West Bank.

    Does that mean all Catholics are violent? All Hindus, Buddhists or Jews? Of course not. And neither is Islam a violent religion. It’s only people that are violent.

    That said, when was the last time you saw an atheist commit an act of mass violence or terrorism?

    1. Of course as an atheist, I’d like to be all holier than thou and agree that we’re all pacifists and followers of the Categotical Imperative. But then I remember Stalin, who was an ideologue, but an atheist nonetheless. And he was responsible for the Holodomor, amongst other atrocities.

      1. Thank you, Mr Kirkwood. I hadn’t remembered Stalin in my haste to compose my comment. I stand corrected :-).

        I think my essential point, though, remains valid: it isn’t religions that are violent, it’s people. In some cases, religion simply provides the ideology behind which the violent person hides.

  6. I think the fundemental flaw with most of the UCP leadership contestants is they stuck with Kenney to the end, so most of their platforms are to continue on with his questionable and unpopular policies, except without Kenney who himself became quite unpopular because of them and a lightning rod for discontent. There is not much difference between the old the UCP and the new UCP. Of course the UCP will go to great lengths to portray whoever they select as different, but I am not sure that will really stand up to scrutiny.

    So, the differences are mostly of tone. We get some more agitated candidates who say kookier things and might be closet separatists and those that have a more moderate, perhaps more reassuring tone. Ms. Sawhney seems to fall in the latter category. Interestingly on this issue she seems to be on her own so far. Maybe if she were in charge, she wouldn’t have have appointed Mr. May, but she doesn’t come out and clearly say that or even clearly condemn the appointment. We get the feeling that she doesn’t like it, but not quite enough to more forcefully speak out about it. Perhaps that less forceful measured approach is why she remained in the cabinet while Leela Aheer did not. A nicer tone – yes, real change, maybe not.

  7. I’d like to see Mr. May take on the Catholic church. He stated, “Of all the world’s major religions, none is at the center of as much controversy today as Islam.” That was then. This is now:

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/court-approves-sale-of-42-catholic-church-properties-to-settle-abuse-victims-claims-1.6523788

    Controversy? Check. As controversial as all the major world religions? Check. Not convinced? How about this:

    https://globalnews.ca/news/8994465/security-measures-edmonton-pope-francis-visit/

    Or were his words less about religion and more about something else? Is he some sort of comparative religious studies expert? I don’t think so.

  8. No doubt there a large numbers of UCP MLA’s members who believe that May is perfect for the job.

    THAT is the real problem.

  9. It almost goes without saying that Canadian parties of the right are hypocritically, disingenuously, ulteriorly motivated to win power by whatever means they can get away with. For all of former federal minister Jason Kenny’s pandering toward potential immigrant communities which he fancied would vote for the CPC’s religiously conservative policies, when it came down to saving the party’s first and last majority, he ended up cooperating with Harper’s desperately bigoted “niqab” campaign ploy while warning would-be immigrants of the conditions stipulated: keep your “barbaric practices out of sight under your turbans—but not, for you female applicants, under your face-veil.”

    Naturally, that hoisting petard was ostentatious in the context of election campaigning, but white bigotry lurks pervasively amongst the irascible parties of the neo-right. “Canada the Good” is a relative term most citizens’ enjoy in perpetual contrast with the excessive exhibitionism of our southern neighbours where cries of “Jews will not replace us!” have recently gambolled with politicians of the highest earthly power. Indeed, Canadian reactionaries seem worried they might be too overshadowed and therefore march as loudly, if not as bloodily akin with the convulsions of the tRumpublican Party.

    Nevertheless, racism exists in the Great White North: identifiably Muslim pedestrians have been run-down and killed whilst standing on the sidewalk; we’ve had synagogue-targeted mass-shooting, too; the Robert Pickton pig farm and other murders and disappearances of indigenous girls and women indict not only police negligence but also official government intransigence like HarperCom minister Bernard Valcourt’s who blew off over a thousand of such crimes ( known so far) as nothing more troubling than ‘Indian men killing Indian women,’ (sweet, Bernard, real sweet…)

    We are reminded that both Jason Kenney and Maxime Bernier are scions of the CPC, the latter’s tendency to bigotry being fresher, more comparable to the tRumpublican vortex and therefore more blatant: promoting Bernier’s People’s Party was the True North Strong and Free Advertising Corp which sparked outrage when it displayed billboards in major cities across Canada with the slogan “End Mass Immigration.” That was enough to garner votes in the high single-digits—which, on the way upwards, was probably enough to frustrate CPC prospects on the way downwards.

    While decrying Covid pandemic protocols like masks, the far right liked to think it was cleverly masking its own long record of bigotry behind paeans of “Freedom and Rights” allegedly deprived by, in classic große Lüge fashion, a single scapegoat (the Trudeau Liberal government). Apparently CPC leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre still thinks it’s a winning combination. Such absurdism from the very guy who, when he was a HarperCon minister, reacted to his party’s electoral cheating convictions by passing a bill that would disenfranchise nonCon voters just about as well —it simply allows for a broad-scale, barely inaudible dog-whistle that symphonizes the whole repertoire of reactionary issues—gender rights, access to safe abortions, ameliorating climate-change, cooperating to get through a viral pandemic that has so far killed millions, federalism, firearms and more. Absurd irony is that one of those paeans, white supremacy, hides behind itself. Even ostriches go one better.

    Canada’s fortunes include one of the world’s largest Sikh diasporas, which, naturally, is represented politically in civic and legislative assemblies across the country, and at every position on the partisan spectrum. Harper’s ill-fated niqab gambit made me wonder how it made Sikh MPs in his caucus feel: even though the face-veil is not part of Sikh accoutrement, the intentionally provocative stunt could not have been anything but uncomfortable for all ethnic minorities in the fold nevertheless. But the well-deserved HarperCon defeat didn’t absolve the party from the kind of nervous loyalty conservatives have to maintain, often euphemistically, lips buttoned, “alls fair…,” “nothing personal” nudge-and-winking that must be quietly endured for careers’ sakes. This ‘go-along-to-get-along’ has become a paralytic disease in today’s neo-right. When observing US tRumpublicanism, we can only hope a pre-mortis rigor.

    We do not doubt any ethnic-minority parliamentarian’s political sincerity, but there’s certainly evidence enough to doubt right-wing parties’ sincerity in welcoming those voices into the policy-making convention: again, one suspects it’s conditional. The question arises: are ethnic politicians appreciated for what they are or for the votes the party hopes they’ll attract from the ethic communities they belong to? The cynical view is that bigotry so easily tolerated is the price of personal political ambition. Maybe it is for some, but putting up with it personally can’t advance the community, can’t un-end the “End of History” or continually forgive excuses like ‘I’m not the bigot I used to be.’

    Is this the point Rajan Sawhney, the very long, long, long-shot UCP leadership candidate is trying to make by bringing up Collin May’s self-admitted/self-absolved prejudice against Islam and Muslims? His inappropriateness for the job of adjudicating human rights issues is hardly in question.

    The cynical view of such a long-shot candidacy is that it’s for personal advancement, the ethnic-minority politician agreeing to endure these thousand cuts without fuss in order to get ahead. I think Ms Sawhney may be acquitted of that for obvious reasons: by raising the stinky issue of May’s appointment—by her own party, no less—she risks being branded fussy, if not terminally disloyal to the party’s fuzzy brand. Perhaps, then, she runs to get her worthy message across, the leadership venue affording at least that, if not the mantle itself. That seems more likely.

    Ms Sawhney might instead be trying to save the party, for whatever reason, from itself. Retaining Mr May is not only bad for whomever was directly involved in his appointment, and not only the UCP, but ultimately for the whole conservative brand—or what’s left of it. Unlike studiously parochial neo-right parties probing increasingly extreme positions elsewhere in the world—India, UK, Hungary, and the good old USA—Canada features a peculiar incestuousness among its own partisan right, its school-board, civic, provincial and federal bastards strewn from the narrow valleys of BC Interior to the rural parishes of Quebec, but revolving around the Alberta-Ottawa umbilical upon which neo-right politicians shinny up and down while their red-meat soldiers are encouraged to gnaw. Either can also nip over the border to saw off a quick chunk in any red state or swampy DC cathouse they like—passports required, of course.

    Thus, wherever they poke through the quilt-work of civil discourse, the same sulphurous aquifer of globalizing neoliberalism disguised in pious Tory robes below is shared amongst and sustains the movement like Careless Love—“Could be your brother/ You would never know.” If the neo-right is ever to plug these mephitic swell-heads, it had better take Ms Sawhney’s advice…

    …even as she offers a sweet with the sour gas: blame the media, maybe as well for May as for any of the other absurdities the throes of a moribund, discredited movement might lance from its rotting coil. I guess if her leadership rivals simply ignore her, she can blame the media for that, too.

    But she risks even more, such as the rejoinder that, being of South Asian descent herself, “Well, she would, wouldn’t she,”— correctly pointing out that if she were white, she probably wouldn’t make such waves about May’s appointment and his lame excuse for comments which should have rendered him ineligible. It’s a strange situation: while carving out a position that sets her apart from the other contestants would seem advantageous—a position that’s inarguably correct in ethical terms—she’s also poking the hoary backside that the stronger male candidates have, until now at least, unintentionally shown her. Which one of the boys will acknowledge her position first, and which will agree with her?

    Finally, as anybody inside Alberta’s most—or nearly-most—disunited party must know, the thing’s so rickety one might as well let it continue to sink into the abyss of absurdism and hang onto whatever floats. The risk here, of course, is that Ms Sawhney might be accused of being among a fifth column of South Asians bent on replacing white hegemony in Canadian politics—the “proof” being ubiquitous presence disguised by partisan diversity. And now, all of a sudden, the leader of the federal NDP makes sense to reactionary conspiracy theorists: “they” must all be in on it because it couldn’t possibly be about altruism from such diverse political philosophies—you know, the kind that democracy is supposed to compose in cooperative compromise. Why else, they’ll ask themselves, would “they” try to remove the human rights arbiter most qualified to protect white privilege? See, nothing happens by accident, right?

    A splendid little bit of reportage. Thank you DJC!

  10. This is the same MLA who made the heartless cutbacks to those on A.I.S.H. She’s still part of the UCP team, and the UCP has no credibility.

    1. Yeah I find it quite hilarious that Rajan is suddenly worried about human rights only when it affects her. Yet had problem deindexing AISH from the consumer index. And in a cruel twist of fate inflation is at a 39 year high! Major props to Sawhney for her outstanding work in standing up for all human beings.

  11. After much ” discussion” and deliberation with my sister & brother in law, who live in Edmonton & voted for Kenny & the “UCP ” , I have finally convinced them to take a deep dive into what the party has been doing for the last few years, and both being stubborn seniors, I felt a great sense of relief when I got a text, saying— Albertan’s voting UCP ,is like chickens voting KFC ….(fist pump, yes!)
    so it is possible …especially with those 2….every small victory

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.