In my typically even-handed way, I now turn to the Conservative candidate for Thornhill, Peter Kent, who happens to be a senior member of an outfit called the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

What is the CCD?

It’s a group that appears to enjoy fomenting anti-Muslim hysteria. The organization even sucked in that indefatigable anti-Muslim campaigner and promoter of campus snitch lines, Daniel Pipes. Pipes was forced to retract comments he made about Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, which had been based upon misinformation received from CCD. (Pipes refers in his screed to Ezra Levant’s further smears of Alghabra, which I dealt with some time ago, and makes additional defamatory remarks that need not concern us here.)

CCD’s legal counsel has been none other than David Harris, whose inflammatory anti-Muslim commentary is notorious in its own right, and who has recently been fussing out loud about “out-of-control immigration.” Harris was in the news last year making some credulous public comments about a hilariously silly “bugged money” story emanating from the US Defence Security Service.

Here is part of CCD’s statement of purpose:

“At CCD, we believe that our foreign policy should reflect our respect for life and liberty. If we want peace, we must support beleaguered allies who share our Canadian values. Instead, many in our past governments have made it their career to condemn and criticize the United States and Israel, while being apologists for terrorists who celebrate the killing and maiming of men, women, and children. [emphasis mine --DD]”

CCD does not name those “many” in previous Canadian governments who have “been apologists for terrorists.” But this kind of shrill, defamatory, McCarthyite rhetoric is par for the course. Check out these CCD media topics for yourselves, and take particular note of the often hateful rhetoric in which they are couched.

Does Peter Kent’s association with this extremist group merit some attention from bloggers and the media–and from Muslims in the Thornhill riding?

[Thx to Firebrand for the suggestion.]

UPDATE: Reader Buckets reminds us that CCD was one of the infamous “42 organizations” demanding the firing of Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin for chairing the committee that awarded the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Read all about that bogus complaint here.

UPPERDATE: A reader pointed me to this press release from CCD (David Harris), urging political and diplomatic relations with the Indian state of Gujurat. Why Gujurat? Could it have anything to do with the militant anti-Islamism of the government there–documented by Human Rights Watch?