Re : Quebecers in Denial, Barbara Kay, Aug. 17

The discussion between Ms. Kay and me could go on for days, so far apart are our opinions. Her last column deserves a rebuttal on many points. I will raise only one.

Ms. Kay maintains that in an independent Quebec, “supporters of terrorism would find a place offering little resistance to burgeoning Islamism amongst its Mulslim immigrants.” I cannot resist pointing out that 17 presumed Islamist terrorists were arrested two months agon in Toronto (not in Montreal) and that the largest terrorist act in Canada’s history was committed out of Vancouver (not “Quebecistan”). Should we conclude from these troubling facts that EnglishCanada offers too little resistance to burgeoning Islamism ?

I would drop the matter here were it not for the Letter of the Day (“Quebecistan is No Myth”) published yesterday by the Post. I had remarked that if anti-Semitism were so rampant in Quebec, a third of Canadian Jews would not live here. Elana Setton replies by noting that 600,000 Jews lived in 1930s Germany “and that certainly didn’t stop anti-Semitism from developing into a full-fledged genocide there.” The comparison is preposterous and scandalous ! Will not members of Quebec’s Jewish community raise their voices against such infamy ?

May I just note that according to the latest B’nai Brith Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents in Canada, 133 such acts were reported in Quebec in 2005, compared to 544 in Ontario.