Thanks to David Akin of the SUN’s parliamentary bureau, we now have the list of those on Stephen Harper’s Israel junket. We’re paying for their trip. The cost would probably be enough to have kept one or two of these—the DFO library closures, for example, saved less than half a million dollars—but Harper’s priorities…well, you know.
There are 208 of ‘em along for the ride, and that doesn’t include 15 members of the Conservative caucus, security and assorted bureaucrats.
Here are some of those weird and wonderful folks that we’re digging into out pockets for.
David Hearn, the President of Harper’s church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance—and his wife. Stockwell Day and his wife. Ezra Levant’s dad, Dr. Marvin Levant. An activist rabbi, Daniel Korobkin, who loves the well-known Islamophobic hatemonger Pamela Geller. A member of the Canadian chapter of the extremist Jewish Defence League, Julius Suraski. He welcomed the then-leader of the English Defence League, a far-right organization linked to neo-Nazis, to a JDL meeting in Toronto. (Here he is, in his own words.)
No doubt these and other members of Harper’s band will be lifting a glass or two of Golan to those back home who footed the bill.
As for the importance of the trip by any objective measure, John Ivison sums up:
It’s fair to say that Mr. Harper’s arrival was less momentous news for the average Israeli. There were no local journalists at Ben Gurion airport to greet the prime minister.
When we arrived at Mr. Netanyahu’s office compound for the official welcome ceremony, the more visible flags were those of Romania, whose president is also in town on an official visit.
Shut down a library here, a research centre there, in the name of austerity. Then send a crowd of millionaires, Christian fundamentalists, rabbis and Islamophobes to Israel on our dime. How very—Conservative.
UPDATE: Big City Lib was right out of the starting-gate on this. And here’s another taxpayer-funded worthy: Shawn Ketcheson, a homophobic pastor [via @trapdinawrpool]. Why are the mainstream media doing none of this digging?
UPPERDATE: And…a homophobic Ottawa rabbi, Reuven Bulka, who thinks that gays can be “cured.” (via Andy Lehrer)
