Politician wants music promoter Bruce Allen kicked off Olympics committee

Camille Bains, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - Liberal MP Raymond Chan has filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission over what he calls discriminatory remarks made by a top music promoter.

Chan said Tuesday that a commentary by Bruce Allen on radio station CKNW about immigrants seeking special treatment in Canada was dangerous and inaccurate.

He said Allen, who represents singer Michael Buble and Bryan Adams, should retract his comments and apologize or step down from a team that will organize the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Allen, who does a daily editorial on radio station CKNW, touched off a firestorm of controversy on Sept. 13 when he said immigrants should stop seeking special treatment in Canada or not move here.

In his commentary, Allen cited complaints from the Sikh community after Passport Canada declined to issue passports to three Sikh boys whose hair was knotted and covered with a handkerchief when they had their photos taken.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say there has been a lot of immigrant-bashing going on in recent months," Allen told listeners.

He also went on about immigration officials refusing to admit Sikh immigrants who used only Singh and Kaur as their last names "to avoid administrative mistakes," a policy that had already been reversed.

During his rant, Allen launched into an attack against turban-wearing Mounties and some motorcyclist who is angry he had to wear a helmet because it's impossible to get it on over his turban.

He also carried on about Elections Canada's position that it's OK for burka-wearing Muslim women to vote in elections "when it's clear voters have to be able to be identified at the polls."

"This is all very simple," he said. "We have laws in this country. They are spelled out and they're easy to get a hold of. If you're immigrating to this country and you don't like the rules that are in place then you have the right to choose not to live here.

"But it seems more and more that we are being pilloried by special interest groups that just want to make special rules for themselves. This is easy to solve: these are the rules, there's the door. If you don't like the rules, hit it. We don't need you here. You have another place to go - it's called home. See ya."

The issue gained momentum last week, when Allen was appointed by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympics to be part of a team that puts together the ceremonies for the 2010 Games.

Chan, a former federal minister of multiculturalism, said Allen's role in the Olympics sends the wrong message to the world about Canada.

"I find Mr. Allen's commentary very deceptive and inaccurate and for him to use that kind of deceptive inaccuracy to make inflammatory remarks, discriminatory remarks, is unacceptable and this is why I asked the CRTC to make a full investigation on his comments and report to the public as soon as possible," he said.

"This is not only an issue of visible minority groups," Chan said. "This is a Canadian issue."

What's most disturbing is that Allen isn't basing his comments on facts, Chan said.

For example, there are no laws in Canada that require someone to not wear a burka when voting, he said, adding Prime Minister Stephen Harper is wrong for commenting against the practice "and everybody knows he's wrong."

John Furlong, who heads the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympics, said Tuesday that he has spoken to Allen about the furore his controversy has stirred up.

"I took from the conversation he feels quite a lot of regret over what's happened and I accept that and we're going to move on from that," Furlong said.

Gerhard Heiberg, who was visiting Vancouver as head of the International Olympic Committee's marketing commission, said there are always controversies involving the opening and closing ceremonies before the Olympics.

"We in the IOC do not want to get involved in this, but I am sure it's being tackled the best way by VANOC here," he said.

Allen isn't talking to reporters about the issue but went on the air on Friday to address the issue and apologizing to anyone he may have offended.

Raj Chouhan, a provincial New Democrat MLA, said he called CKNW while Allen was on the air to ask that he retract his comments and apologize to the people he ranted against.

Allen didn't back down.

Chouhan said he'll be asking Colin Hansen, the provincial minister responsible for the Olympics, to make sure Allen is booted off the Olympic organizing team.

The New Democrat said he'll also be contacting Attorney General Wally Oppal, the minister responsible for multiculturalism, to say Allen isn't the right person to represent the views of Canadians and that the government should ensure he's removed from anything to do with the Olympics.

"They have a responsibility to make sure that when we open our doors to the world in 2010 we invite people and we respect them," said Chouhan, who is most upset that Allen's commentary targeted two specific groups - Sikhs and Muslims.

Oppal said the role of the Olympics organization that chose Allen for the job has nothing to do with him and that he's not in a position to question its position.

"I've known Bruce Allen for a long time," Oppal said. "I know that Bruce Allen is not a racist."

Oppal said Allen is saying that in a multicultural society, sometimes people have to adopt Canadian customs and that former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who championed multiculturalism, held the same views.

"He said that in multiculturalism we celebrate our differences. We're a unique country, we have multiculturalism as part of our constitution. We promote our differences but at the same time we're Canadians first."

But Oppal seemed to question Allen's comments about turban-wearing Mounties, saying the RCMP was recruiting people from the Indo-Canadian community years ago.

The turban matter was resolved in favour of Sikhs in the 1980s.

Tom Plasteras, program director at CKNW, said the station has been flooded with e-mails and calls from listeners, both for and against Allen's commentary, with some people calling for him to be fired.

"Bruce knows what his job is, he's there to editorialize and make people think so why would you fire an editorialist for doing an editorial?"

© The Canadian Press, 2007