Third debate in the 2013-14 series features the resolution: “Muslim immigration is no threat to Canada or the West”; Doug Saunders argues for, Salim Mansur against
OTTAWA, Feb 20, 2014 – On the evening of Thursday, Feb. 27 at the Canadian War Museum, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute will host the third debate of the 2013-14 season of the Great Canadian Debates. This time, the resolution is “Muslim immigration is no threat to Canada or the West”, touching on the highly contested issue of the influence of illiberal forms of Islam in liberal democracies.
Arguing against the resolution is Salim Mansur, a professor at Western University. Doug Saunders, a columnist with the Globe and Mail will argue for the resolution.
The event starts at 7 pm. Tickets are still available.
The Great Canadian Debates are a series of four provocative debates exploring some of the most compelling issues to Canadians. Each debate is presented at the Canadian War Museum and is moderated by former House Speaker, the Hon. Peter Milliken. Audience members are invited to get involved by posing questions during a Q&A session and voting for the winning argument. There are two debates remaining this season.
Salim Mansur is an Associate Professor in the faculty of social sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, and teaches in the department of political science. He is the author of Delectable Lie: a liberal repudiation of multiculturalism (2011) and Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim (2009), and co-editor of The Indira-Rajiv Years: the Indian Economy and Polity 1966-1991 (1994). He has also published widely in academic journals. Mansur wrote a weekly syndicated column for Sun Media papers in Canada for over a decade following 9/11 and has been published widely in other major news outlets. Mansur was born in Calcutta, India. He moved to Canada where he completed his studies, receiving a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. Before joining the University of Western Ontario he worked as a Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security in Ottawa.
Doug Saunders is a Canadian-British author and journalist. He is the author of the books Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World (2011) and The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012), which has been published in four languages. Saunders is the international-affairs columnist and online opinion editor for The Globe and Mail. He served as the paper’s London-based European bureau chief for a decade, after having run the paper’s Los Angeles bureau, and has written extensively from East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and North Africa. He writes a weekly column devoted to the larger themes and intellectual concepts behind international news, and has won the National Newspaper Award, Canada’s counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize, on five occasions.
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The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
For more information, please contact David Watson, managing editor and communications director, at 613-482-8327 x. 103 or email at david.watson@macdonaldlaurier.ca. On Twitter @MLInstitute
