Brampton Mayor and Conservative leadership contender, Patrick Brown, says he will end Canada’s terrorist designation for the Tamil Tigers if he becomes Prime Minister. 

The Toronto Star says it has seen a short video in which Brown appeals for the support of the Tamil community. He says he needs their help to win.

In the video, which has not been posted on Brown’s website, he pledges to open up immigration: 

“to any Tamil family that wants to come to Canada”.

Like Canada, the UK has proscribed the Tamil Tigers (aka the LTTE or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) since March 2001, describing them as:

“a terrorist group fighting for a separate Tamil state in the North and East of Sri Lanka.”

War Crimes

Brown says the Tamil community in Canada has been stigmatized and stereotyped. He accuses the Sri Lankan Government of war crimes. 

Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers. There were allegations at the time that the Sri Lankan military had committed war crimes. But similar accusations were made against the Tamil Tiger forces. Thirteen years after the war ended the UN Human Rights Council and countries around the world including Canada and the UK still want justice for the victims of the civil war and reconciliation.

No mixed messages

Brown cannot have two messages in his leadership campaign, one directed at Conservative members at large and another, secret one, tailored specifically to appeal to Tamil Canadians and other diasporas.

Patrick Brown should put everything on the table - and on his website. 

No secret agendas.

The Conservatives need an open debate on what kind of party they want to be.

And the candidates for leadership must be open and honest about what they believe.

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Update on 19 April 2022: "If you show up I win."

Update on 21 April 2022: From the Globe & Mail: Patrick Brown is in dangerous waters

The 2021 Report of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights is here. The introduction, which gives context, says this:

"In Sri Lanka, armed conflict emerged against a backdrop of deepening discrimination against and the marginalization of the country’s minorities, particularly the Tamils. The 30-year war between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as well as earlier insurgencies in the south, were marked by persistent and grave human rights violations and abuses by both parties, including extrajudicial killings, widespread enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence, which affected Sri Lankans from all communities. Thousands of children were systematically recruited and used as fighters and in other roles by LTTE and other armed groups. Muslim and Sinhala communities were forcibly expelled from the north, and civilians were indiscriminately killed by LTTE in terrorist attacks on public places and vehicles. Successive High Commissioners have consistently condemned those acts."