More from Michael Harris available More fromavailable here

As Europe staggers toward scapegoating, paranoia and bigotry in the wake of the unspeakable mass murder of journalists in Paris, there’s one thing that every Canadian can take to the bank: When Parliament returns, Stephen Harper will be bringing forward new anti-terror legislation.

Like Stephen Rigby before them, the new national security tandem of Dick Fadden and David McGovern will be one of the most potent forces in the PM’s re-election plans. Fear is Harper’s most powerful vote magnet; security is fear’s most reliable handmaiden.

The new legislation will be a loyalty test administered by Harper on Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau — and on all of us, really. Are we tough or soft on terrorism?

Just two years ago, seven people died in a terror attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. The wave of anti-terror arrests that followed didn’t stop the latest killings. No law will ever be able to prevent what happened in Paris this week — but no politician of the Right will ever tell you that.

Harper’s new anti-terror legislation will be self-interested politics at its worst. Count on it: When the new bill passes, Big Brother will have a tighter grip on your life than he does today — and you will be no safer.

It also pays to remember that Harper is a friend neither of journalism nor of free speech. If you believe in those things, you don’t ban journalists from the second floor of the Langevin Building, hold press conferences about as often as Halley’s Comet appears, or block public servants from accessing a news website.

When Harper brings in his new anti-terror legislation, democracy in Canada will be diminished yet again — in the name of keeping everyone safe. The kind of safety on offer is unobtainable, even undesirable — but from a political point of view it may be irresistible.

The very thing that is killing us — exchanging freedom for security — has received a gigantic boost from these tragic events in France. In the heat of the moment, it’s probably too much to ask for people to hold their nerve and think this through. But we must.

Just consider how the Far Right has pounced on this sickening crime to advance their political agenda. In France, Marine LePen of the Front National party has used the massacre at Charlie Hebdo to declare war on Islamism — without having the facts. That’s not a small consideration when you remember that France has five million Muslim citizens.

LePen is dragging dry tinder into a houseful of matches. How ironic that she is now offering to bring back capital punishment in France … by beheading. The last person executed in France was sent to the guillotine in 1977, the only legal method of execution since the French Revolution apart from the rare use of firing squads.

The events in Paris will feed this dangerous xenophobia like gasoline poured on a fire. The old curse is rising from the mass grave of two world wars. Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

In Great Britain, the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, has jumped from these wanton murders to pronouncing a fatwa of his own against multiculturalism — as if putting an end to cultural tolerance would be good for being British.

Here in Canada, columnist Christie Blatchford has denounced Canadians as timid and suggested that every newspaper in the world publish the mocking cartoons of Allah that may have precipitated the mass murder in Paris. Could the call for a war of civilizations be any clearer — or any more preposterous?

And it’s worth noting that people are answering that call in the strangest of places. In Germany, for example, huge crowds are marching to denounce immigrants, journalists and their government for letting the Fatherland slip away. They are breaking the law to do it. The events in Paris will feed this dangerous xenophobia like gasoline poured on a fire. The old curse is rising from the mass grave of two world wars. Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

To this point in the post-9/11 world, our record on resisting the erosion of democracy in return for “security” has not been good. In thrall to the strange alchemy of fear, Americans seem to have given up on the notion of liberty. How else can one explain the fact that the USA Freedom Act was defeated by a vote in the U.S. Senate?

Whistleblower Edward Snowden completely undressed the illegal world of U.S. surveillance on American citizens, but legislation that would have ended the NSA’s daily collection of all U.S. telephone data failed. Its critics — largely Republican senators — claimed that legislation reining in the NSA would be a gift to terrorists.

The truth? The NSA’s domestic dragnet of all domestic phone traffic didn’t stop a single terrorist attack.

Perhaps the more damning fact is this: Even though the USA Freedom Act was backed by President Obama, all of America’s technology giants and most civil liberties groups, it still failed.

Who or what is running America? Instead of doing away with domestic spying that abridges every basic right Americans enjoy, that society is now looking at re-authorizing Section 215 of the falsely-named Patriot Act. Nothing could be less patriotic than the legislated demise of American democracy.

Given events in Paris, this is a signature moment for the political opposition in Canada. Without providing any proof, Harper has repeatedly suggested that the tragic deaths of two Canadian soldiers last October were terrorist-related. Both Mulcair and Trudeau need to demand that proof on behalf of all Canadians who want to know the truth.

Nor should they accede to any new anti-terror legislation proposed by the Harper government merely because fear is in the air (aided and abetted by shaky corporate journalism). And if new legislation further limiting civil liberties in Canada does get passed, it must contain sunset provisions so that 1984 doesn’t become the new normal.

Finally, how does one come to terms with what happened in Paris this week? The Norwegians offer a sage example. After Anders Breivik murdered 77 people in a hideous killing spree, the people of Norway decided that there was no need to change the country to bend to the Breiviks of the world.

No one used the atrocity to further a political agenda. A serial killer was tried and imprisoned without the loss of a single civil or democratic right.

They’re not so fear-friendly in Norway. What about us?

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, recently hit number one on Maclean’s magazine’s top ten list for Canadian non fiction.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.