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Well, this was special. Stephen Harper took a short break from slinging muck at Justin Trudeau’s perfect hair this week to do a little pre-writ campaigning alongside (drumroll, please) Muslim-Canadians.

There he was, front-centre, flanked by two big Canadian flags and surrounded by a rather underwhelmed-looking group of Muslim-Canadians at 24 Sussex Drive to break the Ramadan fast on Monday.

Harper and his faithful sidekick, Jason Kenney (one of the dwindling number of cabinet ministers who haven’t quit on him yet), insisted that the unusual gathering had everything to do with family, nothing to with politics. Which, I guess, explains why the guest list included three Muslim candidates who will be running for the Conservatives in Ontario and Quebec in the coming election.

The candidates were named; the PMO kept the names of the other families who attended the bread-breaking a state secret, doubtless for fear they might go off the ‘we are family’ message in front of a microphone. The identity of one attendee got out; even he acknowledged the whole affair reeked of politics.

“This is the way the system works and you can’t help it,” said Samir Dossal, who reportedly was “honoured” to have been invited, nonetheless.

For his part, Harper stuck to the script. “This house ultimately belongs to all Canadians,” he told the 40 invited guests, “and I hope all Canadians, especially our Muslim friends and neighbours, share in these blessings tonight.”

It’s funny — or it would be, if you could take it seriously — that Harper apparently thinks that having spent so much political capital on demonizing, insulting, ostracizing and marginalizing roughly one million Muslim Canadians and their culture, he could wash away all that slime with dinner and a photo-op.

Look, I suspect Harper has about as many Muslim “friends” as Bill O’Reilly has black “friends.” And like the Fox News carnival barker, I doubt Harper covets having Muslim “neighbours.” That’s not a cheap shot. Truth.

Let me remind you of how this prime minister really feels about Muslim-Canadians. I remember when Harper’s ex-PR flak, Jason MacDonald, went on Sun TV to call the National Council of Canadian Muslims – an independent, non-profit group that has worked for 14 years on human rights and civil liberties issues – a nest of terrorist sympathizers.

All Harper had to do was the decent thing — by granting those Gazan kids visas. He said no. Of all the nasty things Harper has done as prime minister, I can’t think of a single act more odious. All Harper had to do was the decent thing — by granting those Gazan kids visas. He said no. Of all the nasty things Harper has done as prime minister, I can’t think of a single act more odious.

Rather than fire MacDonald for the smear, Harper stood by his man in and out of court for, frankly, doing his ugly bidding in public. The NCCM is suing Harper and MacDonald for defamation and is seeking a public apology and retraction.

So what did the man who offered “blessings” to Canadian Muslims do? He hired a high-priced Toronto libel lawyer to fight the NCCM and claimed parliamentary privilege to avoid testifying. How’s that for befriending this nation’s Muslim community?

Not done. More payback was delivered by Harper’s sock puppet, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, who, at the eleventh hour, pulled support for a handbook the NCCM produced in co-operation with the Mounties to help spot and stop radicalized youth. The RCMP also bailed out of a joint press conference in Winnipeg with the NCCM to unveil the brochure. Emails obtained by Postmedia indicate the Harper government may have been directly involved in the decision to pull the plug.

That’s all aside from the Harper government’s shameless embrace of dog-whistle wedge politics over the non-issue of niqabs at citizenship ceremonies. Less than a week after the government introduced a pointless bill to ban the wearing of face-covering veils while swearing the citizenship oath, Jason Kenney got into a weird Twitter battle during which he cited Sharia law in arguing for the ban.

One person Harper didn’t invite to his stage-managed soiree was Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Dr. Abuelaish lost three daughters and a niece when Israeli tanks shelled his home in Gaza in 2009. Rather than sink into a pit of hate and retribution, Dr. Abuelaish devoted his life to promoting peace and reconciliation.

Last year, during a brutal shooting war between the Israeli Defence Force and militants in the Gaza Strip that killed 2,252 Palestinians — the vast majority of them civilians — Dr. Abuelaish spearheaded a campaign to arrange to get 100 traumatized, injured and, in some cases, orphaned Gazan kids – Muslim and Christian alike – to Canada for desperately needed medical help. The scale and nature of the toll exacted on Palestinian kids during last summer’s invasion of Gaza was breathtaking: 539 dead, 3,000 injured, more than 500,000 requiring psychological care.

The initiative was called Heal100 Kids. Doctors, nurses, governments, businesses, unions and countless other Canadians vowed to lend their time, money and services to get those kids here largely for free.

One man stood in the way: Stephen Harper. Despite repeated requests, Harper’s minions said he was too busy to meet with Dr. Abuelaish to discuss Heal100kids. Then-Foreign Minister John Baird couldn’t squeeze Dr. Abuelaish in either.

But all Harper had to do was the decent thing — by granting those kids visas. He said no. Predictably, his sycophants in the mainstream media peddled a PMO-engineered lie to try to defend the indefensible: that these kids preferred to stay home and Canada couldn’t risk letting any “terrorists” who might accompany them to “slip” into the country.

Of all the nasty things Harper has done as prime minister, I can’t think of a single act more odious. That is Stephen Harper in his essence. His house belongs to all Canadians. But he only welcomes them inside as long as they’re useful to him.

Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

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.