A great opinion piece. Democracy & elections in the West seem to be always based on some kind of fear that "you better vote for me, otherwise apocalypse will come." Sort of an election campaign from the "uncivilized" & "barbaric" developing world.
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Zunera Ishaq hails from Pakistan where she was a high school teacher, lives in Mississauga, Ont., is 29 & has 3 kids. She came to Canada in 2008, passed her citizenship test 5 years later with flying colours, & is now ready to take the oath of citizenship. She’s been “imagining [this moment] for so long” because she’s anxious to be a full & active member of Canadian society. She & her husband chose Canada over other countries, she says, because “It is especially important to me to live in a country of religious freedoms since I am a devout Muslim.”
She’s already a volunteer at her eldest child’s school – a public school – & at a local women’s shelter, & once she becomes a citizen she is determined to have an active say in her country’s future. Her lawyers, Lorne Waldman and Naseem Mithoowani, have been impressed by her feistiness, independence & determination. Zunera Ishaq would be, from all accounts, a model Canadian.
Yet if it were up to the Prime Minister of Canada, Ms. Ishaq would have to settle for “imagining” her citizenship until hell freezes over. Why? Because she wears a niqab, which covers her entire face except her eyes. Ms. Ishaq says in a court affidavit that “I first started wearing the niqab when I was approximately 15 years old….After I had done research….I came to the conclusion that the niqab is mandatory to my faith.” While many Muslims disagree, each is free to make these decisions for herself.
It’s perfectly legal, harms no one, but is providing ammunition for Stephen Harper’s election campaign.
The story begins in 2011, when then-immigration minister Jason Kenney arbitrarily decreed that faces couldn’t be covered at citizenship oath-taking ceremonies. This was a direct blow to Ms. Ishaq. She is prepared to unveil herself in private to an official before taking the oath, but will not appear unveiled at the public ceremony. She approached the University of Toronto’s legal aid clinic who put her in touch with Lorne Waldman, one of Canada’s top-notch immigration lawyers. Mr. Waldman went to court to challenge the government & won. In his words, “The Court found that the policy of requiring a woman to remove her facial covering, where there is no question of identity or security, was illegal. The government is required to follow the law.”
Well, not so fast. Never mind the law. We’re talking about politics here. The government has decided to appeal the ruling against them, as just one of their battery of pre-election attacks against Muslims here & abroad. For what I believe are crassly political motives, they are deliberately inflaming Canadians against each others. Now we know what Conservatives mean by “Canadian values.”
Ms. Ishaq has been personally singled out for the national spotlight by no less than Stephen Harper himself. In fact the entire government of Canada seems obsessed by this one woman ... .
Quite simply, the Conservatives have decided that she is a useful weapon in their re-election campaign. By scapegoating her while introducing their much-criticized new anti-terrorism bill, they hope to convince frightened voters that the Conservatives are their best hope against dangers of all kinds. But in doing so, they are instead actually jeopardizing the country’s security. Stephen Harper & his minions are actually subverting the work of our security forces by alienating much of the Muslim community.
CSIS & the Mounties badly need the co-operation of the Muslim community to provide information about security risks among them. Yet even moderate Muslims – the large majority – are outraged by the way the government has, among other things, been picking on this one harmless Muslim woman, & in the process mocking the right of all Muslims to follow their religion in the way they want. Out of sheer political opportunism, Stephen Harper is undermining that community’s trust in official Canada while very likely estranging & radicalizing some Muslims, perhaps dangerously. How can he possibly not understand this?
Other Canadians are also guilty of this reckless behaviour, further angering all Muslims & in particular alienating younger ones. Far too many of these provocateurs are from Quebec, people with responsible positions as political, community & judicial leaders. They are not merely bigoted & intolerant. They are also divisive & destructive. They are playing into the hands of ISIS. As they surely must understand, they are sending an unmistakable message to every Muslim in the land: You are not one of us & we don’t trust any of you. And that message is being heard loud & clear by Muslims everywhere, with predictable repercussions.
Is it really too much to expect the Prime Minister of Canada to act responsibly at a time like this? It seems it is. Politics trumps all, even if it means turning other Canadians against Muslims & turning Muslims against official Canada. The consequences of both remain to be seen.
It's funny how politicians / leaders everywhere around the world play upon one & only one emotion of public: fear. Politicians, essentially, treat the general public as little children. Just like parents make up scary stories to make their kids to do something, e.g. eat their veggies, politicians take a small incident, blow it up a thousand times, & scare people to do their own bidding.
So be it the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ("North America is against the development of South America") or the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini ("immigrants are to blame for the poverty of South Africans") or Mr. Nigel Farage of UKIP blaming Islam & Muslims (behind the cover of anti-immigration) for economic woes of UK or Mr. Stephen Harper preaching Islamophobia to the Canadian crowds. What they all forget are the consequences of their statements? We can see the dire consequences of King Goodwill's statements in South Africa right now. Now, Mr. Zwelithini is asking for calm & blaming the media for misinterpreting his statements but the damage is already done. People are dead. Families are destroyed. Livelihoods are stolen. Those people who lost their lives won't come back now.
Since, the current government of Canada can't exactly win on job creation or economy, let's scare people about Islam & Muslims. Will Mr. Harper take responsibility when a Muslim woman, who is veiled or even simply wearing a hijab, is assaulted on the streets of Toronto? Will Quebecers come out in the support of Muslims when a Muslim woman is assaulted on the streets of Montreal?
After all, the general public keeps proving itself gullible, naïve, & a fine example in idiocy; they will believe anything & will diligently act upon it, too.
Majority of general public (all over world) = sheep = zombies ... all follow one without thinking.
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One recent poll put the Conservatives in first place in Quebec City, with similar results in the swath of mostly rural regions west of the province’s capital city.
... by coming out against the wearing of the face-covering niqab during a citizenship oath, which was the subject of a recent court decision, & the threat of another terrorist attack on Canadian soil, Harper hit upon a strain of collective fear in the province—where, as another recent poll suggests, nearly 80% of people are worried about a terrorist attack & the indoctrination of young Quebecers by Islamist extremists.
And what goes for Quebec goes for the country as a whole. The recent threat of an attack ... has only underscored the Canada-wide support for the government’s new anti-terrorism bill, which, according to recent polling numbers, is at nearly 85%.
Since the terrorist attacks in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the Prime Minister has taken to peppering his speeches with the words “jihad” & “terrorism,” whether speaking in Montreal or British Columbia or Brisbane, Australia. His national poll numbers have trended steadily upward, while the two opposition parties, the NDP & Liberals, have seen a corresponding decrease, according to poll aggregator Éric Grenier. “Jihadi terrorism, as it is evolving, is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced,” Harper said in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill recently. “We will not be intimidated by jihadist terrorists,” he said in Delta, B.C., in a speech otherwise devoted to infrastructure spending.
The message seems clear: Appealing to Canadians’ baser fears doesn’t only work—it’s also a rare source of national unity.
Quebec’s Muslim population more than doubled between 2001 & 2011, in large part because of Quebec’s immigration policy favouring new arrivals from French-speaking countries. This influx of French-speakers, primarily from North Africa, were decidedly different in appearance & in their religious practices, spurring the so-called “reasonable accommodations” debate.
Fear of Muslims erupted in Quebec’s overwhelmingly white hinterland (the very area Harper covets today) over the spectre of mosques on their skylines & pork-free fèves au lard at the sugar shack. The town of Hérouxville, home to exactly zero Muslims, banned public stonings.
Then the attacks started. Certainly, Quebecers were as aghast as the rest of the world at the various terrorist attacks against Western targets. Yet the attacks against soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu & on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill were a special kind of horror: Both perpetrators were pure laine francophone, born-&-bred Quebecers ostensibly radicalized by fundamentalist imams & the outer margins of the Internet.
“The fact that these 2 guys were from Quebec was a wake-up call,” says Quebec MNA Nathalie Roy, the critic for secular matters for the right-of-centre Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). “It’s unthinkable that Quebec citizens would go so far as to renounce our values & our rights.” The attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which Islamist gunmen killed 12 in & around the office of the Paris-based satirical magazine in January, had particular resonance in Quebec. Proportionally, it received nearly 3 times the media coverage in the province than elsewhere in the country, according to Influence Communication, a Montreal-based media-monitoring company.
The issue of Muslim & societal values came up yet again with a recent Federal Court decision that struck down a prohibition on the wearing of the niqab while taking the public citizenship oath. Like most court decisions, there are nuances to what Federal Court Judge Keith Boswell wrote. The issue wasn’t about identification, since the woman in question, Zunera Ishaq, had already shown her face to citizenship authorities.
Nor did Boswell’s decision outright allow for the wearing of the niqab during the oath. It only quashed a 2011 government directive barring the Muslim face-covering during the ceremony because it prevented citizenship judges from “allowing the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization,” as outlined in the citizenship regulations.
These nuances were mostly overlooked in the ensuing outrage over the Federal Court decision. This outrage was at a full boil when the Prime Minister first announced his government’s intention to appeal Boswell’s decision during a stop in Victoriaville, Que.
... Harper’s statement, uttered in both official languages, was a master stroke of quotable outrage. “I believe, & I think most Canadians believe, that it is offensive that someone would hide their identity at the very moment where they are committing to joining the Canadian family,” he said. “This is a society that is transparent, open, & where people are equal. And that is just . . . I think we find that offensive.”
Among those who listened at Harper’s side was Victoriaville Mayor Alain Rayes. Born of Egyptian immigrants, Rayes has been mayor of the city of 45,000 since 2009. A fit 43-year-old with a ready smile & an informal way about him, Rayes is being heavily courted to run for the Conservatives in the next election. He says the vast majority of his constituents see eye-to-eye with Harper on the topics of terrorism & societal norms.
“It’s an aberration to hear [NDP Leader] Thomas Mulcair say he is against the anti-terror bill, or to hear [Liberal Leader] Justin Trudeau say he finds it normal that a person doesn’t remove her niqab during a citizenship oath. I’m not against the veil or freedom of religion, but there is a limit,” Rayes says.
The CAQ, meanwhile, proposed a motion to perform background checks on anyone requesting a permit to build a mosque in Quebec, as well as a law banning any form of speech that “goes against the values inscribed in Quebec’s charter of rights.” It was voted down in Quebec’s National Assembly.
This makes for fertile political ground for the Conservatives, says Quebecer Stephen Brown. “In Quebec, if a deeply unpopular prime minister comes & says, ‘I want to protect you & your culture,’ he’s going to have an immediate audience. The fear of extremist Islam, which is justified, is like political catnip,” says the 28-year-old volunteer with the Quebec-based Canadian Muslim Forum.
The Tories may find this a winning strategy outside of Quebec, as well. An Angus-Reid poll published in mid-February suggested that 82% of Canadians support Bill C-51, the Conservative government’s anti-terrorism legislation. An earlier Angus-Reid poll, published about a month after the attacks in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu & Parliament Hill, suggests why this support is so high. 62% of Canadians (including 60% of Quebecers) believe homegrown terrorism is a serious threat.
The terrorist attacks in Canada in 2014 have had a similar effect on public opinion as the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, says University of Toronto professor & terrorism law expert Kent Roach. In both cases, politicians leveraged the collective fear of terrorism to pass more stringent laws. “Like the Anti-Terrorism Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks, Bill C-51 is an omnibus bill that is being enacted amid fears of additional terrorist attacks. In both cases, there are almost daily media accounts of terrorist threats to Canada,” Roach says ... .
Citizenship & Immigration Minister Chris Alexander sent out a note to supporters criticizing the Federal Court for its stance on the niqab. He also noted his government’s intention to appeal the decision “allowing people to wear the hijab,” thus, knowingly or not, conflating the niqab & the hijab, 2 very different articles of clothing. (The term hijab is widely used to describe a head scarf that doesn’t cover the face.) ... And it took just over a week into his tenure as Canada’s new defence minister for Jason Kenney to proclaim the “high probability of future jihadist attacks from within”—a contention, coincidentally or not, that 62% of Canadians believe, according to the Angus-Reid poll. (A bit of perspective: Canadian-born terrorists were responsible for the deaths of 2 people in 2014; in 2011, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data, 2,158 Canadians died in motor vehicle accidents.)
As the Conservatives have shown across the country, fear of jihadists & face-coverings alike is a far more exploitable subject that also happens to dovetail with the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. “If I were Stephen Harper’s political adviser, I’d tell him to do exactly what he’s doing,” says Brown of the Canadian Muslim Forum. “Fear is the most powerful human emotion &, if people are afraid, they will be willing to give you more power in the name of protecting them.” In promoting this fear in Quebec & beyond, perhaps Stephen Harper has found the key to national unity after all.
On Thursday, Quebec Judge Eliana Marengo turned away a single mother coming to court trying to get back her impounded car. She wasn’t even driving the car when it was impounded. She had done nothing wrong. Nothing, that is, except wear the same religious head scarf she had worn for years, including when she swore her Oath of Allegiance to Canada.
Every way you look at this issue, the Quebec judge was just plain wrong.
First, let’s talk about the law. The Supreme Court of Canada has already decided the issue, dead against what this judge did. Freedom of religion is a Charter right. According to the Charter, religious freedoms can be limited only if the limits are both reasonable, & demonstrably justifiable. So what sort of limits on religious freedoms are reasonable & demonstrably justifiable?
How does wearing a head scarf similarly interfere with the proper functioning of the courts? Why is the head scarf a problem? Courts listen to people & make decisions based on what they hear. Does a head scarf interfere with a court’s ability to hear a person, understand them, & make a decision based on what they say? Of course not. So to return to the legal test, violating someone’s religious freedom by forcing them to remove a piece of religious head gear before they testify in court is neither reasonable nor demonstrably justifiable, & never could be. By the way, Sikhs have been wearing turbans in court for years, & Jews have been wearing yarmulkes. The justice system accommodates them all just fine. Do all those fine folks now have to partially disrobe as well? What about that terrible clerical collar? And while you’re at it, why not insist that all religious facial hair be shaved? It’s hard to detect a smirk or a frown behind a thicket of dense fur.
The judge offered 2 explanations for her position. Both are bogus. She said non-religious persons remove hats & sunglasses. So, she argues, she is just treating the person with the religious head scarf the same as everyone else. This is patently absurd. Does the judge really think religious apparel is no different than sunglasses & baseball caps? If she really thinks that, she does not know the first thing about religious beliefs & practices, & the depth & meaning they bring to many peoples’ lives. As a lawyer I’ve had to read the Charter once or twice, & I’ve never found the slightest reference to freedom of shades & fedoras. But I did find freedom of religion, right up front, in s.2(a). So the comparison argument is a non-starter.
The judge also said that courtrooms are a secular place, & must remain so. At least this argument has the tiny but questionable virtue of being only half-baked. Courtrooms are secular in that the law they apply can have no entrenched advantages for any one religious group. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is access to justice. Courtrooms dispense justice, & justice must be equally accessible for everyone, regardless of what, if any, religious beliefs they hold, & how they practise (or not) those religious beliefs. We can no more exclude from a courtroom a hijab-wearing woman seeking justice than we could exclude from a hospital emergency room a hijab-wearing woman with serious injuries seeking treatment. Remember that ancient Roman goddess Justitia with the scales in her hand? ... she has worn a blindfold because she welcomes everyone to court, & judges people based on the evidence, not on skin colour, gender, clothing, or religion.
No doubt the judge in question is a committed secularist. And I for one would defend vigorously her personal freedom to hold those views whether I agree with them or not. But in doing what she did in her capacity as a judge, she is, ironically for a secularist, no better than the fundamentalist religious dogmatists who try to exclude those with different beliefs from fully participating in, & benefiting from, essential social institutions.
What the judge did was profoundly un-Canadian. And profoundly wrong.
I went through this problem for almost 10 years in high school & universities. Apparently, it is still a huge issue, depending on the university.
My view is that universities should dedicate a fairly large-sized room for quite meditation purposes. This way, student organizations can book this room for their purposes whenever they want. There's no need to dedicate a separate room for Muslim students, because, then, of course, students of other faiths have the right to ask for their own prayer rooms. Of course, if students of a particular faith really want their own room, they can always collect funds & lease the room from the university.
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Last October, the McGill student newspaper published a photo essay of Muslim students praying under staircases, in storage rooms & in empty classrooms.
It wasn’t always this way. Muslim students had a dedicated prayer room until May 2005, when the university told them they could no longer use it. A lengthy conflict between the university’s Muslim Students Association (MSA) & McGill ensued. The students filed a discrimination complaint to the Quebec human rights commission. McGill argued it wasn’t required to offer dedicated space because it is a secular institution. The commission dismissed the complaint, & the Muslim students never got their room back.
Dozens of Canadian universities have dedicated Muslim prayer rooms, while others don’t engage with the issue at all. In a rare move, the University of Regina recently installed special sinks for Muslim students to use before prayer. But what works at one university might lead to tension at another.
Last November, the entire team of Catholic chaplains at Western University quit the university’s Chaplains Association, protesting the university’s decision to provide Muslim students with a new & bigger prayer room after the old multi-faith space, which included an area designated for Muslim prayer, was closed for renovations.
“What the university has created is a large space exclusively for the Muslim community, & a small room for the other faiths,” says Rev. Michael Bechard, who still leads the group of Catholic chaplains at Western’s King’s College. “I’ve been at Western since 2000, & twice a year we’ve been asking for more space,” Bechard says. “My issue is not with Islam or accommodation with the Muslim community. My issue is that, in accommodating them, it’s being done in such a way that ostracizes everyone else. It’s simply not fair.”
Then, in early January 2015, Rev. Michael Wagenman, a Christian Reformed chaplain at Western, resigned as coordinator of all university chaplains. Still a chaplain with an office in the multi-faith area, he says he speaks to students every day who are “bewildered this group is getting special treatment.” “Shared multi-faith space should be the first priority, not dedicated space,” he says.
But Western sees things differently. Susan Grindrod, associate vice-president of Western’s housing & ancillary services, says she’s not aware of requests for more space from other religious student groups. “We did not want to take space away from one group,” she says. “We have a large number of Muslim students . . . & this is a group that came forward & we tried to meet their needs.” She says other religious groups are welcome to book more space in addition to their multi-faith space.
The University of Toronto’s approach to religion on campus lies somewhere between McGill’s & Western’s. While U of T has a multi-faith centre, a building with several rooms in which weekly discussions on faith & religious diversity take place, U of T does not provide designated space for any religious group. There are several multi-purpose spaces around campus that student groups, including religious ones, are responsible for booking. “We don’t expect students to park their faith at the edge of campus,” says Richard Chambers, director of the university’s multi-faith centre. “But we don’t privilege any particular group . . . that wouldn’t fly here.” Chambers has yet to receive a request from a single religious group asking for more space.
