Category Archives: Canada

Victory for reactionary racism: Quebec election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Quebec election was characterized by a great deal of discontent with the traditional establishment parties, the PQ and the Liberals. The remarkable thing about this election was that this discontent was successfully shifted from the policies that ostensibly pissed people off in the first place, onto to Muslims living in Quebec. Turning anger at unrelated issues into anger at immigrants is hardly a new political technique, but watching it happen here in Montreal is pretty astounding.”

The Dominion weblog, 28 March 2007

See also “Quebec state yields to right-wing provocation on eve of provincial election”, World Socialist Web Site, 26 March 2007

‘Quebec’s Le Pen’ likely to make major election gain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A young conservative populist sometimes described as Quebec’s Jean-Marie Le Pen is likely in today’s election to throw a spanner into the separatist versus federalist competition that has dominated Quebec politics for decades.

Polls indicate Mario Dumont’s Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), a small fringe party for the past three elections, is about to seize the balance of power in the first minority parliament in 129 years. The ADQ has side-swiped the separatist Parti Quebecois and the ruling federalist Liberals, led by Jean Charest, by exploiting a backlash against multiculturism, especially Muslims.

A debate has developed throughout the province about what constitutes reasonable accommodation to the cultural and social practices of expanding ethnic communities. It was fuelled when, for example, a conservative Hasidic synagogue forced a sports centre to paint the windows of its swimming pool so students would not see people in swimming costumes.

Muslim headscarves and niqabs have also become a subject of controversy, especially when an 11-year-old girl was thrown out of a football match for wearing one. Quebec’s chief electoral officer has ordered that Muslim women must bare their faces if they want to vote, after an outcry over his original ruling that face coverings were acceptable.

M. Dumont, who describes himself as an autonomist wanting more power for Quebec, will probably tonight be in a position to implement many of the rightist, inward-looking policies on which he has campaigned. Both M. Charest and the Parti Quebecois leader, Andre Boisclair, seemed oblivious to the issue until polls showed M. Dumont was surging ahead.

Independent, 26 March 2007

Muslim face veil banned in Quebec vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MONTREAL – Muslim women will have to remove their face coverings if they want to vote in upcoming elections in Quebec, a government official said Friday, reversing his earlier decision to allow the veils.

Marcel Blanchet, the French-speaking province’s election chief, had been criticized by Quebec’s three main political leaders for allowing voters to wear the niqab, which covers the entire face except for the eyes, if they signed a sworn statement and showed identification when they vote.

But Blanchet reversed his earlier decision Friday, saying it was necessary to avoid disruptions when residents go to the polls. “Relevant articles to electoral laws were modified to add the following: any person showing up at a polling station must be uncovered to exercise the right to vote,” he said.

Blanchet had to get two bodyguards after the Quebec elections office received threatening phone calls and e-mails following his initial decision to allow niqabs.

The reversal was condemned by Muslims groups who said it could turn their members away from the polls. “I am so saddened, I doubt many of these women will show up at the polls on Monday after all this mockery,” said Sarah Elgazzar of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Last week in Quebec, a young Muslim woman was forced to quit her job at a prison after she refused to remove her headscarf. The public security department supported the decision, citing security concerns, but Muslim groups pointed out that the Canadian Armed Forces allow women to wear headscarves on active duty.

Last month, an 11-year-old Muslim girl from Ontario participating in a soccer tournament in Quebec was pulled from the field after she refused the referee’s request to remove her headscarf.

Associated Press, 23 March 2007

Canadian Federation of Students releases report on needs of Muslim students

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Canadian Federation of Students released a report examining college and university responsiveness to Muslim students today. The Federation’s Task Force on the Needs of Muslim Students compiled the report based on participation of nearly 1,000 Muslim students at 17 on-campus hearings over a seven month period.

“The goal was to develop a better understanding of the needs of Muslim students and to determine how well Ontario universities and colleges are addressing those needs,” said Jesse Greener, Ontario Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. “It’s clear that every day Muslim students face both overt and subtle forms of Islamophobic discrimination on Ontario campuses.”

Islamophobia, as defined in the Ontario Human Rights Commission, is the use of stereotypes, biased or hostile acts towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. The Ontario Human Rights Code sets out standards of religious accommodation for the beliefs and practices of racialised individuals or groups within workplaces and learning environments.

“A general ‘failure to accommodate’ was the most frequently identified problem by Muslim students in many facets of campus life,” said Ausma Malik, Task Force member and student at the University of Toronto. “From a lack of appropriate foods on campus and inadequate prayer space to inflexible academic policies that are often at odds with religious obligations, Ontario’s Muslim students often face a fundamentally different learning environment than other students.”

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Lack of contact linked to intolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Quebecers have the least personal contact with Jews or Muslims of any Canadians, and less contact means more intolerance, an analysis of poll data suggests.

The findings help explain why “reasonable accommodation” of orthodox Jews and Muslims is so controversial in this province, the Montreal research group that crunched the numbers says.

The Environics poll also reveals that, when it comes to Arabs and Jews, a small minority of Canadians are equal-opportunity bigots – they dislike both.

Montreal Gazette, 21 March 2007

Muslim groups decry Quebec’s treatment of prison guard

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Quebec government is turning a blind eye to sensible alternatives by forcing a Muslim woman to choose between her hijab or prison guard training, say Muslim groups. Sondos Abdelatif, 19, was told that she would have to remove her hijab in order to continue with the training program at Montreal’s Bordeaux jail. She chose to withdraw from the program instead.

Quebec’s Public Security Department said the Muslim headwear could pose a threat to Abdelatif’s safety should prisoners get hostile. “As a security measure, the hijab cannot be accepted as an element of the uniform to execute the functions of a correctional officer,” department spokesman Real Roussy said Thursday.

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More nonsense on Islam and Islamism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reflections on IslamThe Canadian National Post publishes an excerpt from a new book, Reflections on Islam, written by one of its columnists, George Jonas:

“Islam is one of the world’s great religions. Islamism is a radical movement of intolerance, coercion and terror. The followers of Islam are a billion faithful Muslims around the world. The followers of Islamism include Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda, Sheikh Omar and his Taliban, the nuclear ayatollahs of theocratic Iran, the militants of Hezbollah, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, the late Shamil Bashayev’s human bombs from Chechnya and a string of other terrorists in far-flung parts of the globe. Unfortunately, they also include some of our neighbours down the block or around the corner….

“Islamism is not Islam. The two are not to be equated. But is there something about Islam that is conducive to the formation of extremist sects and radical movements? Is Islam a Petri dish in which a culture of fundamentalism thrives? Arguably, yes.”

National Post, 15 March 2007

Islam motivates terrorism: Canadian psychologist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nearly a month since Israeli Apartheid Week was held on campuses across North America and Europe, campus and community groups answered back with Freedom and Democracy Week, a series of lectures about home-grown terrorism, religious extremism and the “war on terrorism”. The event, which was held at the Bahen Centre at the University of Toronto from March 5 to 8, was sponsored by Zionists at the University of Toronto, a chapter of Betar-Tagar Canada; B’nai Brith Canada; Hasbara Fellowships; Stand With Us; and the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

Steven Stein, a psychologist who has offered his expertise to the US Air Force, Canadian Forces and special units of the Pentagon, and is the CEO of Multi-Health Systems, the largest Canadian publisher of psychological tests, presented a lecture titled “The Psychology of Terror: Inside the Head of Religious Extremists”. He said that while some may cite the “Israeli occupation” as the reason for terrorism in Israel, he believes that religion is the main reason. He said that it is the passion for the religion that drives terrorism. “It is a duty, a call to God, it’s what Allah wants.”

Canadian Jewish News, 15 March 2007

World’s soccer chiefs chicken out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Accusing of the International Football Association Board of “pointless cowardice” over the Asmahan Mansour case, the Montreal Gazette also lays into the Quebec Soccer Federation, who were responsible for banning her in the first place:

“You don’t have to be Muslim to wonder how a scarf, especially if tucked in at the neck, can be dangerous. One could even make a case that an exposed pony tail – common enough on the pitch – could conceivably be riskier than covered hair. So the Quebec Soccer Federation now needs to explain itself. Can it cite safety studies? Offer horrible examples of death by hijab? Provide any defence at all of this narrow-minded ruling? If not, it should reverse itself.”

Montreal Gazette, 6 March 2007

See also “FIFA hijab ruling deserves red card”, Edmonton Journal, 6 March 2007

Hijab ban in soccer is upheld

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Azzy scoresAn 11-year-old Ottawa girl who was ejected from a soccer game because she was wearing a hijab is disappointed that the sport’s international governing body has decided to uphold the referee’s decision.

The International Football Association Board had been asked to consider the case of Asmahan Mansour, who was recently ejected from an indoor game in Laval, Que., for wearing a headscarf. The referee said the hijab, traditional headgear for Muslim girls, was a safety concern.

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