The major issue that preoccupied the last Canadian election has been propelled back into the public forum with force. The courageous Steven Blaney, former Minister of Public Safety and Quebec MP, is the latest to jump into the Conservative leadership race, and he re-opened the niqab debate. Blaney stated:
We have a Canadian way of living, the rule of law, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our laws…. My proposal this morning is to preserve our Canadian identity and especially toward those who are building Canada of tomorrow, including new Canadians.
Blaney also said:
Uncovering your face is a day-to-day requirement for every Canadian whether it is to obtain a driver licence or getting a passport for obvious security reasons.
Blaney is ready to invoke Canada’s powerful and rarely used Notwithstanding Clause to ban the niqab. The clause is a legislative power that allows the Parliament or a Legislature to override certain Charter sections if, after careful consideration, they believe the interests of democracy are best served by overriding a law.
Few leaders are willing to put themselves in the way of Islamic supremacists and their leftist protectors by challenging what is in fact a clear assault on Western democracy. The niqab is a symbol of female oppression and subjugation, as well as a direct risk to security during a global jihad that has seen women throughout Europe who were not veiled raped and assaulted.
Recently, a Muslim scholar and imam in the U.K. called for Britain to stand up and ban the burqa, calling it “hostile to Western ideals of gender equality”; he referred to it as a practice stemming from a misogynistic culture.
In truth, the burqa represents more than culture. It is a practice referenced in the Quran, with warnings for women about being sexually abused if they fail to wear it:
(Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.
(Quran 33:59) O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused.
The agenda-driven folk are already — as expected — coming out of the woodwork to cry foul over Blaney’s announcement, branding him as anti-inclusive (aka “Islamophobic”):
On Monday, Tory MP Deepak Obhrai, who is also running for leader, took to Twitter to say he disagreed with Blaney.
“My campaign is based on inclusiveness and embracing diversity,” Obhrai tweeted.
Yet the argument of Obhrai, who is also a conservative and evidently a politically correct one, demonstrates the division in the camp. Obhrai is fueling Islamic supremacists and others of like mind, mainly on the leftist side, who use the same argument about “inclusiveness” but who are really fueling an anti-Canadian, divisive, anti-woman, and anti-democracy narrative. Obhrai is politically posturing and enabling an exclusive right and privilege for a segment of Muslims to engage in practices of Islamic supremacism, which is contrary to democracy. In fact, he is known to play divisive racial politics. He “expressed concern that Conservative Party may turn into an ‘elitist and white-only club.'” Unfortunately, in supporting the niqab, Obhrai shows his true colors, in manipulating racial politics — and while he boasts of some visionary award from India, India, ironically, has received threats from Muslim Pakistan to destroy it with a nuclear bomb.
Canada is walking a dangerous road. Recently in Montreal, Quebec, Muslims took author Djemila Benhabib to court for telling the truth about what she witnessed firsthand at the Muslim School of Montreal; and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre signed a quiet and shady deal with Iran.
Let’s hope that Steven Blaney stays strong and manages to withstand Islamic supremacist intimidation and thuggery, unlike beleaguered Alberta politician Craig Chandler, a member of the PC party of Alberta, who resigned in the spring after being bullied into doing so by the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council, which spearheaded the launch of an Islamophobia hotline.
“Steven Blaney Reignites Niqab Debate At Start Of Tory Leadership “, by Ryan Maloney, Huffington Post, October 24, 2016:
A Conservative leadership candidate is reopening a divisive debate over the wearing of niqabs and other face-covering veils.
Quebec MP Steven Blaney announced Monday that, if elected prime minister, he would be prepared to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to ensure faces are uncovered when would-be Canadians swear the citizenship oath, as well as when citizens vote and work in the federal public service.
“Uncovering your face is a day-to-day requirement for every Canadian whether it is to obtain a driver licence or getting a passport for obvious security reasons,” Blaney said in a media release. “This same requirement should apply to all those who swear allegiance to our country, vote in-person at a polling station or work within the federal public service.”
Blaney pledged to reintroduce as government legislation his 2011 private member’s bill that would have demanded voters show their faces before voting or registering to vote. The bill would have additional amendments related to the citizenship ceremony and federal bureaucrats.
Blaney said he “will not hesitate” to use the notwithstanding clause if the Supreme Court of Canada should “oppose the will of Parliament.” Section 33 of the Charter allows the federal Parliament or provincial legislatures to override certain fundamental freedoms, and legal and equality rights for no more than five years……
No federal Parliament has ever invoked the clause, but governments in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Yukon
Testing on ‘Canada’s core principles’Blaney also pledged to change the citizenship test to ensure prospective Canadians are “sufficiently tested” on their proficiency with one of the two official languages and “Canada’s core principles.” He said a Blaney government would also tweak the citizenship oath to incorporate those “core principles.”
The former public safety minister under the government of Stephen Harper also said more investments would be made in security agencies to screen “potential national security threats.”
The right of Muslim women to wear the face-covering niqab during the citizenship ceremony became a major topic in last year’s election campaign. Pakistan-born woman Zunera Ishaq successfully challenged the former Tory government’s ban on the practice in a federal court and eventually took her citizenship oath while wearing the veil, after confirming her identity.
Harper had long argued that covering one’s face at the moment they become a citizen was “offensive,” and said the veils were rooted in a culture that is “anti-women.”
Liberals and New Democrats accused Tories of trying to use the debate as a wedge and a distraction from more important matters.
Things got even more heated when Conservatives pledged on the campaign trail that they would bring in an RCMP tip line for so-called “barbaric cultural practices.”
The two Tories behind that announcement — Chris Alexander and Kellie Leitch — are also running for the Tory leadership.
On Monday, Tory MP Deepak Obhrai, who is also running for leader, took to Twitter to say he disagreed with Blaney.
“My campaign is based on inclusiveness and embracing diversity,” Obhrai tweeted.