Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of deliberately sowing fear and prejudice against Muslims in Canada.
The charge came in a strongly worded speech Trudeau delivered in Toronto Monday night to highlight his views on the importance of liberty in Canadian society.
“These are troubling times,” Trudeau told a gathering organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “Across Canada, and especially in my home province, Canadians are being encouraged by their government to be fearful of one another.
“Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.”
Trudeau compared the Conservative government’s approach to Muslims today to Canada’s restrictive immigration policies for Jews during the rise of Hitler’s Nazis.
“We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a ‘none is too many’ immigration policy toward Jews in the ’30s and ’40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today.”
Trudeau also castigated the prime minister for his comments last month in the wake of a court ruling that struck down the government’s policy that forbid Muslim women to wear the niqab, a religious garment, over the face during citizenship ceremonies.
At the time, Harper said his government would appeal the ruling because wearing a niqab is “offensive” and it’s “not how we do things here.”
In subsequent days, the Conservative party reinforced that message to its supporters and financial donors, as the Tories gear up for an election campaign.
“We all know what is going on here,” Trudeau said of Harper and the Tories.
“It is nothing less than an attempt to play on people’s fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith.”
Trudeau said people can dislike the niqab and refer to it as a symbol of oppression.
“This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn.
“It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot choose to wear.”
Trudeau said Canada is a land of a million Muslims who should be allowed to thrive in a free and open secular democracy.
“Keeping these freedoms safe from those who would undermine them through violence is a vital national responsibility.
“What we cannot ever do is blur the line between a real security threat and simple prejudice, as this government has done. I believe they have done it deliberately, and I believe what they have done is deeply wrong.”
Trudeau noted that after Harper publicly spoke out against the niqab, a Quebec judge prevented a woman from wearing a hijab — a head scarf that still keeps the face visible — in the courtroom.
He said the judge’s decision is part of a “troubling trend that Mr. Harper seems keen to accelerate and exploit.”
“Fear is a dangerous thing. Once stoked, whether by a judge from the bench or a prime minister with a dog-whistle, there is no way to predict where it will end.”
Trudeau said the prime minister’s campaign of fear is unconscionable and a real threat to Canadian liberties.
He said that under Harper, the Conservatives have changed from previous decades and their strategy is dangerous.
“Their approach to politics might work in the short term, but it is corrosive over time. Especially in a diverse country like Canada. It stokes anxiety and foments fear. Instead of encouraging Canadians to fight for one another’s liberty, it tells us to be suspicious of each other’s choices.”
After Trudeau’s speech, a spokesman for Harper reacted by saying that Canada is a “beacon of freedom, an example of unity in diversity and a successful model of pluralism in the world.”
“Under Prime Minister Harper, this government will continue to take action to protect our freedoms by denying the international jihadist movement the opportunity to inflict terror on our citizens and interests,” Stephen Lecce, the prime minister’s director of media relations, said in an emailed statement.
He said the government’s proposed anti-terror bill, C-51, will “thwart efforts to use Canada as a recruiting ground, prevent terrorism travel and attacks on our soil.”
Lecce defended the government’s decision to appeal the recent court ruling regarding the wearing of niqabs at citizenship ceremonies.
“Most Canadians would find it offensive that someone would conceal their identity at the very moment they want to join the Canadian family,” said Lecce.
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