From Washington Post
by Ishaan Tharoor
Canada will hold its federal election in less than two weeks. For months, the contest has been viewed as a three-horse race between the ruling Conservative party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Liberals and the leftist New Democrat Party. There are lots of important issues at stake, including Canada’s flagging economy, its role in counterterrorism operations overseas, and the looming specter of climate change.
But, of late, something far more insignificant has begun to dominate the conversation: whether Muslim women can wear the niqab, a type of full-face veil, during Canadian citizenship ceremonies.
The prompt for the hubbub is a specific case: In mid-September, a federal court rejected an appeal by Harper’s government that attempted to block Zunera Ishaq, a 29-year-old devout Muslim of Pakistani origin, from attending her citizenship ceremony without removing her niqab. The appeal followed an earlier ruling that deemed “unlawful” a 2011 decision by Harper’s government to prevent face veils at oath-taking ceremonies.
But Harper and his allies aren’t letting go. They intend to fight the latest ruling and have made the matter of the niqab a sticking point in the campaign. The garb, they argue, is a symbol of oppression.
“When you join the Canadian family in a public citizenship ceremony, it is essential that that is a time when you reveal yourselves to Canadians,” Harpersaid. Another Conservative candidate said last week that the niqab is “not in line with Canadian values.”
This is a proposition that appears to have widespread support from Canadians. A poll ordered by Harper’s government showed that a huge majority of Canadians are in agreement with the niqab ban at citizenship ceremonies. It’s a sentiment that is particularly strong in Quebec, a majority French-speaking province that has for years waged its own battles over the role afforded to religion — and especially Islam — in its public life.
And, according to polls, the flaring of the niqab debate appears to have coincided with a dip in Quebecois support for the NDP, whose leader Thomas Mulcair recently accused Harper of using the niqab as “a weapon of mass distraction.”
