The Canadian government’s choice of newly appointed anti-Islamophobia representative is receiving a lot of criticism from some politicians in the province of Quebec.
In 2019, Amira Elghawaby co-authored an article that was critical of Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans public employees from wearing “religious symbols”, including traditional headwear like hijabs and kippahs. Elghawaby’s article apparently referred to a poll conducted by a reputable research organization which found that “88 per cent of Quebecers who held negative views of Islam overwhelmingly supported the ban on religious symbols for public servants” (CBC). In response to this research, the article suggested, “‘Unfortunately, the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment’” (CBC).
Given the results of the poll, Elghawaby’s observation doesn’t seem unfair. In fact, in 2018 the CBC reported on a study from the University of Waterloo that found that Quebecers have the highest level of anti-Muslim sentiment in Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/anti-muslim-sentiment-higher-in-quebec-than-rest-of-canada-study-finds-1.4577746
If someone is going to play a key role in dealing with intolerance and prejudice, they need to have the ability to point to inconvenient truths and question the integrity of laws with respect to human rights. It seems that Legault and some other politicians in Quebec are not yet ready to deal with these issues openly and seriously.
Faint Scrawls 