Patrick Brown sidesteps Islamophobia trap
Ontario Tory leader does the decent thing when so many others are failing
Ontario Tory Leader Patrick Brown will back an Ottawa MPP’s anti-Islamophobia motion, he says.
Ottawa-Vanier Liberal Nathalie Des Rosiers let her fellow legislators know back in December she’d be using her eventual slot as a backbencher to bring it. She and Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi, who’s in charge of the government’s legislative agenda as the Liberals’ house leader, shuffled the schedule around to hurry it up so it pops up on Thursday.
Two things happened between December and now. First, six Muslim men were massacred after prayers in a Quebec City mosque on Jan. 29, which is the publicly given reason for condemning Islamophobia sooner rather than later. Second, a bunch of federal Conservatives who should know better lost their minds over a similar federal effort by Mississauga MP Iqra Khalid, turning an essentially toothless statement that attacking Muslims is bad into the latest attempt to make every Canadian put on a burka while Shariah law creeps o’er the land. Not just Kellie Leitch and Chris Alexander, either, but Andrew Scheer, the former Speaker, who must know that motions aren’t bills and don’t make laws. They express opinions and, at most, guide internal legislative business.
Other motions the House of Commons passed this session have included recognitions of German and Tamil heritage months, a request to have a committee study why people keep leaving Atlantic Canada, and something in favour of hauling off derelict ships if they’re in people’s way. Khalid’s calls on a federal legislative committee to study religious discrimination with a particular focus on Islamophobia and to report back to the House of Commons with national statistics and proposals on what might be done.
That’s the only thing it actually does.
Khalid’s motion “could be interpreted as a step towards stifling free speech and legitimate criticism,” Scheer explains. Well, it could be, yes. Lots of things could be interpreted lots of ways.
Pierre Lemieux, the ex-MP for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, calls it an attack on free speech. Deepak Obhrai says Khalid’s motion is “using this issue to divide a country and further harm the very group they are professing to help” by focusing unreasonably on Islamophobia.
Azzeddine Soufiane, Abdelkrim Hassane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Ibrahima Barry, Khaled Belkacemi and Boubaker Thabti are six reasons for that focus. They were people. This isn’t a madeup problem.
Examining Islamophobia does not preclude us from examining the dangers of radical Islamism at the same time, but nor does the existence of radical Islamism excuse generalized Islamophobia. Unless the argument here is that Islamophobia is a reasonable reaction to the evils that all Muslims represent. Surely that’s not it, is it?
Des Rosiers’ motion isn’t a copy of Khalid’s, though the underlying sentiments are similar. Hers condemns Islamophobia at length but just urges the government to keep doing what it’s doing. The text, which is frankly a bit scattered, would have MPPs “reaffirm (their) support for government’s efforts, through the Anti-Racism Directorate, to address and prevent systemic racism across government policy, programs and services, and increase antiracism education and awareness, including Islamophobia, in all parts of the province.” Fine with me, says Brown. “Whether it’s hate against any faith, it’s wrong. I will always stand in opposition to any form of hate. Islamophobia is a problem and we must stand up against it,” the provincial Progressive Conservative leader said Tuesday. He intends to be in the legislature to vote for the motion on Thursday, said his spokesman Nick Bergamini.
Brown has a couple of advantages over his federal cousins. One, he isn’t in the middle of a drawn-out party leadership campaign in which he’s one of a dozen candidates struggling to distinguish himself from the rest of the field and hoping a belligerent stance on a vanilla motion will be the thing to do it.
Two, he’s not an idiot. At a minimum, he’s learned from his experience playing footsie with social conservatives who spent years claiming Ontario’s new health curriculum encourages children to have sex when it plainly doesn’t. That went badly — those liars-for-God might be Conservative voters, by and large, but their support is toxic if you want to appeal to non-crazy Ontarians. The poison is slow but still deadly.
The antidote is just being decent. It doesn’t take much, but Brown managed it easily where so many others can’t.