Déjà Vu at the Election No One Wanted
About a week before the election, polls predicted a 57% chance of the Liberals winning a minority government. Seeing as that’s exactly what happened in an unsurprising sweep of the country, the Liberals have emerged victorious once more with a minority government like that of 2019’s election. In terms of seats, as of press time, the Liberals have 158 seats in comparison to their 157 seats from 2019. So the question to be asking now, is what did the Liberals gain from calling this election? Although Trudeau repeatedly stated that the election was called to give Canadians a voice in the exit of this pandemic, he has also insinuated that he had hopes of winning a majority government. Obviously, this didn’t happen and yet, Trudeau put on a brave face on the night of the election to address the nation. He hinted at no remorse over the time put in or the 610 million dollars that funded this election. Furthermore, this year, the voter turnout rate was a meager 59% which led experts to believe that the public has lost faith or confidence in our elections. This leads to another minor flaw in our democratic system, although the Conservative party won the popular vote with almost 34% of voters, the Liberal party won more seats and therefore a minority government with barely 33% of the public vote. The jury is still out if it’s fair that although the Conservatives got more votes, the Liberal Party is the one that came out victorious.
Although it’s difficult to track religious and ethnic allegiances, a record-breaking number of Muslim candidates won seats in parliament this year. Of Pakistani origin, Liberal MP Salma Zahid won her seat for the third time this year in the Scarborough Center Riding. Liberal incumbent Arif Virani also won a seat for his third term in the Parkdale-High Park Riding in Toronto. Sameer Zuberi, Liberal incumbent, was re-elected for the Pierrefonds-Dollard riding in Quebec. Conservative incumbent, Ziad Aboultaif, won the Edmonton-Manning riding in Alberta. Liberal incumbent, Ali Ehsassi, won the Willowdale Riding in Ontario. Omar Alghabra, Liberal incumbent, won the Mississauga Centre Riding. Shafqat Ali won the Brampton Centre Riding in Ontario. Other Canadian Muslim identifying candidates also won seats in the York South-Weston, Richmond Hill, Mississauga-Erin Hills, Ottawa Centre, and Vancouver-Granville ridings. In total that makes 12 elected MPs, who openly identify as Muslim, in Parliament.
All these candidates have made promises to tackle Islamophobia in Canada and bring up issues in Parliament that are important and relate to Muslims. To specify, Islamic issues our community should be concerned with are the legal challenge of Bill 21, Canada’s action against the genocide of the Muslim Uyghurs in China, Canada’s position on the ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation taking place in Palestine, and the requested creation of the Special Envoy on Islamophobia. Different political parties appear to choose and champion one or more of these issues.
For instance, let’s take Bill 21 that gives way to second class citizenship for Quebec Sikhs, Muslims, and Jews, which creates two layers of citizenship. One for those born in Canada, and one for those who immigrated here. The bill also bans the wearing of religious symbols, including the hijab, by public servants meaning figures of authority or teachers. As of right now, the Liberal Party has made no statement regarding intervention of this bill. In fact, the Green Party has the only platform that has a strong position on Bill 21 including publicly committing to getting involved legally.
On the international scene, at least 1 million Uyghur Muslims have been interned in over 85 identified camps within an autonomous region in Northwest China. After time spent denying these camps, China finally acknowledged them as re-education centers. Members of the Muslim minority say they were detained, interrogated, and beaten because of their religion, under the guise of ‘re-education’. The Conservative platform was the only one containing several clear policy stances to ensure action in responding to the genocide taking place in China. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Palestine is, and for a very long time has been, illegally occupied by Israel. Palestinians have no access to clean water, medical care and are illegally being forced out of their homes. For years, they have been enduring this torture, so what will the Canadian government do to stand up for them? Although the NDP has a strong stance on the need for Canada to have a principled position in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Conservative party is adamant on moving the Canadian embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing it as Israel’s national capital.
Returning to the local landscape, although Canada has come a long way in battling Islamophobia, incidents like the London Terror Attack, the ruthless murder of Masjid caretaker Br. Zafis and the recent attacks on Hijab wearing women in Alberta remind us that our community still faces the menace of racism, and our government needs to take responsibility and action for that. With all these facts laid out, should Muslims be supporting the status-quo? What have the elected members done for the community in the Parliament? Has it been more than raising the voice? Has that voice been translated to concrete tangible actions with measurable results? Our community needs to do a better job of educating ourselves on what’s good for us and holding ourselves and our elected members accountable before heading to the polls once more.
Waan Laysa Lil Insana illa ma’ sa’aa
That man can have nothing but what he strives for.