Queen’s Park unites for anti-Islamophobia motion
MPPs from all three parties voted unanimously Thursday to take action against hate
MPPs from all three parties unanimously supported a motion denouncing Islamophobia — their unity in stark contrast to what’s happening federally.
“In 2017, it is my heartfelt wish that we did not have to pass a motion of this nature,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said in the legislature Thursday afternoon before the vote.
“It enrages me that we still have to have this conversation globally.”
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said, “Simply put, all forms of hate and discrimination against people of any faith, including Muslims, is wrong. Hate is hate. ... This Islamophobia is real, and we have to condemn it unreservedly.”
“We will stand together,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
“We will stand together, as Ontari- ans, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.”
MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers, who proposed Motion 37, says despite the support, she did receive some backlash about it from the public.
Although it was first tabled last December, it was made more urgent after the subsequent mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec, she said.
“I decided to table this motion as one of my first gestures as a new MPP, partly because in my riding of Ottawa-Vanier, I had the occasion to hear many of the members of the Muslim community who confided in me about the way in which they had suffered different incidents of racism,” said Des Rosiers, who won a byelection in November.
Those incidents included girls who were spit on for wearing a head scarf or hijab, graffiti scrawled on an Islamic school and adults denied employment because of their religion.
After last month’s shooting at a Quebec mosque, Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said his constituency office in Ottawa Centre received a call from a Muslim man wondering if it was safe to send his son to school.
“That’s fear,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park. “The staff in my office cried to hear that. That’s not the society we live in; that’s not the society we are building. Parents should not be fearful for a nanosecond whether they should send their children to school, because of their faith.”
While politicians in Ottawa argue over a similar motion and the use of the term Islamophobia, Naqvi, who is Muslim, said, “the tone of the debate is very different in our legislature. I’m proud of that, that we are all standing together.
“As a Muslim, as a father, and most importantly as a Canadian, I feel very strongly that we make a statement against all forms of hatred and racism and, in this instance, in particular about Islamophobia,” he also said.
While Brown fully supported the motion from the outset, federally the issue has divided Conservatives, with some opposing a similar statement because it doesn’t define what Islamophobia is, arguing that may hinder the right to free expression.
Michael Coteau, the minister in charge of the province’s anti-racism efforts, called the motion “another step in the government’s plan to tackle racism.
“We have been working hard to take what communities have told us and shape that feedback into a provincial road map that will be our guide and strategy in combating systemic racism.”
Des Rosiers’ motion says in part, that the Ontario legislature should reaffirm its stance “against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance; rebuke the notable growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments; denounce hate-attacks, threats of violence and hate crimes against people of the Muslim faith; condemn all forms of Islamophobia.”