On Thursday night, the leaders of Canada's Big Three political parties (plus the Little Two parties -- the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party) had another in what promises to be an enervating series of debates on issues which Canuck voters may care about -- or not -- come October 19th, the date set for a general election.
This debate, conducted entirely in French and aired on the French-language media with translations on some of the English channels, was supposed to cover the everything from soup (economic issues) to nuts (Canada's so-called foreign policy). Most of the two hours was taken up with MM Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau talking over each other, repeating the same talking points viewers had heard 100 times already, with Ms May and M Duceppe getting in the occasional jab.
There was only one surprise, that being the vehemence of the five minutes spent discussing (?) the question, pushed by M Duceppe (the Bloc Head), of whether Muslim women should be forced to remove the niqab -- the head-covering and facial veil worn by the more devout of them -- before taking an oath of citizenship or receiving or giving other government services.
This may seem like a small point, but it's a hot question in Québec, and only less so in TROC (The Rest Of Canada) because the ultra-PC Canuck media refuse to acknowledge that it's a sore point with non-Muslim Canadians right across the country.
The issue came to the fore earlier this month, when the Federal Court of Appeal struck down the government's rule requiring all women to show their face at citizenship ceremonies. See "Canucks try again to ban wearing niqab at citizenship ceremonies" (WWW 19/6/15). To no-one's surprise, the court found the regulation violated Muslim women's freedom of religion, contrary to the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms. The ink was barely dry on the judgment before Mr Harpoon's minions announced there would be an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
And so the issue was joined in the debate, with Ms May and M Trudeau clearly pandering to the Muslim minority, Mr Mulcair doing the same rather tepidly, and MM Duceppe and Harper vying to see who could out-nigger the other, as George Wallace would have put it.
In the post-debate analysis on CBC's "At Issue" segment of the national news, Andrew Coyne, who writes good columns for the National Post, expressed surprise that the election campaign had become so fixated on something that will have zero impact on nearly every single voter, a point made during the debate itself by the Greens' Ms May.
"It’s ridiculous," he said. "It’s not an issue that is germane to the future of this country. It is a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things." That brought a withering response from one of Walt's favourite Canadian pundits, Chantal Hébert, who writes for the Toronto Star. Normally Ms Hébert is cool and unflappable, but she answered Mr. Coyne's point by telling him that it was not a trivial issue to something like 75% of Canadians outside Québec who supported the idea of a ban on the niqab, according to a recent opinion poll.
We have video of the entire "At Issue" segment (running time 15:13), including clips from the debate itself, with voice-over in English. The heated exchange between Ms Hébert and Mr. Coyne starts at 5:45 and ends at 9:50 -- about a minute less than the time spent on the issue in the debate itself.
As for the polls to which Ms. Hébert refers, Maclean's tell us that one, conducted in March by Forum Research, found that 67% of Canadians oppose the wearing of niqabs during citizenship ceremonies. An Ipsos poll found a whopping 88% support for the government’s stance. A Leger survey, commissioned by the Privy Council Office over the winter but not released until last week, tallied similar results: 82% in favour of the no-niqab policy.
The Big Three leaders will appear in another debate this evening, ostensibly on questions of foreign policy. It will be amazing if the niqab issue doesn't arise, less amazing if MM Mulcair and Trudeau, having read the numbers, find ways to alter their views to be more in line with those of their countrymen/women/persons.
Further reading:
"Niqab debate leading to wider discussion on religious, cultural accommodation": Chantal Hébert in the Toronto Star.
"The niqab: Trivial politics, or election difference-maker?": Michael Friscolanti in Maclean's.
UPDATE (30/9/15) from Ed.: We're still catching up from Walt's absence over the weekend. Turns out that the afternoon before the debate referred to above, the Harper government released a poll, kept secret until now, showing strong support for banning the niqab at citizen ceremonies. Click here to read the report on CBC News.
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