Harper's Veiled Attack on Democracy

Just in time for the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper throws a tantrum at Elections Canada for trying address the democratic rights of Muslim women in Canada. Although this page is disappointed with Elections Canada's lack of consultation with the Muslim community, the policy appears reasonable: women who wear a burka or a niqab to the polls will be asked to removed it. If they decline to do so, they will either need to produce two pieces of ID, or one piece of ID and a personal voucher. For the approximately 200,000 Muslims in Quebec who might be voting in Federal byelections in Quebec next Monday, this policy that so infuriates the Prime Minister covers about 50 of them.

Of course, targeting a small minority within a minority would never be used in Quebec as cynical political strategy, just ask Maurice...er...Mario Dumont and his Union Nation...er...Action Democratique. In Quebec's recent Provincial election, Dumont almost rode a similar controversy all the way to the Premier's office. As Quebec holds the keys to a federal majority government, it's not surprising to see a Conservative Prime Minister playing the Islamaphobic race card for all its worth.

The disturbing and malevolent piece within Harper's reaction is the fact that he is ready to go after Elections Canada and force a confrontation with a respected, non-partisan government agency. The Prime Minister claims that it's Parliament that should be making the laws, but this page says that Parliament is supposed to make laws that respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no matter how much the governing Conservatives dislike it. When the Tories passed Bill C-31, they passed what amounted to little more than Republican exercises in voter suppression and breaching privacy. Compared to the binners, bottle collectors, and squeegee jockeys of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, who are denied their rightful franchise for lack of a fixed address, Muslim Women in Quebec have it easy in trying to cast a vote.

Is Canadian society going to collapse because a few dozen women who aren't likely to participate in the electoral process, let alone leave their homes, might go the polls wearing a veil? Or is it more likely to collapse because opportunistic governments scapegoat these women to dismantle the very process that elected them?