Zunera Ishaq describes her choice to wear a veil in public as a “trivial and minor issue”.
But for 35 million Canadians, this woman’s stubborn insistence on her right to conceal her face has become a central issue in the ongoing election campaign, giving a late boost to a Conservative government that had previously seemed doomed to defeat.
A 29-year-old mother and teacher who was accepted as an immigrant to Canada in 2008, Ishaq first came to attention when she went to court to challenge a new government regulation that sought to prevent Muslim women from covering their faces during their citizenship ceremony.
She won handily, and won again early this month when a second court rejected the Harper government’s appeal against the earlier decision.
But with every victory for Ishaq, the government opposing her becomes more popular. After announcing this month that it would go to the supreme court of Canada to appeal its second defeat, the Conservatives moved from third to first place in polls tracking opinion prior to the October election.
“This is not an issue, by the way,” Ishaq told the Guardian. “This is a trivial thing,” she said, echoing the view of many Canadians. “This is not the business of the state.”
The Canadian department of citizenship and immigration would seem to concur, noting that only two women since 2011 have declined the ceremony because of the ban.
But as the Conservatives know, majority public opinion sharply disagrees. “It’s a huge issue,” said pollster Frank Graves of EKOS Research Associates. “It’s sorting the electorate right now. It has really invigorated the Conservatives and moved them into a clear lead.”
Equally significant, according to Graves, was the advantage the incumbents gained by their refusal to increase Canada’s intake of Syrian refugees in response to the current crisis – even after the death on a Greek beach of three-year old Alan Kurdi, whose family was hoping to find safe haven in Canada.
Emphasizing the need to maintain military operations against Islamic State insurgents and to keep suspected terrorists out of the country, Harper stiffly rejected widespread demands that he throw the doors open to refugees, as Canada has often done in similar crises in the past.
“Everybody thought, ‘Oh God, the Conservatives fumbled that so badly, they’re done now,’’ Graves said. “But no, that actually helped them.”
The ruling party’s nativist turn has left opposition leaders and progressive citizens gasping with indignation. “Canadians should see right through this as a way to distract from the real issues that affect people’s day to day life,” said Amira Elghawaby of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. “We’re talking about the economy, we’re talking about the climate, the future for everyone. Whether a woman wants to cover her face for the two minutes it takes to swear her oath is not an issue that should be front and centre in an election.”
Most observers attribute Harper’s sudden success with anti-Muslim politics to the mid-campaign arrival of Australian consultant Lynton Crosby to help the flagging Conservative cause. His presence in Canada first became apparent during a debate in which Harper appealed for the votes of what he called “old-stock Canadians” – a novel phrase that struck a deliberately discordant note in the typically inclusive chorus of Canadian multiculturalism.
At the same time, the government launched its latest appeal of the Ishaq niqab case – a gesture that has little hope of succeeding, according to legal experts. “There couldn’t be a clearer case of government ministers just whipping up the population when they haven’t got a legal leg to stand on,” University of Toronto law professor Denise Réaume told Maclean’s magazine.
But successive polls have forcefully demonstrated that a large majority of Canadians favour the government’s position that a person should show their face during the ceremony, despite having already done so for the purpose of official identification. Harper has denounced the practice of wearing a niqab as “contrary to our own values” and “rooted in a culture that is anti-women”.
The Conservative’s anti-Muslim turn has proven especially popular in Quebec, where until recently the government party was in danger of being swept away by an “orange wave” of candidates from the leftist New Democratic Party. Separatists are also riding the counter current with shockingly racist advertisements warning of Muslim peril. One shows a drop of oil spreading into the form of a sinister black veil beneath the motto, La goutte de trop (a drop too much).
Tories elsewhere in the country are also explicitly warning against the alleged threat posed by Syrian refugees. Toronto candidate Joe Daniel claimed that sinister forces are exploiting the crisis to export Islam to and thereby transform Western society. Veteran Tory MP Larry Miller, representing rural Ontario, advised women like Ishaq to “stay the hell where you came from”.
Hate crimes against Muslims are steadily increasing in Canada, according to Elghawaby, who fears that recent events will lead to an even sharper spike. “Even if the issues are contentious, it’s really important that our political leaders are very cognizant of the impact this divisive discourse can have on people’s real lives,” she said.
“This is dog-whistle politics 101,” Graves said. “And you know what? It’s working.”
“We’ve seen a pretty striking rise in racial intolerance in Canada, which mirrors what’s going on in Europe and America as well,” Graves said. “Canadians have become a little more fearful, a little more closed, a little less enthusiastic about globalization.”
For Ishaq, sitting in limbo while the government presses its case against her, the change is startling. “I’m really shocked,” she said. “This is not the image of Canada I perceived at first.”
“I’ve learned so much in this country about respecting other people’s opinions,” she added. “But I can’t understand why people are not trying to understand my opinion as well.”
Emulating British practice, the Harper government has also vowed to strip Canadian citizenship from Jordanian-born terrorist Zakaria Amara, currently serving a life sentence for his role in a 2006 bomb plot. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau told Harper during a recent debate, accusing him of devaluing everybody’s citizenship by making it “conditional for anybody”. But that principled stand, shared by new Democratic party leader Tom Mulcair, has failed to move their fellow citizens.
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