Treatment of Amira Elghawaby exposes Islamophobia she was hired to address

Proving that irony is dead here, a hijab-wearing immigrant woman of colour was bullied into apologizing for stating facts by Quebec’s whites-only cadre of free-speech warriors.

https://cultmtl.com/2023/02/treatment-of-amira-elghawaby-exposes-islamophobia-she-was-hired-to-address-quebec-canada-bill-21/

Opinion: Ottawa's language legislation would do long-term damage

 And now, astonishingly, with its proposed updates to the Official Languages Act, the federal government is in effect accepting Quebec’s override of linguistic and human rights. This is not a matter to concern only English-speaking Quebecers. This would set a precedent that could easily be applied to francophone minorities in other provinces such as New Brunswick and Manitoba.

Opinion: Ottawa's language legislation would do long-term damage (msn.com)

André Pratte: Legault picks fight with Ottawa to divert attention from his own rights trampling

 The premier insists on playing up the federal government’s 'frontal attack' on Quebec to distract from his government's derogation of human rights

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andre-pratte-legault-picks-fight-with-ottawa-to-divert-attention-from-his-own-rights-trampling

Column Council: It's better to be an anonymous victim than one of colour

 Empathy often entails placing yourself or a loved one in a victim’s shoes. In a province where only 67 per cent of the population strongly agree that “racism is terrible” (the lowest in the country), for many, identifying with a victim of colour is just too much of a stretch. Being a victim whose racial identity cannot be used against you is fundamentally akin to being given the benefit of the doubt that goes with white privilege. And in a province whose population is overwhelmingly white, those who remain anonymous are generally presumed to be white by default.

Column Council: It's better to be an anonymous victim than one of colour | Montreal Gazette

Prominent Quebeckers voice support for Trudeau’s anti-Islamophobia representative

The signatories, including celebrated philosopher Charles Taylor and civil-rights lawyer Julius Grey, were responding to calls from across Quebec’s political spectrum for Ms. Elghawaby’s resignation after it emerged that she had once written that a “majority” of Quebeckers appear to be swayed by prejudice against Muslims in their support of the provincial secularism law, known as Bill 21.

Prominent Quebeckers voice support for Trudeau’s anti-Islamophobia representative - The Globe and Mail 

An open letter of support for Amira Elghawaby

 As Quebecers, we are responding to the controversy surrounding the appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada's Special Representative in the fight against Islamophobia.

Tuesday [Amira Elghawaby in fact excused herself Wednesday, 01 FEB 2023], Mrs. Elghawaby apologized "sincerely" for "the way in which her words hurt" Quebecers. She also expressed the desire to continue the dialogue in order to exchange and “learn”. Several meetings with Quebec political leaders are planned in the days to come.

We are sensitive to the concerns that have been raised since her appointment, but the challenge she must take up is considerable and we believe that Ms. Elghawaby must be given the chance to exercise and fulfill the mandate for which she was named.

We are ready to contribute to a constructive dialogue surrounding these complex and sensitive issues and we are committed to combating all prejudices, whatever they may be.

A [2019] poll shows support for Bill 21 is built on anti-Islam sentiment

 Anti-Muslim sentiment appears to be the main motivation for those who support a ban on religious symbols, [a 2019 poll] has found.

The poll of 1,212 Quebecers, conducted May 3-7, found 63 per cent of Quebecers supported a ban on religious symbols for judges, police officers and prison guards, and 59 per cent were in favour of a similar ban for teachers. This was true for all age categories except for 18-24 year olds, who were against such a ban.

Conducted by Léger Marketing, the poll was commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies and offered exclusively to the Gazette and Le Devoir news organizations. It aimed to measure support for the proposed Bill 21, a law on secularism that would bar teachers, principals and vice-principals from wearing religious symbols like hijabs, kippahs and turbans in public schools. It would also bar such authority figures as police officers, crown prosecutors and prison guards from wearing them.

https://vigile.quebec/articles/a-new-poll-shows-support-for-bill-21-is-built-on-anti-islam-sentiment?fbclid=IwAR30mpU104zUhezLKx7lXuoEBPZDGZnLE51ceHC4kVV8LVhsvQoWXHr1QXA

Anti-Muslim sentiment higher in Quebec than rest of Canada, [2018] study finds

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/anti-muslim-sentiment-higher-in-quebec-than-rest-of-canada-study-finds-1.4577746

Even though Quebec politicians routinely claim otherwise, a recent study suggests Islamophobia is widespread in the province and more prevalent here than elsewhere in Canada.

The study, published in the current issue of the Canadian Review of Sociology, also found that Muslims were the social group that, across the country, Canadians liked the least.