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We were on our way to lunch on University Avenue in downtown Toronto the other day, my friend M. and I, when a group of women passed us, three or four of them wearing the niqab, the full-face covering.

“Aaaah, now that’s a sight to gladden the heart, isn’t it?” I sniped.

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All my friend said — in her mild, wise way — was, “Do men wear it? I don’t see any men wearing it.”

She meant, of course, that if the niqab was all it’s cracked up to be, it would be Muslim men wearing it, because it’s the way of the world, Muslim and not, that if a thing is really and truly fabulous, it will be a male thing, and if it ain’t, women should fill their boots.

Then, in unison, we both quoted our friend saying, “Just for one day. One day…” That was TN, who used to say that she’d like the male gear hanging between her legs, so she’d know, if only just for that day, what it’s like to have such peculiar but undeniable power.

Thus do I arrive at the niqab issue, denounced far and wide in the land as a divisive election gimmick by Satan himself, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government is trying to have the thing banned from citizenship ceremonies and who on the campaign trail has been musing aloud about perhaps extending the ban to the public service.