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Just when you thought it had run its course on the campaign trail, the niqab is back in the news. This week, Stephen Harper was asked by the CBC’s Rosemary Barton whether public service workers should be allowed to wear the Islamic face covering.

“That’s a matter we’re going to examine,” he said. “Quebec, as you know, has legislation on this. And we’re looking at that legislation. But as I say, we’re a society of openness and of equality and this is what we want to promote.”

Hmm …

While it is true that Quebec has proposed legislation banning the wearing of the niqab when dealing with the state, it was the fruit of a prolonged discussion — one that took years, in fact — that arose from a number of incidents involving a variety of religious minorities, including a conflict between woman wearing a niqab and a teacher at a publicly funded college. The wearing of religious clothing was discussed in the context of a provincial commission on reasonable accomodation of religious minorities, chaired by sociologist Gerard Bouchard and philosophy professor Charles Taylor, which held hearings across the province. And the current proposed ban on face coverings when working for or dealing with government is the subject of an all-party consensus in the province.

None of that applies to English Canada. What Canadians outside of Quebec have had is a very recent conversation about wearing the niqab at a citizenship ceremony, due to the court case involving Sunera Ishaq. When the court rendered its judgment on the government’s appeal, the Conservatives had to respond, since a) the government had to decide whether to ask for leave to appeal that ruling and b) it was an actual issue that people were talking about.

The fact that the niqab question helped the Conservatives politically, because most Canadians were on side with their position, was known to the court that rendered the decision. If the court decided to give them the opportunity to raise this issue in the middle of an election campaign, that was not the Tories’ fault.

The same cannot be said about the notion of banning face coverings within the public service. There is no court ruling, incident, or other event which demands a response. Harper did not have to answer Ms. Barton’s question by saying that the Conservatives were “looking at it”. He could have said that it’s not a matter for discussion right now, that he would wait for the court ruling on the ceremony ban. He could have said anything else, in fact … unless he wanted to keep talking about it.

But why go back to the niqab, especially when you’ve just struck the biggest trade deal Canada has ever seen, in the form of the Trans Pacific Partnership? That is the billion dollar question. Is it because the trade announcement wasn’t getting enough traction? Is it because the niqab continues to drive down the NDP vote in Quebec to the benefit of the Tories? Is it because there just isn’t much left to say in this overlong campaign? Or is it because in some immigrant communities, the niqab issue is, in the words of a media source highly plugged into the GTA, “gold”?

Harper is no longer talking to the 80 per cent of Canadians who believe that new Canadians should take their oath of citizenship with an uncovered face. He is now talking to a subset of voters the Conservatives believe can be reached through ethnic politics, by appealing to prejudices they may or may not harbour. Harper is no longer talking to the 80 per cent of Canadians who believe that new Canadians should take their oath of citizenship with an uncovered face. He is now talking to a subset of voters the Conservatives believe can be reached through ethnic politics, by appealing to prejudices they may or may not harbour.

If I had to bet, I’d bet on the latter two reasons, not the former. With regard to the TPP, Harper looked in fine form as he expounded on the economy Tuesday morning at an event in Whitby, Ontario. The party appeared to be back on the positive trade-growth-jobs message, which they could have kept pounding home. With regard to Quebec, a recent Maclean’s Magazine survey showed the niqab did not precipitate the NDP’s slide there; while it may have exacerbated it, Quebec voters (ironically) started souring on the NDP when the party assumed the mantle of fiscal responsibility. According to Martin Patriquin of Maclean’s, “the NDP’s sudden aversion to deficit spending isn’t a huge hit in Quebec, whose own zero-deficit edict has resulted in substantial provincial program cuts.”

But there are still 10 days to go in this campaign, and they need to be filled with something. And while Quebec might not be the target of a prolonged discussion of the niqab, the same cannot be said of other groups outside the province — and they’re not necessarily who you think.

Many observers have accused Harper of blowing a “dog whistle” to white or “old stock” Canadians (to use a recent Harper expression), fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment. That may not be what’s happening here. Unfortunately, all groups, ethnicities and cultures harbour their own prejudices. When immigrants come to Canada, they don’t leave behind their struggles — or the racism that can accompany these experiences. And there is a very important Canadian diaspora currently caught in the cross-hairs of anti-Muslim sentiment: Hindu Canadians of South Asian descent.

On September 28 — a story that may have escaped mainstream Canadian media, but that has reverberated across India and the Indian diaspora worldwide — a 52-year old Muslim farmer in a small village in India was lynched and his son beaten for allegedly eating beef on the Muslim holiday of Eid. The incident spawned violent protests, and the son of an official of the ruling BJP party was arrested in connection with the murder. While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now appealed for the two faith groups to work together, some accuse him of not doing enough to appease tensions — or of saying one thing to Hindus and another to Muslims.

Modi visited Canada not long before the election and is close to Patrick Brown, leader of the provincial Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, who won his victory with the support of many new Canadians in the province. According to the 2011 census, Canada is home to about 500,000 Hindus, or 1.5 per cent of the population. Nearly half live in Ontario, and another 30,000 live in B.C., and 25,000 in Quebec. In Ontario and B.C., most live in key battleground ridings in the Greater Toronto Area and Vancouver. According to most observers, these are the regions where the election will be won or lost.

If this is why Harper is continuing to talk about niqabs — even when the issue has played itself out — then he has chosen to blow a dog whistle. He is no longer talking to the 80 per cent of Canadians who believe that new Canadians should take their oath of citizenship with an uncovered face, to show respect to their chosen country. He is now talking to a subset of voters the Conservatives believe can be reached through ethnic politics, by appealing to prejudices they may or may not harbour, in the wake of a troubling incident overseas.

This is now the politics of division — and while it may work where it is supposed to, it could still backfire. Already, one Conservative candidate has said this goes too far, and Liberal-Tory switch voters might be turned off as well.

Rather than give ammunition to his opponents who accuse him of practising the politics of division — particularly Liberal leader Justin Trudeau — Harper should stop playing this card.

Trudeau is right: this is not what Canadians, including many Conservatives, expect of a prime minister.

Tasha Kheiriddin is a political writer and broadcaster who frequently comments in both English and French. After practising law and a stint in the government of Mike Harris, Tasha became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and co-wrote the 2005 bestseller, Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Tasha moved back to Montreal in 2006 and served as vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute, and later director for Quebec of the Fraser Institute, while also lecturing on conservative politics at McGill University. Tasha now lives in Whitby, Ontario with her daughter Zara, born in 2009.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.