OTTAWA—A Conservative backbencher was forced to back away from comments that women who refuse to remove their niqab while swearing their citizenship oath should “stay the hell where they came from.”

Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound MP Larry Miller issued a retraction Tuesday after his comments to a local call-in radio show sparked a firestorm online.

“If you’re not willing to show your face in the ceremony that you’re joining the best country in the world, then frankly . . . if you don’t like that or don’t want to do that, then stay the hell where you came from,” Miller told CFOS radio on Monday.

“I think most Canadians feel the same. That’s maybe saying it a little harshly, but it’s the way I feel.”

After the comments were picked up by left-wing website Press Progress Tuesday, Miller issued a short statement saying the way he felt was inappropriate. Miller, a four-term Conservative MP first elected in 2004, refused to be interviewed Tuesday.

But neither he nor the Prime Minister’s Office departed from their position that Muslim women who wear niqabs should be forced to remove the face covering during the ceremonial citizenship oath.

“(Miller) made inappropriate comments that went beyond our clear position, and he has apologized for that,” wrote PMO spokesman Carl Vallée in an email.

“We believe most Canadians, including new Canadians, would find it offensive that someone would cover their face at the very moment they want to join the Canadian family.”

Miller’s comments came in response to a question about Zunera Ishaq, the woman who successfully challenged the Conservatives’ niqab ban in Federal Court. Writing in the Star on Monday, Ishaq said she’s perfectly happy to remove the face covering before the ceremony to confirm her identity.

“I will not take my niqab off at that same ceremony for the sole reason someone else doesn’t like it, even if that person happens to be Stephen Harper,” Ishaq wrote.

Defending his government’s position last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the niqab is “rooted in a culture that is anti-women.” The Conservatives intend to challenge the federal court ruling.

But the National Council of Canadian Muslims, in a statement, accused the government of promoting “inflammatory rhetoric” against Muslim Canadians — and said it’s ironic, given the Conservatives created an Office of Religious Freedom.

“Politicians may feel that this is a winning issue, that sort of campaigning to ostensibly protect Canadian values against what is seen as being a different tradition,” said Amira Elghawaby, human rights co-ordinator for the NCCM.

“That being said, I think it’s actually very Canadian that at the moment of the oath, after the woman has identified herself and addressed those legitimate concerns, that if she chooses to wear her niqab that it would be a very Canadian thing to do, because our Charter of Rights and Freedoms does guarantee that Canadians have that right to practice their faith.”

NDP multiculturalism critic Andrew Cash accused the Conservative leadership of promoting a culture of “trickle-down racism,” connecting Miller’s statement to a series of recent comments from other government MPs.

“The comments are totally reprehensible, and they have absolutely no place in the Canadian conversation,” Cash said Tuesday.

“For a Member of Parliament especially to be espousing this kind of crap is just outrageous.”

Cash pointed to recent racially charged comments from Conservative MP and former Harper communications director John Williamson, who framed the temporary foreign worker program as paying “whities” to stay at home and bringing in “brown people” to work.

In a speech in Toronto earlier this month, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau accused the Conservative government of promoting a “corrosive” narrative that divides Canadians.

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“Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead,” Trudeau said. “It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.”

After Miller’s comments Monday, a man wearing camouflage holding a Palestinian flag appeared at his Owen Sound office and asked to speak with him.

Miller reported the man to police, who after a conversation with the 44-year old man, reported he was angry and emotional as a result of Miller’s comments, but no criminal offence was committed.

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