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Even though more than three of four French- and English-speaking Canadians told Leger pollsters they oppose the niqab, most of the media championed Ishaq as a freedom fighter, particularly for a woman’s right to wear whatever she wanted.

A post-election profile in Toronto Life concluded: “The media loved Ishaq. She positioned herself as a valiant voice for all Muslim women … (saying) she was not oppressed, that religious freedom was paramount and that the sudden focus on her niqab was nothing but dirty politicking.”

How did it come to pass that the so-called “liberal” media, and prominent Canadian feminists, championed the 29-year-old suburban Toronto woman who insisted on wearing in a civil ceremony one of the world’s most provoking symbols of patriarchy?

What background was missing from the debate over the niqab?

I was able to obtain Ishaq’s responses to some of these questions this week.

Ishaq told me she respects Mulcair and Trudeau for defending her niqab, and for standing up for multicultural “choice” and tolerance.

She went out of her way to say she also respects Harper, “who created all the mess. He was following his conscience.”

Our telephone conversation revealed a woman who inhabits a world of paradoxes, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “seemingly absurd or self-contradictory propositions.”

On one hand, the famous 29-year-old Sunni Muslim sounded libertarian and morally relativistic, emphasizing “every person is free to live in a way in which he or she feels is right.”