OTTAWA—The Conservatives are hoping to win over voters with their tough talk on terror. But did Prime Minister Stephen Harper lose his way in a side skirmish over niqabs?

“I think they’ve lost the plot, which was about fighting terror somewhere else and now they’re in a discussion about dress code,” said Bruce Anderson, chairman of Abacus Data.

Terror, religion, culture and dress codes got meshed together in the debates this week on Parliament Hill.

Harper on Tuesday upped the ante in the government’s opposition to wearing the face covering at citizenship ceremonies, declaring that the practice of wearing a niqab is “rooted in a culture that is anti-women. That is unacceptable to Canadians, unacceptable to Canadian women.”

It was a comment that put Conservative MPs on the defensive, prompted mocking on social media and spurred further charges from opposition leaders that Harper and the Conservatives are deliberately stoking anti-Muslim sentiments for political ends.

“I think this government is indeed doubling down on the politics of fear,” Trudeau said, calling Harper’s comments “the crassest kind of politics.”

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair called Harper’s comments “undignified” and “irresponsible.”

“We’re in an unprecedented situation where the prime minister of Canada is using very divisive language and singling out a community,” Mulcair said.

Ostensibly, the anti-terror fight and the niqab issue aren’t linked. Harper had previously announced the government’s intention to appeal a Federal Court ruling that upheld a Toronto Muslim woman’s right to take the citizenship oath wearing her niqab.

But Anderson sees a connection. Buoyed by popular support for their anti-terror moves, he suspects that Harper and the Conservatives decided to turn up the rhetoric, perhaps appeal to those Quebecers who had supported the Quebec charter, the controversial legislation that would have banned religious clothing in the provincial public service. The charter died with the election loss of the Parti Québécois.

“I think that’s where the trouble began,” Anderson said in an interview.

“Somewhere along the way they decided if they went a little more aggressively after those Quebec votes and those people who supported the Quebec charter, they would grow their opportunity further.”

Harper’s comments were jarring, Anderson said, given the many other issues that could be occupying the government’s attention, such as the economy, ongoing military mission in Iraq or the upcoming budget.

“At what point did it become apparent to the prime minister that one of the vexing problems for the country is that people are taking the oath of citizenship with their faces covered,” Anderson said.

Tellingly, Harper’s comments came Tuesday in response to a question from Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

In a speech the previous evening, Trudeau had gone hard at the Conservatives. He accused them of fostering a “corrosive” culture and using the niqab debate to “play on people’s fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith.”

“We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a ‘none is too many’ immigration policy toward the Jews in the ’30s and ’40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today.

It was one of Trudeau’s strongest speeches as leader to date but it wasn’t without controversy itself.

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The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said that Trudeau’s attempt to link the immigration barriers that Jews faced decades ago to anything happening today was “inaccurate and inappropriate.”

“When it comes to racism and bigotry in Canada, there is little to compare between 1939 and 2015,” centre CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel said in a statement.

Still, Harper’s sharp response the next day to Trudeau’s question left the feeling that Liberal leader had tagged the Tories.

“The response was as hot as it was because they felt for the first time like a punch had landed and knocked the wind out of them a bit,” Anderson said.

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