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At this point, it is possible only two people in Parliament are still motivated mainly by concerns over religious bigotry: Iqra Khalid, the Liberal backbencher behind the unexpectedly controversial “Motion 103,” and Michael Chong, the Conservative leadership hopeful who supports her proposal but also opposes hate-speech laws.

The rest of the mob now seem to be mere collaborators in a painful theatre of the politically absurd.

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But let’s start with Khalid’s good intentions. The Mississauga-Erin Mills MP introduced her motion against “Islamophobia” – a suddenly contentious term – in December, well before the attack that killed six people in a Quebec mosque in January. In other words, Khalid wasn’t trying to politicize a crisis; it hadn’t happened yet. She seems simply to have been moved by personal conviction.

By week’s end, however, she was fairly suffocating in political hangers-on – including the PMO and senior ministers, who have basically claimed her motion as gospel (pardon the mixed religious metaphor) and insisted on needless rigidity around its wording – because there are now political points to be scored and smokescreens to raise.