As Stephen Harper hardens his anti-niqab position on the campaign trail, three Canadian women who wear the face veil say the Conservative leader’s rhetoric risks pitting the country against its Muslim citizens.

The Conservatives have long opposed women wearing the face covering at Canadian citizenship ceremonies, but with the federal election less than two weeks away, Harper doubled down this week by suggesting that if re-elected, he would consider passing a law banning the veil from the federal public service.

But Rezan Mosa, a 22-year-old native of Vancouver, says she is no less of a Canadian just because she decides to don the veil.

“I was born and raised here,” she said. “I have a right to be here, this is my country. I’m very proud to be Canadian.”

Mosa, a student at Brescia University College in London, Ont., said that as anti-niqab sentiment has ramped up on the campaign trail in recent weeks, she’s experienced more incidents of discrimination.

“There’s definitely a noticeable difference,” said Mosa, who began wearing the veil over 18 months ago. “Just a lot more people staring, making comments, telling me to go back to my country.” She said the incidents have made her “feel very unsafe.”

Mosa said she’s also worried about what the proposed ban on niqabs in the public service could mean for her job prospects. A joint sociology and religious studies major, she’s considered working for government-funded agencies after she graduates.

“If I was banned from wearing the niqab, my whole career is on the line,” she said.

Mosa is not the only woman concerned by how the niqab issue is playing out during the election. Shomyla Hammad, who lives in Mississauga, has been wearing the niqab for seven years and said that her fellow Canadians have always accommodated her.

“I have never had any bad feelings from anyone,” she said. “I just wouldn’t be anywhere in the world with my niqab but in Canada.”

But she believes Harper is trying to “put fear in people’s minds” in order to win votes, and she worries the veil could become stigmatized.

“The way that Stephen Harper is politicizing the issue, that is really, really bad . . . it just scares me,” said Hammad, a 42-year-old mother of two.

Afia Baig, a Mississauga woman who also wears the niqab, said she has been in Canada for nearly 20 years without being targeted for how she dresses, and she doesn’t feel personally threatened by the ongoing debate.

But she said she is angry by what she sees as Harper’s Conservatives playing politics with the rights of minorities over a non-issue.

A 57-year-old immigrant from South Asia, she said that about 15 years ago she took the citizenship oath while wearing the niqab, after first uncovering her face to confirm her identity. “It was not ever an issue,” she said.

“They have used this to instill hate amongst Canadian people. It’s so infuriating, it’s so bad and so wrong. We feel we’re being used for his election games.”

Despite Harper describing the niqab as “anti-women,” Mosa, Hammad and Baig all told the Star they decided to wear the veil on their own for religious reasons, in some cases over the objections of male relatives who feared they would be discriminated against.

Meanwhile, advocacy groups are raising concerns about anti-Muslim behaviour popping up across the country. The National Council of Canadian Muslims said it has received several reports of Muslim women being verbally or physically assaulted in the last month. It pointed to a disabled Muslim 19-year-old woman who reported to police that she was verbally threatened at an Ottawa shopping centre. The Star could not independently verify the report.

The group tracks such incidents and recorded the details on its website, saying the woman was “young, visibly Muslim and disabled” when a middle-aged white man told her “to remove ‘the f---ing rug off (her) head.’ ”

Timeline

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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair criticized Harper’s possible niqab ban as the latest in a bid to use identity politics as a political wedge to attract voters. It follows the Conservatives announcement last week of money for a tip line that members of the public could use to report “barbaric cultural practices” to the RCMP.

In London, Trudeau told reporters, “He is stirring up the politics of fear and division in a way that quite frankly is unworthy of the office he holds and he needs to stop. He needs to stop because no election win is worth pitting Canadians against Canadians. His priorities are in the wrong place.”

In Edmonton, Mulcair, was angry when he was asked about comments by a Conservative candidate that an Edmonton law professor should renounce his Nigerian heritage if he’s worried about Bill C-24 (the law that allows citizens with dual citizenship to be stripped of their Canadian passport for acts of terrorism, treason or war crimes).

He said Harper once pointed to Mulcair’s dual Canadian-French citizenship when he was running for the NDP leadership.

“Look this is Stephen Harper at his worst . . . . The role of a prime minister is to build bridges from ethnic group to ethnic group, from province to province, from religion to religion. That’s what a prime minister does, tries to bring us together as a country. Stephen Harper is just reminding us everytime he does this why he doesn’t deserve to be the prime minister of Canada. The NDP would repeal Bill C24.”

In Saskatoon, a note of impatience crept into Harper’s voice as he defended his position and played it down, saying, “Our government has been saying the same thing for several months now.”

Harper did not back away Wednesday, and pointedly referenced the support in Quebec for that province’s bill on prohibiting the niqab for employees in the public service.

“The Liberal government in Quebec has brought forward legislation to require that people reveal their identity when delivering or receiving frontline service,” Harper said. “We’ve said we’ll take a look at that bill before taking further steps. The Quebec government, I believe, has been handling this controversial issue in a very responsible manner and we will do exactly the same things, the same thing in Ottawa.”

Lat month The Canadian Press reported Harper as saying: “When someone joins the Canadian family, there are times in our open, tolerant pluralistic society, that as part of our interactions with each other, we reveal our identity through revealing our face. And when you join the Canadian family in a public citizenship ceremony, it is essential that that is a time when you reveal yourselves to Canadians, and that is something widely supported by Canadians.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Conservative party released ads that directly targeted Justin Trudeau on his stance on the niqab.

“Justin Trudeau is totally disconnected from the values of Quebecers,” the ad said. “Justin says ‘Oui’ to the niqab.”

The Canadian Press on Wednesday reported that a Liberal candidate in London, Ont., believes that the divisive campaign has spurred vandals to deface his election signs with ethnic slurs. Khalil Ramal, running in London-Fanshawe, says up to 35 of his signs have been vandalized throughout the riding. A photo posted online shows the words “ARAB scum” scrawled across one of his signs.

With files from Amal Ahmed and Noor Javed

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