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There’s a striking commonality about the letters to the newspaper and calls to phone-in shows about the niqab issue. People on opposite sides use the same language: This is not my Canada. This is an attack on Canada’s fundamental values. I’m afraid that the niqab (or the ban on the niqab) will destroy the Canada where I grew up, and everything my immigrant parents/grandparents fought for.

Two sides, each sincere in the conviction that their beloved Canada would cease to exist without certain shared values. Both completely at odds about what those values are.

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One one side is the belief that Canada is at its core a “Judeo-Christian” or a “Western” society, even a British one, and it is only by sustaining those values, and requiring newcomers to assimilate, that society holds together. On the other side is the famous image of Canada as a mosaic (or in Yann Martel’s words, a “hotel”), where each group sets its own norms, and what holds the country together is nothing more than respect for diversity itself. One side defines citizenship by what we share; the other by what we don’t.