Re: Can Harper stoop lower? Editorial Oct. 8

Re: Disturbing echoes of the past in niqab debate, Oct. 3

Can Harper stoop lower? Editorial Oct. 8

This election is not about the niqab. It is about Stephen Harper’s record during the last 12 years.

It is about the damage to our democracy – about the prevention of debate through omnibus bills, even within his own party. Organizations that do not agree with his policies are closed, defunded or subjected to debilitating audits. It is about making voting more difficult for young people and others who are not likely to vote for Conservatives.

It is about the destruction of our environmental controls. It is about our economy. During Harper’s terms, the economic well being of Canada’s middle class has fallen drastically. It is about Canada’s decline in stature on the world stage.

Harper is trying to avoid making his past performance the focus of this election by promoting fear through making terrorism and the niqab the focus. The niqab is a distraction and should not be allowed to hijack the important issues.

Voters must realize that Harper’s Conservative party is not the same thing as the former Progressive Conservative Party. Harper must go.

Christina Wigle, Toronto

Canadians have been subjected to the frightening spectacle of a sitting prime minister who is willing to inflict tangible harm on an entire religious group in order to advance his party’s electoral prospects.

Muslims have already suffered extraordinary harassment and isolation in Canada in the post-9/11 era. Given our understandable lack of familiarity with the customs and practices of various religious groups and subgroups, a high profile campaign to suppress two women wearing niqabs at citizenship ceremonies can only be calculated to capitalize on fear and marginalize Muslims generally.

It is a truism that the search for majoritarian approval in an election campaign can be a disastrous occasion on which to test minority rights such as language, schooling or religion. It is more than reprehensible to exploit‎ latent prejudices and leave a minority with a long and slow process of rehabilitation.

Raj Anand, Toronto

Stephen Harper’s vilification of the niqab is Conservative code for vilification of a people, promulgated under the aegis of a legality that runs counter to all Canadian court rulings to date. His actions are eerily and frighteningly reminiscent of those repugnant and insidious convolutions of 1930s Germany. We as Canadians need to be repulsed by this and strike this government down on Oct. 19 by democratic means — before it’s too late.

James McKnight, St. Catharines

Kudos to both John Cruickshank (“Niqab by the Numbers”) and Haroon Siddiqui (“King Stephen”) for their excellent, well-written articles in Thursday’s Star, both need to posted inside every election booth across the country on voting day. All the rhetoric King Stephen spouts about Canadian values while dividing us over nonsense shows his exact character and what four years of majority has done to his ego. While I haven’t decided yet between Mr. Mulcair or Mr. Trudeau, its King Stephen’s tantrums and mongering I’ll be voting out the door on Oct. 19.

Chris Thorn, Toronto

I wish there was a way to distribute Mr Siddiqui’s column to all Canadians. It was to the point and describes the last ten years of non government under the PC’s and “king” Harper.

Bruce Compton, Pickering

I will be really disappointed in my fellow Canadians if Harper’s calculated stance on the wearing of the niqab moves polls in his favour. While I personally dislike the niqab and don’t understand why some Muslim women wear it, it is their right, as confirmed by the courts and doesn’t hurt anyone else. If it does move polls, let’s hope its away from Harper and his divisive politics.

Hal Finlayson, London, ON

I know many long-term Conservative supporters and none of them are the bigots and fools that Harper is playing them for.

Preston Merrill, Port Hope

The niqab “debate” in this country is disheartening and frightening.

Disheartening because it is so not about what it seems to be about. We have so many other “problems” in this world — poverty, homelessness, violence, the rape of the environment etc.

Frightening because it is reminiscent of the past when Canada was (more) intolerant, (more) insular. When we rejected a shipload of Jews, may of whom then were murdered by the Nazis in death camps. When we put Canada’s indigenous people’s in schools, told them not to do this or that, told when what to wear and what to talk and blighted their lives and their children’s lives. When we had laws about how many Asians could move to Canada and we kept families apart, suffering alienation and coldness in a cold and heartless country.

We are better than this.

Susan Rawley, Toronto

Harper insists that his crusade against the Niqab is based on what the “vast, vast” majority of Canadians want. When I read the various election polls, what I see is that about 70 per cent of Canadians do not want Harper as prime minister. So why is he not doing what the “vast, vast” majority of Canadians want — that he resign right now?

Herb Alexander, Thornhill

If Harper fails in his bid for re-election, nobody will be able to say that he left as a statesman. By raising the possibility that public servants will not be permitted to wear a niqab, Harper has not only reversed his previous opposition to Quebec’s “secular charter” but done so in a transparently opportunistic manner. Maybe he should be banned from showing his face in public.

Simon Rosenblum, Toronto

I am sickened by the turn this election has taken, away from meaningful discourse about issues that matter into the dark reaches of racism, fear, ignorance and xenophobia. I see the ads and read the news and wonder if I’ve been transported to Germany in the 1930s or Mississippi in the 1950s. What happened to Canada, home of peace-keeping, Canada the mosaic, Canada the kind, the generous, the place where citizens are known by the pre-emptive apology?

I hate that misogyny has become a factor. That bigotry has become a voting choice. I hate that so many people are like the dog that drops all reason and sanity at the word ‘squirrel’. Only for these people the word is ‘niqab’. This is not an issue. It’s the squirrel in the room.

To quote Naheed Nenshi, the Best Mayor in the World and a Muslim, these tactics are “dangerous” and “disgusting.” Like Nenshi, I don’t much like the niqab. I also don’t like when young Christian women are given away in marriage by their fathers like so much cattle, and I wonder if circumcision of baby boys is not “a barbaric practice.” But these are not election issues, and to a great extent they are none of my business.

Let’s focus on the issues that matter. If you really want to lift a veil and see a woman’s face, then look into the eyes of 1,100 murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls. This, apparently, is not on our prime minister’s radar. Shame.

We are better than this. We have to be. Otherwise, we have nothing.

Mary Delaney, Brougham

We look to our leaders to inspire us with an enhanced and elevated vision of what our country can be. Instead we have a prime minister who has sunk to the lowest level imaginable, making snide and not so subtle remarks about “the other,” the one who is to be feared and pushed away, beyond our borders if possible.

The issue of the wearing of the niqab is a manufactured evil, irrelevant poisoning of our Canadian dialogue. It appeals to the same kind of ignorant prejudice that led to the locking up of Japanese Canadians in internment camps, that turned away Jewish refugees more than 75 years ago, that denigrated the “famine Irish” when they came to our shores in the 1850s desperately seeking a better life, that still today condemns First Nations men, women and children to inadequate housing, water resources, education.

Add to this the bringing in of an act defining second-class citizenship and we have leadership that does anything but elevate the national conversation. Rather it debases and soils us all.

To re-elect a prime minister who uses these shameful methods of gathering support in this election is to turn our backs on all hope for what this country can and should be.

Peter Carver, Rockwood

I’m shocked to see that Canadians, and particularly Quebecers, are allowing Harper to get them so worked up that they are making the niqab their ballot box issue.

Canadian citizenship is important. But even if people are legitimately concerned about potential oppression of women, surely it is more important to vote for a government that will give us a new voting system where every vote counts. Or a government that will go to Paris and participate constructively in a climate deal and respect our democratic institutions and the Canadian constitution and protect our environment. Or defend our dairy and auto industries.

The real threats to Canadian well-being are not being addressed at all by the Harper government. I simply cannot understand how people are allowing themselves to be distracted by this issue. Canada is an inclusive, compassionate society. Are we being taught through political rhetoric to fear and hate each other?

This is a pivotal election. Don’t throw this opportunity for real change away.

Rev. Frances Deverell, Unitarian Minister, Ottawa

Harper should be ashamed of himself. What a ridiculous furor over a simple piece of clothing. He has encouraged bigots intent on making a mountain out of a molehill. As a Canadian-born citizen, I am heartily ashamed that this situation has arisen at all. With a modicum of intelligence, common sense should have prevailed. Our prime minister is diminishing Canada in the eyes of the civilized world.

Shirley Bush, Toronto

Every time I hear Mr. Harper tell us that he is the only one who can protect us from ISIS, pot smokers and women wearing niqabs, I can’t help but think of Michael Moore’s 2004 movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.” It depicted the fears of the American people after the 9/11 bombings that were fanned but the Bush government. Every small town in America thought Al Qaeda was going after their Walmart next.

Fear is an effective weapon but hopefully the voters will see through Mr. Harper’s tricks.

B.C. Lisle, Bowmanville

If Stephen Harper is re-elected on Oct. 19, I hope he will move swiftly to enact legislation to ban wedding veils during marriage ceremonies. Weddings are a public event for which a minimum of two witnesses are required. The ceremony results in the government granting a changed legal status to both parties.

It is completely inappropriate in modern society for one of the individuals to make her marriage vows with not just her face, but her whole head covered by a veil. Veils are a sexist symbol signifying the virginal status of a woman. No such symbol is worn by a man.

Canadian brides may think they freely choose to wear a wedding veil, but it is really an indication of internalized oppression fostered by our misogynistic society.

Wedding veils have no place in a public ceremony which legally recognizes the Canadian institution of marriage. It’s simply “not the way we do things here.” Mr. Harper has already stated that veils, such as the niqab, are “rooted in a culture that is anti-women.” By banning wedding veils, he can promote equality for all Canadian women, not just niqabis.

Susan Watson, Guelph

Privileged people in positions of power have gone offside. Investigations abound in Ottawa. The Canadian electoral deck has been stacked at least twice; first by cancelling of the $2 per vote stipend to political parties; second by an electoral reform act that 159 professors have publicly decried.

Most notable to me is that Stephen Harper as Canadian prime minister announced Canadian pension postponements at an international gathering in Davos, Switzerland, before he informed the citizens of Canada.

These are relevant facts. They indicate contempt and injustice and a profound lack of the respect befitting the leader of Canada – even if he is in fact the worst one in Canadian history, as suggested recently by investigative journalist Michael Harris in his book “Party of One.”

In 2004, not that long ago, Tommy Douglas was named the Greatest Canadian of all time by voters across Canada. He said, “Social justice is like taking a bath. You have to do it every day or pretty soon you start to stink.”

Let’s draw that bath Canadians.

Stasha Conolly, Campbellford

Originating from a South Asian background, I have always viewed politics to be insincere. Prime Minister Harper continues to utilize anti-Islam rhetoric to further his campaign. What about the Canadian Charter of Rights which advocates religious freedom and expression?

Politics should be a tool for unification for the good of the majority, not a ploy to divide us. Let’s stop using politics to undermine Canadian values.

Bilal Malik, Vaughan

As a Muslim Canadian who has lived in this country for almost half a century, our community is under siege. We have established ourselves and we love our adopted country. Mr. Harper has caused a tremendous damage to our country. There is a fear and a scare in the Muslim community that he created through his reckless policies of hatred and division. For the first time in all these years I feel like I am living in a different country.

Rafat Khan, Mississauga

It seems like an entire election fulcrum has come down to one’s view of Muslims.

If you can’t see how this is at least similar to Germany in the 1930s, or the Japanese during the war, Muslims after 9/11, or the current Syrian refugee crisis, then you are very uneducated, very oblivious, or very spiteful.

I fear the next Kristallnacht (look it up) is in our imminent future. A mob with torches and pitchforks at the castle.

If, on the other hand, you describe yourself as someone who hates divisive, personal attack politics, and you either still vote this way or don’t vote at all, shame on you – I never want to hear or read that complaint again, if you fall for it.

David Klarer, Oakville

I implore my fellow voters to not get sucked in by our prime minister’s cynical politics of fear and division. The moment Harper gets you to look at certain groups of your fellow Canadians as “them,” he’s won – and all of Canada will have lost.

Don’t be duped by Harper’s “weapons of mass distraction.” Keep your eye on the ball.

Peter Dick, Toronto

My question to the millions who have swallowed Harper’s politics of divisiveness is this: How many times in the course of a day do you come across women who refuse to remove their face-covering during a citizenship ceremony? Exactly. Zero.

And most of you outside the GTA have never even seen a woman wearing a niqab except on television or in a photograph. This issue has absolutely no impact on your life.

Remember 25 years ago when Baltej Singh Dhillon had everyone in an uproar because he wanted to wear a turban as an RCMP officer? Has there been a ripple on the Canadian consciousness about this lately? No.

But Dhillon’s head-covering didn’t change the course of a general election as the niqab debate has. Get real, folks. Don’t let Canada go down over such an innocuous issue.

Jim Baine, Pefferlaw

How can so many Canadians still be so gullible? The only thing we really have to fear is Harper getting re-elected.

We know his methods, ten years of his dictator style governing, really no interest in us people, Yes man to corporate.

The much praised, by him, trade deal, TPP, is selling us down the river, giving away the little that is still ours after all the other trade deals.

Foreign corporations will have more say about ruling Canada than the government, which, come to think of it, will give him more free time to be in election mode for another four years. Scary.

Helga Weick, Toronto

Failure to protect the rights and freedoms of all who live in Canada must disqualify a man from the office of prime minister of Canada

Joan Andrews, Wasaga Beach

If Leger Marketing is correct – that eight out of ten Canadians support the niqab ban while and one in 10 base their vote on this – then we are in real trouble.

Like other emotions, fear is a powerful emotive force that we nurture or ignore at our peril. I may well be repelled by a woman in a niqab, but I must check that emotion no less than my excitement at seeing a very attractive woman.

Our emotions are important but they must be tempered by self-discipline and reason. If we cannot base our vote on more than “gut feeling,” then education has failed us and our democracy is doomed.

Salvatore (Sal) Amenta, Stouffville

Our major cities are suffering from 100 year old sewers and water mains, congested public transit and congestion on the streets and highways. We have an embarrassing shortage of public housing and too many children living in poverty.

As a country we are not embarrassed that we need food banks. Our health care system is In danger as are most our other social programs including the CPP; should Conservatives be voted into power again.

The most important thing holding back Canada from becoming a world class paradise is a few Muslim women wearing a face covering. Any thinking person should look in the mirror and say will this make my life any better, or Canada. Much ado about nothing.

Allan Mc Pherson, Newmarket

Today the naqib, tomorrow the beard?

A friend of mine used to sport long, bushy hair and a full beard. At some point he cut his hair short and shaved, thereby altering his appearance so much that I did not recognize him the next time we met.

A covering of facial hair can dramatically change a person’s appearance, but no one is suggesting that a heavily bearded man cannot take the oath of citizenship, or that he has to shave so he can be clearly identified prior to taking the oath.

We daily put up with things that we don’t like but are still allowed within society. Why should the government interfere in personal and religious preference when this preference does not impact negatively on the lives of others?

Alan Slavin, Otonabee

Your editorial accusing the Conservatives of wilfully fanning antipathy toward Muslims lacks perspective. Tthe Conservatives are not the only ones seeking to ban citizens from wearing the niqab from attending citizenship ceremonies. Several members of the NDP seeking seats in the House of Commons share this view, as do all parties in the Quebec National Assembly.

Opinion polls show the vast majority of Canadians support this view at the grassroots. Moreover, Malala, the Muslim teen Nobel laureate, in 2013 argued publicly that the niqab should not be worn at public events.

Simple logic, surely, dictates that if a female Muslim can cover here entire face, except for her eyes, I, an agnostic, should be allowed to wear a ski mask when voting or attending other public proceedings. Justice should be indivisible, applying equally to everyone in a civil society.

Raymond Heard, Toronto

Frank Graves, founder and president of EKOS Polling, asked “Are Canadians getting more racist?” His article then presented convincing poll results that say, “Yes, we are.” This is a fact that can be exploited for political gain.

The question is: Are there enough racist Canadians to determine the outcome of the election?

Stephen Barrett, Elora

The PM has once again demonstrated that he is a “principled” man. He will say and do anything to get re-elected.

He is purportedly an evangelical Christian. It sure doesn’t look like it. I wonder if Jesus would approve of his actions such as: shamelessly, radically distorting the truth (on many, many topics), cheating (election financial fraud, robocalls), stealing (taxpayers money on endless, mindless blatant Conservative propaganda) and inciting fear and loathing against a very small minority of people in Canada. These are surely un-Christian actions.

What a man.

Paul Gudjurgis, Brampton

Disturbing echoes of the past in niqab debate, Oct. 3

Susan Delacourt neglected to mention a most pertinent “echo of the past” when it comes to religious discrimination in Quebec. In the 1950s, under the premiership of Maurice Duplessis, Jehovah’s Witnesses were constantly harassed, persecuted and arrested when laws were passed to curb their activities.

In many cases the courts (inclining the Supreme Court of Canada) came to their assistance with declarations that such laws were in violation of the right to freedom of religion.

In those days, the Catholic Church was a prime reason for the public’s agitation in matters of religion. However, since that church’s decline in Quebec, I suspect that some of its lessons of religious discrimination remain in the public conscience.

George Dunbar, Toronto

While most Canadians oppose the wearing of a face covering at citizenship ceremonies, we may be mistaken in labelling them as Islamophobic.

A niqab or burka has a symbolic connotation quite different from other personal religious regalia such as the crucifix, hijab, turban or kippah. In a society that values openness and equity in interpersonal relations, we communicate with one another using all our senses – talking, listening, observing. If the interaction is with someone whose face is partially or completely covered, part of their identity is hidden and the relationship is no longer reciprocal.

Tolerance in a multicultural society requires accommodation on the part of all of us – both long-standing Canadians and new Canadians.

Dr. E. Robert Langford, Toronto

Growing up in Toronto in the 1960s, I too have a strong negative reflex when it comes to the niqab. But what I dislike even more is the cynical appeal to the baser instincts of Canadians to gain votes.

How ironic that the Conservatives should play the “Canadian values” card after nine years of systematically dismantling much of what I – and I am convinced most of us – value about Canada.

Just when you think they couldn’t possibly go any lower, they do.

Randy Busbridge, Niagara-on-the-Lake

If Harper is correct in his claim that the majority of Canadians agree with his view on Muslim women wearing a face covering, then Canada is indeed in a sad state; a state where we are ruled by hatred. And our friends and neighbours and fellow citizens in Quebec are falling for the “hate” expressed by Stephen Harper and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.

Citizenship, women’s rights; what’s next. Restore the death penalty?

Joe Spence, Ottawa

Some people want to control how people dress and behave in public. Those people generally join together into groups in order to achieve their ends. Groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the government of Saudi Arabia, the government of Iran, and the government of Stephen Harper.

G. D. Miller, Trenton

Your editorial criticizes Harper’s policies on the niqab, on refugees and on citizenship. You refer to his policies as “spiteful” and claim that Harper is playing “the card of antipathy, directed against the Muslim world.”

In the same breath, however, you acknowledge that “he is playing to the crowd,” that “most Canadians find the niqab offensive” and that Harper’s policies “resonate(s) with Canadian public.”

So I am given to wondering what you are actually trying to say. I mean if Harper is espousing the views of majority of Canadians, as most polls have shown, what is the problem? Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be all about?

Is it possible that it is not Harper but the Star that is out of step with the views of the majority of Canadians? And if so should you spend some time re-examining your position? Or do you believe that your views somehow count for more than the views of the unwashed masses and you need to reeducate us?

Michael Poliacik, Toronto

It’s been said that it takes one to know one. If that’s true, then it’s not surprising that Jason Kenney criticizes the wearing of the niqab as being “tribal.” Tribalism, however, is not something that only exists in ancient, barbaric cultures. Today, we call our larger tribes nations.

Nationalism, with its symbols, ceremonies, and sentiments, can be useful in promoting cohesiveness in a group but, unfortunately, it also has a darker side that generates fear and hatred of those who are different. (That darkness was revealed terrifyingly by the events in Europe before the middle of the last century.)

I get a slight chill when Stephen Harper appeals to our tribal sentiments by using expressions like “our values” and “old stock Canadians.” Jason Kenney seeks to deprive a potential citizen of her legal and human rights because she doesn’t conform to “our” norms of appearance.

Disappointingly, this rhetoric seems to be working on over 80 per cent of Canadians. It was correct for Mr. Kenney to caution us against tribal behaviour. It is reprehensible that his party has decided to exploit those same instincts in us to create an emotional and divisive atmosphere in an attempt to capture a few more votes.

Ron McCowan, North York

Since Jason Kenney is so concerned about women covering their faces then perhaps he should also make it illegal for brides to wear a veil as they walk up the aisle.

John O’Keefe, Toronto

Jason Kenney is just a Stephen Harper wannabe who thinks he has the accepting ears of “other nationalities” living in Canada today. It used to work; today, thankfully, not so well.

Ron Gibbens, Richmond Hill

What would a brief summary of highlights from the Conservative election campaign of 2015 consist of so far? The list would surely include insights of mendacious PMO practices from the Duffy trial, the ever elusive hunt for the “most vulnerable” Syrian refugee, the niqab debate, which is largely about Conservative ministers such as Jason Kenney trying to exercise extraordinary authority the courts have ruled they don’t actually legally possess, and now a tip line for neighbours to rat each other out when they witness “barbaric” cultural practices.

What would George Orwell say about all of this? “All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

It’s good to know that Harper and his CPC are living up to the Orwellian standards they so clearly aspire to.

Trevor Amon, Victoria, B.C.

Stephen Harper has lifted fright to an incredible height by flying his simplistic black and white kite. He wants every bright light to disappear into the night. Harper is not a white knight; he’s a political blight. He panders to the might of the ultra-right, especially the ones with blurred sight. Don’t be upset by what I write; join the fight to help our democracy take flight.

Lloyd Atkins, Vernon, B.C.

I am shocked in 2015 a political party in country like Canada can go down so low to win an election.

Dewan Afzal, Mississauga

Kudos must be given to Lynton Crosby. In what seems like the blink of an eye it appears that the Conservative’s so-called “Wizard from Oz” has managed to hide the Senate scandal, mediocre economic performance, the Fair Elections Act, Bill C-51 and much, much, more behind a small piece of cloth.

It’s rather ironic as the Wizard of Oz was also highly skilled in the art of misdirection. The big question is: will the Canadian electorate have as much nous as Dorothy’s dog, Toto? Will they pull the veil aside to reveal the unpleasant truth that the Harper government, elected on promises of openness and transparency, is as full of humbug as Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs?

Christopher Jowett, Barrie