The proposal to increase the number of Muslim teachers in schools, first suggested by the federal government’s special representative on the fight against Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby, then recommended by a federal committee in a report, has caused a stir columnists Emmanuelle Latraverse and Yasmine Abdelfadel.
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Both deplored Ottawa’s interference in an area of provincial jurisdiction, in addition to asserting that such a measure would simply be inapplicable.
“It is the consecration and confirmation that multiculturalism is no longer enough for the Liberal Party and the NDP, but that we have fallen squarely into communitarianism. It was not enough to have an investigation by the parliamentary committee into Islamophobia, we had to add to that racism against Arabs and Palestinians,” declared Emmanuelle Latraverse.
“I think it’s very dangerous in our society to give in to that. If we legitimize, at a given moment, that the most important thing is not to have common values, but to claim the right to assert our difference and to engage in activism for the values of our country of origin, What’s the next thing going to be?”, she also asked.
For her part, Yasmine Abdelfadel criticizes Amira Elghawaby for having formulated such an idea, which was then taken up by a federal committee.
“She has more influence than gumption, Ms. Elghawaby, because honestly, it’s quite surreal that in Canada, we can say that people should be hired on the basis of their religion and not on the basis of their expertise or their skills and that just the fact of creating this discrimination – I don’t even want to talk about positive discrimination, because there is nothing positive about it – that will help resolve the problems to live together. On the contrary, it will harm living together, it will harm making our campuses peaceful,” proclaims the columnist.
To see the full excerpt, watch the video above.
