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Trudeau’s got work to do mending fences with minority communities: Jaffer
11-03-2015
Canada’s first Muslim senator says the defeat of the Harper Conservatives is a good first step towards repairing the divisions between the federal government and minority communities opened up by the election campaign — but there’s still much work to be done to restore trust.
“When you create fear in the community it takes a while for it to go away,” said Senator Mobina Jaffer, former vice president of the Liberal party. She was appointed to the Red Chamber by Jean Chrétien in 2001.
“Step two is what that government does. Most important is where the new government focuses its resources. You can say all the good things in the world but without resources, communities can’t work. None of it means anything until we see how the money is spent.”
One of Justin Trudeau’s strongest moments during the campaign was the Munk debate, where he squared off with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper over his government’s decision to introduce legislation to strip Canadian citizenship from those convicted of terrorism offences. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Trudeau said, “and you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.”
Now, said Jaffer, Trudeau has to act to mend the government’s relationship with Canada’s minorities.
“We need to have an open government where people feel their voices can be heard and not be seen as a second class citizen,” said Jaffer, adding she is encouraged by the record number of minority MPs elected. “Now I won’t feel so lonely.
“Do you know why Canada works? I came here as a refugee exactly forty years ago. The day I landed, I was part of this community. This great open community, where I could dream and my kids could dream of doing anything. My son is a piper and my daughter is a very expert Indian dancer — both things that were not open to me while I was in Uganda.”
Among the first tasks for the new government, said Jaffer, should be the repeal of several Harper government laws — like the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act and the law allowing the government to rescind citizenship.
The Barbaric Cultural Practices law outlawed acts that were already illegal — such as polygamy, forced marriages and honour killings — but did so, said Jaffer, in a way that targeted new Canadians without actually doing anything new to solve the problems identified.
“I remember in school being called ‘barbaric’,” she said. “It is a very colonial term and a terrible, hurtful insult.”
Before she was a senator, Jaffer was a lawyer in her home province of British Columbia. She worked on several cases of forced marriage and completely rejects the way the Conservative bill addresses the issue.
“I absolutely don’t agree with forced marriages, but to say to a child that is being forcibly married that they must report it to the police, which is what the bill does, is wrongheaded,” she said. “A child is not going to want to see their parents criminally charged but that’s what that bill does.”
But it isn’t clear whether that bill — S-7 — will receive a second look, given that Trudeau and his caucus voted in favour of it.
Marie-Claude Landry, the Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, called for the bill to be rewritten and renamed even as she congratulated Trudeau on his majority win. “No one should live in fear because of who they are or because they have a belief that is not shared by the majority,” she said.
Trudeau has committed to repealing Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which makes it possible for new Canadians and their children to have their citizenship taken away for any one of a list of offenses — a list that was set to grow had the Conservatives won another term.
“Bill C-24 has caused real fear and created two types of citizens,” said Jaffer. “Now my daughter, if she ever did something terrible, qualifies for Ugandan citizenship even though I haven’t taken dual citizenship, and can be sent to Uganda. That is C-24, even though she has no connection at all with Uganda.”
The bill is being challenged constituionally by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. Josh Paterson, executive director of the BCCLA, argues that the bill discriminates against dual-nationals and naturalized citizens.
“The law is normally supposed to protect us from discrimination, but here the law is actually baking the discrimination in and saying to some Canadians that their citizenship for the first time ever is slightly uncertain, a little precarious, and can be taken away, while for others it’s perfectly safe,” said Paterson.
The third — and arguably the most controversial — piece of legislation Jaffer would like to see repealed (or stripped to the bone) is C-51, the Harper government’s anti-terror law passed after the shootings in Ottawa and Quebec in October of last year.
“I believe if I were in caucus, I would not have let this happen. I would have driven him crazy. I’m not happy with the position he (Trudeau) took and he knows it,” said Jaffer in an earlier interview with iPolitics, shortly after the bill became law this past summer.
Now that the Liberals are in power, Jaffer hopes the bill can be re-worked.
“Nothing is ever everything you want but I think the important part is that the community no longer feels that we are suspicious of them,” said Jaffer, who added she worries that the rifts caused by C-51 will take years to repair.
“I am so positive that what we come back with will be legislation that people can be okay with, something that reflects our values.”
Many people in Muslim and aboriginal communities voiced the fear that the bill’s powers would be abused and their communities targeted. Many Muslims say that fear was validated by the spike in race and religion-oriented rhetoric during the election campaign, especially over the niqab.
Indigenous communities warned the bill would give Ottawa new powers to single them out for acts of environmental activism and civil disobedience over pipelines and development projects. That fear was amplified when news broke that the RCMP had identified “anti-petroleum extremists” as a legitimate security threat to Canada.
“It doesn’t matter what faith you are. There was one thing people heard very clearly on C-51 and that was that no one liked it. You would have to be deaf or maybe even an ostrich even to not realize that Canadians do not like C-51,” said Jaffer.
“So all the things I did not like will definitely at least be reviewed, and I have so much faith now.”
She said the government must start an open and constructive dialogue on C-51 to restore trust between minority communities and the security services.
“When I go to mosques, people say ‘CSIS visited us’ and it’s this horrible feeling. People should not have this fear. CSIS should not be seen as the enemy, but people are frightened to speak with CSIS. CSIS knocking on the door should not mean they are coming for you, but coming to work with you.”
Jaffer has traveled across the country in recent years, visiting mosques. Her own mosque was the one which expelled Parliament Hill shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau before his armed rampage in Ottawa.
She spent much of the summer abroad on fact-finding missions to Uganda, Lebanon, Belgium and Norway with other prominent Muslim women, looking at the problem of countering terrorism from within minority communities. She plans to hold her own meetings in Canada next month with Muslim women from around the world.
“We are not an island. This is not just an internal issue but rather an international one,” said Jaffer. “I’m really excited that Norway has taken a leadership role on this, and hope now that Canada can too, in saying that women need to be brought to the table to speak to other women, as more and more young girls are now going to the region as fighters or wives. We need to be there with an alternative message.
“It’s been 15 years since United Nations Resolution 1325 passed, when the UN said that women need to be included in peace processes and decision making. I heard all the time in Norway that Canada has lost its way. I want us to take that role again. I want us working with Norway and Sweden and including women in the processes again.”
To start, Jaffer would like to see Canada step up in the refugee resettlement crisis and focus on immediately bringing in thousands of orphans, widowed women and the remaining family members of those who have already come to Canada.
“It can be done by the end of the year and I’m excited because these are all pieces that fit together to fix the larger problems.”
@Claire_Wahlen
clairewahlen@ipolitics.ca
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