Appealing the Wearing of a Niqab

 A year or so ago, a woman who was born in Pakistan and who had immigrated to Canada wanted to become a Canadian citizen. Her only limitation was that because of her faith she wore a niqab. She was told that she would have to remove it while taking the oath of citizenship. She appealed that decision in part because she believed that that rule violated her right to religious freedom. This week a Federal Court judge agreed with her. There is nothing within the law that now requires an individual to show their face while swearing allegiance. (I wonder if I would have to shave my beard - Lord knows I would look different without it) The federal government have announced that they are going to appeal that decision (CBC). Why?

( A niqab is a veil which covers a woman's entire face except for her eyes. According to some Muslim interpretations of the Koran, a woman needs to remain covered while in public or in the presence of males who are not “direct” members of her family.)

Personal, whenever I see a woman dressed in black from head to toe with only her eyes showing, I think it looks uncomfortable. When it is plus 80 degrees and I see her male partner/relative beside her and he is wearing a short sleeve shirt and a Panama hat, it feels as if the niqab is oppressive. I don't understand why someone would voluntarily wear one. But I don't need to understand why. It is none of my business. If someone says it is part of their faith and that particular act has no impact on my life - then I get no say in what is okay or not okay. If Muslim women were speaking out and saying that they were being forced to wear it - then there would be an issue. But that is not happening.

Mr. Harper has argued that he and most Canadians think it is offensive that someone wants to hide their face at the very moment they are joining the "Canadian Family"(CBC).  Once again Mr. Harper has made the assumptions that his values are the same as all Canadians. Just to be clear - Mr. Harper - my values and yours are some distance apart! Once again he is going to spend tax payers' money to fight a case that he has no chance of winning. Why?

It is difficult to see any other reason other than he needs to perpetuate the false opinion that those who are of the Muslim faith are, at the very least, potentially dangerous. This of course is a continuation of his pandering to his small socially conservative base and his attempt to appeal to the larger Canadian public that only he can stand on guard for us. He is in fact making things more dangerous for Canadians as he is limiting our capacity to be an inclusive society.

He also very strongly implied that all people who defend women's rights should be opposed to the wearing of the niqab. I personally find it offensive that he would suggest that because some support a woman's to wear a niqab that that means I am in favour of women being abused. That is absurd! And yet he will get away with it because he speaks to a broad enough base. Those who disagree are pushed off to the side and are ignored.

There are some highly complex issues related to the wearing of the hijab, a full body dress, and a niqab. And those issues will not be easily resolved. There may be a concern that some women are being forced to wear this tradition clothing and lack the resources to say so; there may be times when some one's face does need to be seen (voting, giving testimony in court etc.). When these things happen, we need to have the tools at hand to discuss how to resolve them. Mr Harper's sledge hammer of righteous conviction that his way is the best (and only) way does not need to be and should not be part of that tool kit.

Physician Assisted Suicide #2

It has been interesting to follow the debate about physician assisted suicide on the internet and in the various main stream media outlets. For the most part there seems to be a general agreement from both the center and the right leaning media that individuals who have reached the end of their lives or know that that event it going to happen need to have some sort of choice as to the where and when. In fact within a day or so of the Court's announcement it seems to have become a non-issue.

There are those of course, who are immensely unhappy with the Supreme Court's decision. However instead of reasoned logic as to why it is a poor decision, their rhetoric has been irritating and sometimes almost offensive. Take for example the organization Cardus. This organization's links have twice appeared on my Facebook as a  "suggested post". It has been hard to avoid their position. According to its website Cardus is a think tank that " conducts independent and original research in three key areas of North American life". The site also states that it does its research "drawing on more than 2000 years of Christian social thought" (Cardus)". Cardus is clearly opposed to the court's decision. They seem to be arguing that individuals (and one assumes right thinking think tanks) should lobby the Harper government so that when the law gets written the a bill will contain the most restrictive language possible. That is - parliamentarians must be encouraged to make it all but impossible for individuals to have choice; to write a law that says physician assisted suicide is legal and then create so many obstacles and limitations that the average person will not be able to pursue this option. . To suggest as Cardus seems to be suggesting that a small minority of the population should manipulate parliament to ignore the wishes of the majority of Canadians is offensive. The Christian right do not have the right to say what my life should be like or how much suffering I need to experience as I live out my natural life.

The Court gave the government a year to draft a new bill. It would seem to me to be highly unlikely that this government can draft such a bill given that all parties are very close to being in full election mode.  The House will rise for the summer and in all likelihood be unproductive for the few weeks it may sit in the fall. With any luck at all the Conservatives after the election will not form a majority government. Therefore it hopefully becomes moot what the extreme right wants.

Physician assisted suicide is a complex issue. We will probably only have one chance to get it right. It should not be left up to the religious right to decide what is best for all (as they would like to do about abortion). But if middle-of-the-road folks are too lazy, too trusting of the democratic process or for any other reason absolve themselves of the responsibility to engage in the conversation, we once again will get exactly the type of laws that we deserve. We need to talk to our families, our doctors and each other about what we want as individuals and what we want for our society.

Income Tax

We are now approaching, in Canada, income tax time. You can tell that we are getting close because all of the major news media are starting to talk about RRSPs and other ways of managing your money. For those of us who have little to manage - it really is so much easier. You buy (carefully) what you need to buy; looking for clever investments for money we don't have is pretty far down on the list of things to do.

For as long as I can remember the income tax folks (now called Revenue Canada) have been separate from all other government departments. Information that they received cannot be shared, without a very specific court order, with any other government department. In the past I could file my income tax clearly stating that my income was from some illegal activity (e.g. selling bath tub gin) and that information would not be passed on to the police. Civil servants who released any information were guilty of breaking the law.

At some point last June that law changed. Revenue Canada is now allowed to "hand (to) the police possible evidence of serious crime — including terrorist activity — that it happens to come across while reviewing taxpayer files" (CBC). They can do so without a warrant and on the suspicion that perhaps a crime has been committed. Please note that they don't need evidence that a crime was committed but rather just the suspicion that a crime may have been committed. There appears to be no limits as to what crimes are included but according to the CBC "The new provisions apply to offences including breaking and entering, vehicle theft, arson, corruption and kidnapping. They also allow authorities to pass along information about any offence with a minimum prison term, or one with a maximum sentence of 14 years" (ibid). Now it may seem highly unlikely that a car thief is going to report any income he or she makes from selling stolen cars, but the fact is that once again private information is no longer private. Once again the Harper government have imposed upon the Canadian people their agenda that at the very least appears to suggest that we can't be trusted. Once again the Harper government has stood firm on the platform that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and only they (the Conservatives) can stop it by having tougher laws. There appears to be no other logic for why the law was changed.

If there was a logic - we will never know. This change in law was buried in the government's last budget omnibus bill. Either no one knew the change was buried in the hundreds of pages of the all inclusive bill or it appeared to be so irrelevant that no one thought it was worth fighting about in the limited time that the government gave to discuss 2014 omnibus budget implementation bill. Regardless it was never debated in Parliament.

One has to wonder why some Minster of the Crown thought that we needed to change the law. What problem was it designed to fix? Of more concern to me is when (not whether) will the government start to tell the civil servants that they must report things they think could be crimes? When will it become the policy of Revenue Canada to release their files to the police so that they (the police) can wander through my personal information. We know if that happens, the police will also automatically release that personal information to the Americans and others who are involved in the international collection of personal data.

Another slippery path that we have been put on - without our knowledge or consent.