{"id":71045,"date":"2017-02-17T05:16:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T05:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/?p=71045"},"modified":"2017-02-17T05:16:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T05:16:03","slug":"heritage-minister-rejects-cynical-conservative-anti-religious-discrimination-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/heritage-minister-rejects-cynical-conservative-anti-religious-discrimination-motion.html","title":{"rendered":"Heritage minister rejects &#8216;cynical&#8217; Conservative anti-religious discrimination motion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Conservative bid to remove the &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; reference from the text to condemn religious discrimination is a &#8220;cynical&#8221; attempt to serve political purposes, Canada&#8217;s heritage minister\u00a0said today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we choose not to talk about it, it doesn&#8217;t just go away,&#8221; M\u00e9lanie\u00a0Joly\u00a0said in rejecting what she called a weakened, watered-down motion.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberal minister\u00a0spoke\u00a0at a media availability in Ottawa, the morning after\u00a0MPs began\u00a0debate on\u00a0M-103, a motion tabled by Mississauga, Ont., Liberal MP Iqra Khalid\u00a0in December 2016.<\/p>\n<p>It calls on the government to &#8220;recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Saskatchewan Conservative MP David Anderson argued the word Islamophobia\u00a0is undefined in\u00a0M-103, and there is no consensus on what it means. Including the word has led to widespread confusion and fears about its impact on freedom of speech, he said.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">MP won&#8217;t remove &#8216;Islamophobia&#8217; from motion<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Conservatives wrestle with M-103<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>His motion to counter\u00a0M-103\u00a0removes the reference to\u00a0Islamophobia\u00a0and instead calls on government to &#8220;condemn all forms of systemic racism, religious intolerance and\u00a0discrimination of Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus\u00a0and other religious communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Joly\u00a0said there has been a rise in hate crimes against Muslims, and the motion must specifically mention Islamophobia. She rejected claims the term is vague and undefined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\"><strong class=\"spaced\">Heritage minister defends anti-Islamaphobia motion<\/strong>8:30<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Islamophobia is clear&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Islamophobia is clear. It&#8217;s a discrimination\u00a0against Muslims, people of Muslim faith, and it&#8217;s a term we can&#8217;t be afraid to use,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Joly accused the Conservatives of using the motion to score political points, and said by refusing to use the term Islamophobia they are &#8220;contributing to the problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Conservatives have brought this motion forward in a cynical attempt to serve their political purposes and avoid addressing the real issue concerning Islamophobia,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Liberal MP Omar Alghabra\u00a0posted a tweet asking when condemning Islamophobia became controversial.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>When did condemning Islamophobia become controversial in Canada? <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">pic.twitter.com\/PCCLQDh48l<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014<br \/>\n <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">@OmarAlghabra<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>M-103 has generated much controversy on social media and through online petitions, with some erroneously calling it a &#8220;law&#8221; or a &#8220;bill&#8221; rather than a non-binding motion. Some have raised concerns that it could lead Canada on a path to Shariah law.<\/p>\n<p>Kicking off the debate on the opposition day motion, Anderson said this is an exciting opportunity and challenge to tackle the issues around religious freedom in Canada, and that the committee could look at the role of the judiciary and educational institutions.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/4cf4d_david-anderson.jpg\" alt=\"David Anderson\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Saskatchewan Conservative MP David Anderson speaks about his motion on condemning systemic racism and religious discrimination in the House of Commons today. (CBC)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We really need to get some of these issues resolved before this becomes the order of the day,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative leadership contender Erin O&#8217;Toole\u00a0said while he&#8217;s concerned the debate has been politicized, it is good to have a healthy open debate in a country where free speech is embraced.<\/p>\n<p>But he cautioned that people with concerns about M-103\u00a0and including the word\u00a0Islamophobia should not be labelled bigots.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is it not fair to say there may be some concern around the term, and that that does not then mean people are xenophobic or racist?&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said she supports both motions, because they achieve the same objective of condemning systemic racism and religious persecution. She\u00a0called it &#8220;disheartening&#8221; that the Liberals and Conservatives were engaging in political gamesmanship over such a critical issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\"><strong class=\"spaced\">Conservatives propose alternative anti-discrimination motion<\/strong>7:57<\/p>\n<h2>Take Trump to task<\/h2>\n<p>Kwan also suggested the committee&#8217;s study specifically track the rise of racist incidents in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s election, suggesting he has fuelled and galvanized those with hateful views. And she repeated calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak out against Trump&#8217;s &#8220;racist policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the heart of both M-103 and this motion is that the Canadian government needs to recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear, and to condemn all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That also means the prime minister must muster up the courage and stand up against Donald Trump&#8217;s racist immigration policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Protesters have demonstrated against Trump&#8217;s executive orders to suspend the intake of refugees and bar\u00a0entry to citizens of seven Muslim majority countries, a travel ban which has been temporarily halted by court orders.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/c0035_trump-travel-ban-protests.jpg\" alt=\"Trump Travel Ban Protests\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Protesters gather in Brooklyn, NY against U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s temporary travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries on Feb. 2, 2017. (Kathy Willens\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/islamophobia-m103-joly-anderson-1.3985499?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Conservative bid to remove the &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; reference from the text to condemn religious discrimination is a &#8220;cynical&#8221; attempt to serve political purposes, Canada&#8217;s heritage minister\u00a0said today. &#8220;If we choose not to talk about it, it doesn&#8217;t just go away,&#8221; M\u00e9lanie\u00a0Joly\u00a0said in rejecting what she called a weakened, watered-down motion. The Liberal minister\u00a0spoke\u00a0at a media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-71045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}