Posted on 10/05/2015 5:57:33 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Vancouver, British Columbia — Canada holds national elections on October 19, and the race there has taken a surprising turn. The ruling Conservative party is making political hay over a court decision that killed its ban on women wearing the niqab — or face veil — while taking the oath of citizenship. The opposition left-wing Liberal and New Democratic parties have been pounded relentlessly for not opposing use of the niqab. Conservatives have moved from third place into first place in the polls and are currently the only party with a shot at winning a majority of seats in Parliament. A full 83 percent of voters back the Conservatives’ position on the Muslim face veil.
In the last debate among party leaders on Friday night, New Democratic party leader Tom Mulcair was clearly frustrated at the arrival of a cultural “wedge” issue in the middle of the campaign. He admitted that the face veil makes him “uncomfortable” but said that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s use of the issue was “a weapon of massive distraction.” In plain language, he’s upset that his party has lost ten points in one week in Quebec (the French-speaking province where a fifth of voters live), much of the loss due to the naqib issue. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, son of a former prime minister, also tried to change the subject by attacking Harper on abortion.
Harper stood his ground, saying: “We recognize that from time to time, we must not hide our identity. We do that for reasonable reasons, and it’s necessary to have legislation, it’s supported by the population, we want to encourage equality between men and women in Canada.” He also touted his government’s decision to cancel the citizenship of convicted terrorists, even those born in Canada, and to set..........................'
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
IMO the Left made a huge strategic blunder by bringing in Muslims to their coalition of whackies, but lucky for them the conservatives are the usual mush.
For my American freeper friends: "bipartisanship" is an unknown concept in Canadian politics as in most of the western world. If Harper wins, he administers the executive branch and leads the legislature. As long as he has a majority of the legislature he can effectively govern without opposition support.
Absolutely outrageous that the results of the election could hinge on such a stupid issue as a scarf but oh well, there it is....
Like Trump said. You either have a country or you don’t.
What sort of country allows people to take pics for ID wearing a black hefty bag over their heads?
Not much of one...And the people are apparently going to vote accordingly...
I'm not suggesting that it's a trivial issue... it is just stunning that things have come to this point that the results of election hang in the balance.
Because if you don’t have a country the other issues simply don’t matter.
And this is a very important issue for Western Culture.
And didn’t Florida strike down it’s law that the person’s face must be uncovered on their Driver’s License? A judge enforced suicide for this state/country.
No kidding.
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