Politics: An Anti-Muslim Government

TORONTO, ONTARIO - One thing I neglected to mention in my post earlier this week on the best place for Muslims to live is that while I crossed paths with quite a number of Muslims in the United States and had conversations with them about the impact of their faith, I have never had such a conversation in Canada. In fact, I suspect that no Canadian Muslims are reading this blog, either, since neither public nor private comments were generated pointing out that the post missed a major point--Canadians as individual citizens may be less fearful and more accepting of Muslims than their southern neighbors, but the government has clearly demonstrated a bias against them in matters of diplomacy and citizenship.

The examples of this apparent bias just in the past two years could fill a week of these posts. Omar Khadr remains the only western prisoner remaining in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp run by the United States. Would the Canadian government really have ignored court rulings saying that they had to seek Khadr's extradition if he had been of European descent? I doubt it. Most recently, Suaad Mohamud was arrested in Kenya for trying to return to Canada because officials suspected she was really her sister. It's unthinkable that the same thing would have happened to someone of European descent. For more examples, just check out this essay from the Ryerson Free Press.

Opposition leaders have tried to force the government to act or explain itself in cases including those of Khadr and Mohamud to no avail. Some, including the editors of the Ryerson Free Press, have suggested that Muslims (and also all those of Arab descent) are treated as less than citizens by the Canadian government. Whether true or not, certainly a number of Muslims do feel that this is the case.

Of course, it wouldn't take all that much to change the situation. No laws need to change. A new government--or even this the current Conservative one, if it so chose--could make a point of publicly stating that there is only one kind of Canadian citizenship that includes Muslims, take action on open cases like Khadr, and then the attractiveness of Canada for Muslims would shine through. Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal Party leader, has used similar language in some recent speeches. However, with the current plunge of the Liberal Party in the polls, a change in outward stance of the government is not likely.

So, regardless of the suitability of the society on a day-to-day basis, the perception (and perhaps reality) that the government is biased against Muslims probably ensures that they prefer the United States or other countries over Canada, completely debunking my thesis from the post earlier this week.