Protesters rally against motion M-103 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 21, 2017.
Photo Credit: CP / Sean Kilpatrick

“Islamophobia” motion under review at hearings in Ottawa

“Islamophobia”, is a term that was coined in the wake of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and it’s the use of this word specifically, that Dr. Sherif Emil objects to in Motion-103.

It was the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic organisation Emil says, that used the term “to really quell any criticism not of radical Islam, but of mainstream Islam.”

Dr. Sherif Emil, a noted paediatric surgeon in Montreal, was invited to testify in front of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, at their hearings on Motion-103.

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The motion, demanding the government condemn “Islamophobia” as well as ““all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination”  was passed by Canada’s House of Commons this past spring following a divisive debate.

The motion goes on to demand that the government conduct a study on how racism and religious discrimination can be reduced and collect data on hate crimes.

Yesterday, Dr. Emil, and several other people addressed the committee, explaining why they want the motion scrapped.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid is welcomed by her colleagues as she arrives to make an announcement about an anti-Islamophobia motion on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on February 15, 2017. © CP/Patrick Doyle

“Discrimination against Muslims, hate of Muslims is wrong, and it should be punished, just like hate of any other racial or religious group, but criticism of Islam and essentially fear of some of its practices and not wanting them to creep into Canada, should not be illegal and should always be allowed in Canada or any western open society” he explains.

He cites some of the legal and social challenges Britian is now dealing with as a result of 80 Sharia courts that were allowed to be established.

“Anytime the government sets upon itself to eliminate something, even if it’s as ugly as racism, often uglier things happen through control of free speech.” Dr. Emil says.

Born in Egypt, Sherif Emil spent some of his childhood in Saudi Arabia where he was taunted and persecuted for being a Christian, much like what Iqra Khalid, the Liberal Member of Parliament behind the motion, experienced as a child in the Toronto region, after she arrived with her Muslim parents, from their native Pakistan.

“When the government gets into the business of telling people what they can and cannot say, and what is offensive or not, we have just gone into a different arena, it’s the arena of dictatorships of Islamic theocracies, we see it every day unfold.” Dr. Emil cautions.

Dr. Emil says these experiences are the result of ignorance and insensitivity, not phobia. As a doctor he understands phobia to be an irrational fear.

“When you criticise Islam, and some of the things it has led to, there is nothing irrational about that.”

Dr. Emil says we already have laws in Canada to deal with these matters. If someone feels they were not hired to a position because of their religion or race, they can take legal action.

And hate speech is against the law.

In his testimony, Dr. Emil says he demonstrated to the committee how the concept of Islamophobia is used.

He says it is “not just to crack down on any dissent or attempts to reform Islam, but on minorities where it’s used essentially to back up and solidify the blasphemy and insult laws that are used to eliminate any criticism of Islam, and under this guise of Islamophobia, many have been thrown in jail.”

As for the future of M-103 in Canada, Dr. Emil is straightforward.

“If it’s really intended not to just cater to one rellgion or one faith or one belief and it’s really meant to look at all racism and all  areas of discrimination in Canada then it needs to start over because it has already started on a very controversial note and I think anything that comes out of it now is likely to continue to divide us, not to unite us around this common goal of stemming discrimination.”

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