A local councillor in Montreal’s Anjou borough has been expelled from her party’s caucus following remarks she made about being treated by a doctor wearing a Hijab.
“A veiled woman…grrrrr…if it hadn’t been an emergency I would have refused to be treated her party’s caucus by her,” Lynn Shand wrote on Facebook Saturday about a visit she had made to an ophthalmologist the day before.
“I am raging because this is really the Islamization of our country, we must accept everything, give them reasonable accommodations, take down our crucifix,” Shand wrote.
She then went on to accuse Muslims of wanting to “convert the planet to Islam by massive immigration and multiple births.”
The remarks, to understate, did not go unnoticed.
First came the pain, then the political fallout.
“This is what hurts us a lot,” Nordine Hmida, told CBC News at a mosque in Anjou, which has a 10 per cent Muslim population.
“I feel afraid for not just myself, but even for my family, for my children,” said Soufiane Daha.
Condemnation followed the fear and hurt.
On Sunday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante called Shand’s remarks “absolutely inappropriate and out of line for an elected official.”
The following day, Plante said she planned to consult with the city’s ethnics advisor on the matter.
“When you have the privilege of being elected, you have to represent all the citizens of your district, your neighbourhood, and also the entire city,” Plante said.
Also on Monday, Quebec Deputy Premier Genevieve Guilbault called them “inappropriate.”
The backlash led Shand to issue an apology on Monday.
“What I really wanted to write is that I firmly believe in a secular society where all religions and religious symbols should have no influence on public and governmental institutions,” she said in a statement.
“My religion, like the Muslim religion, does not tolerate racism and is based on the equality of peoples.”
On Tuesday, the speaker of Montreal city council, Cathy Wong, filed a formal complaint with the Quebec Municipal Commission over what Wong called Shand’s “xenophobic remarks.”
Wong said she was taking the action “as city council speaker and a city councillor, but first and foremost as a citizen of Montreal, because her remarks are inexcusable.”
Throughout the furor, Anjou Mayor Luis Miranda played for time.
“I’m not going to kick her out. Constituents in three years will decide what they’re going to do with her.” Miranda said on the weekend.
On Wednesday, after meeting with fellow members of his Équipe Anjou party, Miranda announced that Shand was no longer welcome.
“We’re on separate paths since this morning,” Miranda told the Montreal Gazette’s Marian Scott.
“For the good of everyone, it’s better that she sit as an independent.”
On Thursday, the province’s Coalition Avenir Quebec government tabled a bill that would ban public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.
The bill does not apply to doctors.
With files from CBC, CTV, Montreal Gazette
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