Frustrated Canadians are grasping for a good explanation about how their country became the site of two Islamophobic mass killings within a five-year span.<\/p>\n
After all, it\u2019s the bigger neighbour down south that elected an unstable president with despotic tendencies who trashed Muslims and Mexicans on his way to the top. Canada was supposed to be the respectable contrast, hailed<\/a> by The Economist<\/em> after Trump\u2019s 2016 victory as \u201cthe last liberals\u201d\u2013 guardians of centrist values, sane democracy, and respect for evidence and science.<\/p>\n That narrative of an imported hatred persists<\/u> even after four members of a Muslim family were killed walking the streets of suburban London, Ont. Be it neo-Nazi gangs, anti-Semitic forums, or Islamophobic killers, none of it seems to fit the docile portrait of \u201cmainstream Canada\u201d with its internationally renowned multicultural mosaic. One or two deviants must have read too many 4chan posts. They can\u2019t possibly define the respectable Canadian institutions that remain a bulwark against nativist populist waves.<\/p>\n This high-minded self-satisfaction makes it easier for people to deal with tragedy, but it\u2019s easily disrupted by facts that make parts of the Canadian mainstream look as bad as the \u201cfew bad apples\u201d who usually get the blame. Because for at least the past five to six years, a significant swath of Canadian politicians has attempted to extend and galvanize their base by courting the same rotten apples they verbally denounce<\/a> from time to time.<\/p>\n The handiest tactic for this often-delicate strategy isn\u2019t substantive evidence-based argument, but rather dog-whistle identity politics that triggers a now-growing far-right rage culture.<\/p>\n One can point to the emergence of Maxime Bernier\u2019s People\u2019s Party of Canada and other xenophobic figures\u2019 quixotic entry<\/a> into electoral politics as unashamedly extreme versions of this, but it was Andrew Scheer\u2019s Conservative Party that defined this trend in the years between the Quebec City massacre<\/a> and the London truck attack.<\/p>\n The result wasn\u2019t major electoral success like they\u2019d hoped, but it fueled a political climate that became more accustomed to legitimizing social issues in terms of growing nativism. Scheer and his party didn\u2019t get in front of cameras to do their best Trump impersonation (though some<\/a> have tried). Rather, they took festering rumours and narratives peddled along Canada\u2019s margins, gave them a good rinse, and brought them into Parliament and on mainstream TV news to be taken seriously. The examples bear reviewing after this month\u2019s mass killing in London.<\/p>\n Tory criticisms<\/a> against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signing the 2018 UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration rested on the ostensibly legitimate need to protect national sovereignty. They were also a deodorized version of the far-right\u2019s obsession<\/a> with the UN agreement as a grand conspiracy to degrade national sovereignty.<\/p>\n Scheer speaking<\/a> at the 2019 \u201cUnited We Roll\u201d rally in Ottawa (formerly named the \u201cYellow Vest Convoy\u201d) was apparently a legitimate showing of solidarity with embattled oil and gas industry workers who wanted the feds to hear from the neglected Prairies. Except a convoy protest featuring<\/a> a publicity-hungry white nationalist and organized<\/a> by supporters of far-right extremists like the \u201cthree percenters\u201d had as much to say about \u201cUN-Globalists,\u201d \u201cdirty foreign oil\u201d and \u201copen borders\u201d as they did about oil and gas.<\/p>\n As leaders across parties gave their thoughts recently on the London killings and pledged to eliminate elements of hate in Canadian society, Erin O\u2019Toole, who has replaced Scheer as Conservative leader, explicitly named Islamophobia as the type of hatred that needs special attention. He even challenged<\/a> Trudeau (along with a number of civil society groups) to follow up on Muslim organizations\u2019 call for an \u201cemergency national action summit on Islamophobia\u201d by July.<\/p>\n This marks a huge 180 for the party. It\u2019s not O\u2019Toole\u2019s eagerness to stand with the Muslims that surprises, but rather his usage (and by extension his party\u2019s tacit endorsement) of the dreaded \u201cI-word\u201d \u2013 a term that his predecessor expressly rejected.<\/p>\n Specifically, Scheer, who was a leading candidate for party leadership at the time, was uncomfortable with the term being used in the 2017 Liberal motion<\/a> to \u201ccondemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination\u201d because, as far as he was concerned, it amounted to a curbing of free speech by stigmatizing legitimate criticisms of Islam and giving the religion special treatment.<\/p>\n The largely symbolic motion \u2013 debated right after the Quebec City shooting in January 2017 \u2013 also called for a study to be undertaken on how systemic discrimination and Islamophobia could be stemmed, but it wasn\u2019t a bill or a law so it had no binding power. Yet such an innocuous, symbolic gesture soon triggered a prolonged and divisive discussion over whether the Liberals were trying to use the term Islamophobia in a motion (introduced by Muslim MP Iqra Khalid) to help outlaw criticisms of Islam and destroy free expression.<\/p>\n Motion-103<\/a> easily passed, but without the blessing of most Conservatives, many of whom echoed Scheer and Alberta MP Garnett Genuis\u2019s reasoning<\/a>: that \u201cIslamophobia\u201d as a term \u201ccan be used to mean both discrimination against Muslims and criticism of Islamic doctrine or practice. It is important that we not conflate the two.\u201d<\/p>\n And like that, a popular conspiracy theory among far-right anti-Muslim activists \u2013 that Motion-103 was an Islamist attempt to stem free speech and criticism of Islam while beginning our transition into a \u201cShariah-compliant\u201d Canada \u2013 found a version of itself being taken seriously in the halls of power.<\/p>\n It was a masterclass in collective gaslighting: simply speak as if a symbolic motion held special powers to damage Canadians\u2019 God-given right to criticize any religion they want, especially one that involves scary things like \u201cShariah law.\u201d The ensuing argument at the highest level of government thus automatically legitimized a clearly vacuous line of reasoning.<\/p>\n Fringe groups like Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms (C3RF) soon held events on Motion-103 to warn<\/a> how terms like \u201cIslamophobia\u201d were really \u201cpart of a well-funded public relations campaign\u201d to facilitate the \u201creplacement of Canadian Law with sharia law.\u201d The group accused Khalid \u2013 given her \u201cunsavoury Muslim Brotherhood-linked connections<\/a>\u201d \u2013 of being an agent of this hidden conspiracy and her party bosses of being willing to play along for the brownie points, while corrupting Canadian values.<\/p>\n Monthly rallies<\/a> attended by far-right, anti-Muslim groups like the Soldiers of Odin as well as other groups such as the Jewish Defense League were also held near Toronto\u2019s city hall, decrying Motion-103 and its\u00a0conspiratorial attacks on Canadian freedoms on behalf of shadowy Islamist puppet-masters. Antifascist counter-protestors and journalists<\/a> who showed up were often mocked, baited or beaten up.<\/p>\n On the surface, it was hard to imagine a thread linking these seemingly fringe clashes and groups with the Scheer Conservatives\u2019 official position on Motion-103, but they all pushed the same contrived narrative about the \u201cI-word\u2019s\u201d (and Motion-103\u2019s) likely existential threat to Canadian values. The Conservatives were adamant enough to request a recorded vote on the motion, which required<\/a> the names of those voting for and against to be officially registered, as opposed to the usual voice vote.<\/p>\n They couldn\u2019t have foreseen it, but such a recording made it much easier to see which Conservatives condemning Islamophobia after the London attack also voted against the very motion a few years ago that condemned Islamophobia.<\/p>\n They include O\u2019Toole, but also the Conservative MP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, Karen Vecchio, who stated<\/a> after the attack, that \u201cthese murders were fueled by Islamophobic bigotry (which) makes it even truly unfathomable.\u2026 Londoners and all Canadians stand against racism, Islamophobia and any other form of bigotry or hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n