U of T’s most visible new student group, the Secular Alliance, participated in the International Campaign Against Sharia law in Canada rally held Thursday at Queen’s Park. While they couldn’t get SAC on their side, the event was heard by someone else: Premier Dalton McGuinty. Bowing to worldwide outcry, the Premier announced late yesterday that Sharia law will not be implemented in Ontario.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough,” he said.
“There will be no Sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”
SA President Justin Trottier voiced his reaction to the news late last night: “I haven’t had a chance to digest it, but I’m personally thrilled…this is the first time that the SA has taken a stand and seen the government respond. It’s a real victory for human rights.”
The Secular Alliance had been prominent in the international push to outlaw Sharia.
“Cultures do not all share the same values, even at their core, and values which contravene freedom and human dignity are not to be respected,” said Trottier in his speech at Thursday’s rally. “Recognizing more than one set of values for different categories of citizens amounts to racism of the sort that was practiced against slaves, women, and minority groups for millennia. In this manner, multicultural ideology practices the very thing it seeks to eliminate.”
The SA proposed a motion for SAC to support the rally at the executive meeting August 29, but SAC’s VP External Jennifer Hassum disagreed.
“I just don’t believe that the case was made by the Secular Alliance for SAC to support this motion,” she said. “SAC has supported and will continue to support individuals’ freedom of choice to resolve their family disputes their own way, religious or otherwise.”
Trottier dismissed SAC’s decision to not support the rally as playing politics. “SAC has always been very politically active. Through their policy book, which condemns the Iraq war, they funded a trip to protest the Republican convention. If SAC can take issue with another country’s war halfway around the world, surely a human rights issue right here in this very city should be at least within SAC’s scope to examine.”
The strong media presence at last Thursday’s demonstration highlighted this issue’s hot-button nature. The group presented over a dozen speakers, many of whom came from countries with courts governed by Sharia law. They pleaded Premier Dalton McGuinty to repeal the Family Law portion of the 1991 Arbitration Act, which allows legally binding faith-based arbitration of some civil disputes.
Mahmood Ahmadi, spokesperson of the Federation of Iranian Refugees, spoke out emotionally. “Open your eyes,” Ahmadi said. “It’s not only in Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan that political Islamists are attacking our secular system, but here in the West, here in Canada. The leader of Ontario’s Government is attacking our secularism. Shame on you, Mr. McGuinty.”
The event drew nearly 300 people, and was held in six other Canadian cities, as well as London, England, Amsterdam, and Paris. The group warned the Premier that any movement backwards in the struggle for women’s rights in Ontario will have dire consequences for the Liberals in the next election.
“I’m so happy, I’m dancing. This is the biggest victory we’ve had. Now that faith-based arbitration is illegal, we want the government to enforce it. No imam has been arrested for performing polygamous marriages, for example,” said rally coordinator Homa Arjomand.
McGuinty promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation “as soon as possible” to outlaw such arbitrations in Ontario in his statement yesterday.
Mubin Sheikh of the Noor Mosque accused protesters of racism Thursday for condemning Sharia.
“The government has already made it clear that it is ok to intervene when matters of religion go too far, and they are not labeled racists,” responded Trottier.
