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MONTREAL — The federal government's appointment of Amira Elghawaby as its first special representative on combating Islamophobia has caused an uproar in Quebec and raised eyebrows elsewhere in the country.
At the centre of the controversy is a 2019 opinion piece Elghawaby co-wrote for the Ottawa Citizen criticizing Quebec's Bill 21 shortly after it became law. The law, adopted in June 2019, bans public sector workers deemed to be in positions of authority, including teachers, police officers and jail guards, from wearing religious symbols such as the hijab, kippa and turban on the job.
"It's harder to believe that this is about what we wrote four years ago than what Amira Elghawaby truly represents: she is a Muslim, racialized woman who has been appointed to an extremely important job where one province alone, Quebec, has enacted legislation that discriminates against her and her fellow faith communities," he said in an interview.
Elghawaby apologized Wednesday that her choice of words had hurt people in Quebec, but she did not bend from her view that Bill 21 is a discriminatory law. People can oppose Bill 21 on the grounds that it is discriminatory, he said,"but to say, like she did, that Bill 21 is an illustration of Islamophobia and a demonstration of the racism of Quebecers, that is difficult to accept."
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