The leader of the Bloc Québécois adds his voice to those who were already demanding the departure of Amira Elghawaby, in Ottawa as in Quebec. After meeting the new federal special adviser in the fight against Islamophobia, Yves-François Blanchet is of the opinion that she cannot remain in office because of her previous “condemnable remarks” and the fact that, according to him, her opinion has not changed since. Mr. Blanchet is also asking for the entire position to be abolished.
Amira Elghawaby showed up at the Federal Parliament on Wednesday to meet with the Bloc leader. She had also appeared for the first time in front of the media since her controversial appointment. Ms. Elghawaby apologized that her words hurt Quebecers, which however was not enough to quell the outcry.
Yves-François Blanchet invited her, Thursday morning, to voluntarily leave her post or that Justin Trudeau asks her to withdraw. “I think she is still hostile to the notion of state secularism. I think she still has prejudices to fight against the Quebec nation,” said the Bloc leader about his interview with Ms. Elghawaby. However, he recognized “a little more open-mindedness” on her part and reported that she would have “admitted a lack of knowledge of the history and reality of Quebec, which is a first step”.
The Conservative Party is also calling on Ottawa for the departure of Amira Elghawaby.
A position that must disappear
But the story does not end there, for the leader of the Bloc Québécois. Mr. Blanchet also called on Justin Trudeau to renounce the creation of the post of special adviser to the fight against Islamophobia, to which Ms. Elghawaby is the first to have been appointed. However, this choice marked “with a hot iron in an indelible way the function” which cannot, according to Mr. Blanchet, be rehabilitated in the eyes of Quebecers.
In the opinion of the Bloc Québécois leader, in naming Ms. Elghawaby, who during her career as a columnist had notably written on the sidelines of debates on the Secularism Act (Bill 21) that “unfortunately, the majority of Quebecers are [guidés] by an anti-Muslim sentiment”, Justin Trudeau found himself “making a harmful amalgam between secularism and Islamophobia”.
“The idea of the function itself has been contaminated by a political or partisan or self-interested or propaganda drift,” mocked Mr. Blanchet.
Justin Trudeau has always defended his nomination of Amira Elghawaby. However, he had adjusted his speech on Wednesday, indulging in a long pedagogical speech explaining that Quebec secularism stems from the very history of Quebec and the province’s relationship to religion. The Prime Minister of Canada then called for an end to “Quebec bashing “, so that the condemnations calm down in Quebec, and that the two camps come to a dialogue.
The Quebec Minister of Secularism, Jean-François Roberge, however reiterated his call for the resignation of Amira Elghawaby, judging that her apologies came too late.
Quebec also wants him to leave
Quebec Premier François Legault criticized Justin Trudeau for persisting in “defending a bad decision. He will live with this decision.
The interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, had the same reaction as Minister Roberge, saying it was “too little, too late” for Ms. Elghawaby’s apology. The PLQ is still asking for his resignation too.
Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois called the apology “not in the right direction.” “But we always have questions, because we want to discuss with her also her vision of the fight against Islamophobia in a Quebec context, which is a particular context,” he said, while he must in turn meet Ms. Elghawaby in the coming days.
The deputies of Quebec solidaire abstained from supporting this week a motion of the National Assembly demanding that Justin Trudeau withdraw Ms. Elghawaby from her new mandate. All the elected members of the Coalition avenir Québec, the Liberal Party of Quebec and the Parti Québécois, on the other hand, voted in favor.
With Alexandre Robillard