In late January, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Amira Elghawaby, presently employed by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, as Canada’s first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia.
Her mandate is to aid Ottawa in tackling hate against Muslims, providing advice to the federal government in developing inclusive policies and programs, as well as supporting efforts to increase public education and awareness around Islamophobia. The office comes with a $5.6 million budget.
To say Canadians have questions about this appointment is an understatement. Even if an argument could be made for singling out Muslims as deserving of this special office – other than attracting votes from continuously growing Muslim communities – why Elghawaby?
A cursory Internet search would have turned up journalistic writings and statements, particularly about Quebec, that cast shade on what should have been a sunny debut.
The foremost question in my own mind, one that cries out for clarification is: How does Amira Elghawaby define Islamophobia? Is it fear or hatred of Muslims? Or of Islam? Much depends on the answer.
According to the definition set out in the federal anti-racism strategy, Islamophobia “[i]ncludes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear or acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling, Islamophobia can lead to viewing and treating Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level.”
But a fear-mongering report on an alleged “Islamophobia Industry” in Canada published at the end of September, which defines Islamophobia as “hatred of Islam and Muslims,” is reportedly “endorsed” by Elghawaby.
In any case, Elghawaby seems to have tipped her hand on this question in a response to a tweet in June, 2021, by Kaveh Shahrooz, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Sharooz wrote: “We should combat anti-Muslim hatred, not opposition to Islam. The term Islamophobia conflates the two and poses a risk to speech.” Elghawaby responded curtly, “No.”
In a Nov, 2020 National Post column, Shahrooz warned about the consequences of what such a “conflation” portends, following gruesome decapitations in Nice and Paris committed by Islamists enraged over republication of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Trudeau’s response to this news had been: “Freedom of expression is not without limits. We owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”
Shahrooz wrote: “Reading between the lines, Trudeau seems to suggest that he disapproves of the terrorists’ violent methods, but not of their demand that others refrain from criticizing or ridiculing their religion. This is effectively a call for enacting blasphemy laws.”
From the Liberals’ electoral point of view, the most politically problematic response to the announcement arose in a sulphurous cloud from Quebec, where Elghawaby is considered persona non grata by Quebec politicians and francophone media.
And not without reason. She has made a number of anti-Quebec statements that have been widely reported. But the most serious allegation, namely her allegation that anti-Muslim sentiment is rampant in Quebec, turns out to have been based in misinformation.
In 2019, Elghawaby co-wrote, with Bernie Farber (chair of the Antifa-supportive Canadian Anti-Hate Network), an Ottawa Citizen column denouncing Quebec’s secularism law, Bill 21, which proscribes religious accessories for teachers (amongst other civil servants), including the hijab.
The duo provocatively stated that a “majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment.” Blowback from Quebec was swift and brutal, including an all-party denunciation of her appointment to the position by the National Assembly.
Elghawaby attempted to clarify her and Farber’s charge, explaining it was based on a Leger Marketing poll finding that 88 percent of Quebecers who held negative views of Islam supported Bill 21 (my emphasis: quite different from a majority of Quebecers).
Telecommunications consultant Mark Goldberg, who can take credit for having brought the Laith Marouf scandal to public attention, tweeted a 13-part thread demolishing her defence.
It’s worth reading, first because he shows that Elghawaby and Farber did not take their conclusion from the poll itself. They instead took it from a newspaper article about the poll that excludes crucial information, such as the actual numbers of Quebecers who hold negative views of Islam.
The thread also illuminates the “innumeracy” and carelessness in which some advocates have the chutzpah to trade because it serves their interest as anti-hate champions. This is done, namely, by ramping up fears that are not justified by the data.
Goldberg concludes, “Speaking as a statistician, I am concerned about the possibility that innumeracy led to an offensive generalization about Quebec, and indeed that may have inappropriately shaped the views of the authors.”
This appointment has gestated for two years. The position was first proposed at the 2021 National Summit on Islamophobia, in which Elghawaby was prominently involved. It’s a compelling and troubling story in itself, into which investigative reporter Terry Glavin took the deepest dive.
This appointment was allegedly presented as the culmination of “an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process,” clearly not the case. Indeed, the obvious lack of “process” here is entirely commensurate with Trudeau’s character and history.
The evidence suggests that the fix has been in for this office and Elghawaby’s appointment to it for years. Trudeau wanted her endowed with this office, and the prestige it confers, because he likes the cut of her ideological jib.
My greatest fear is that, through Elghawaby’s ministrations in this powerful new role, with Trudeau’s approval, Canada is going to end up with a blasphemy law inspired by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which invented the intentionally vague term “Islamophobia” for the express purpose of criminalizing criticism of Islam.
Amira Elghawaby’s (unelected) assumption of political power in a democratic nation where division of church and state is the nominal rule is a concerning one.
