After calling for the resignation of Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia in January, the National Assembly has re-pitched the demand in a unanimous vote.
QUEBEC — The National Assembly has again called for the resignation of Canada’s Special Representative on combating Islamophobia.
The vote was 109 for, zero against.
Rising in the legislature, Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry read the motion, which opens by noting education is the exclusive jurisdiction of the government of Quebec.
It adds that hiring of professors has to be based on their “excellence and competence,” and “certainly not based on their religion.”
It says the National Assembly “reiterates that hiring professors on the basis of religion is not only discriminatory but also contrary to the secularism of the state.”
It says Quebec is a secular society and this principle is entrenched in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It says Elghawaby has made insulting remarks about the Quebec nation and described it as racist.
The motion reflects other comments Déry made last week when the issue came up.
“She has no legitimacy to tell our colleges and universities what to do,” Déry said. “We repeat: she must resign.”
In her letter, Elghawaby says that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, a dangerous climate has arisen on campuses.
She offered a number of suggestions to ease tensions within educational institutions: supporting freedom of expression and academic freedom; briefing campus leaders on civil liberties and Islamophobia; and hiring more professors of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian origin.
Her appointment by Ottawa in January 2023 was met with immediate backlash in Quebec due to her past comments criticizing the province’s secularism law, which prohibits some public sector workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols on the job.
A 2019 opinion piece she co-wrote with former Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber said that according to polling data “a majority of Quebecers” who supported the law also held anti-Muslim views.