Honourable Chair, members of the committee, I would like to thank the heritage committee for giving me the opportunity to address the fears and concerns of my community of Pakistani heritage regarding motion 103.
I come here today as a concerned Canadian citizen and as chairman of the International Christian Voice. My brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, Minister of Minority Affairs, was assassinated in Pakistan in 2011 for protecting the rights of persecuted religious minorities.
Canadians of Pakistani origin have chosen to call Canada their new home because of the religious liberty, freedoms, and democratic system they can enjoy here, which allow them to thrive and prosper. We left our homes to live in a country where we are free to voice our opinions and concerns without fear or hesitation, whether they are religious, social, political, or otherwise. I believe this is an essential part of the framework of our free society in Canada.
M-103 has created great concern regarding the impact it will have on religious freedom and freedom of expression for us, our children, our grandchildren, and the generations to follow. Our main concern lies within the definition of the term “Islamophobia”, which is an unclear and confusing term. We all believe that the discrimination and prejudice against any individual based on their Muslim faith is intolerable and unacceptable. However, the ill-defined precept of Islamophobia can also be used to take away the fundamental freedoms of all Canadians to lawfully and respectfully criticize any Islamic religious idea. The potential result that the motion imposes is the cause of growing anxiety within my community and communities across Canada.
The fears of Pakistani Christian immigrants living in Canada are not imaginary. The consequences of being labelled under M-103 under the garb of Islamophobia can have an indirect effect on our relatives and friends who are still living in Pakistan, a country in which blasphemy laws hold a sentence of life in prison, or death. The blasphemy laws have been misused to settle personal, economic, and political disputes, and have resulted in the assassination or murders of members of my family, friends, and prominent members of our community.
We fear that M-103 will foster similar conditions of suffocation and oppression, while cultivating an environment of division and disharmony in our communities. These are the same situations we came to Canada to escape and avoid forever. I fear that an unclear definition of Islamophobia can be used as a tool by vested Islamist activists to manipulate Canadian law to restrict free speech and criminalize non-Muslims for expressing, celebrating, and defending their respective faiths.
In our community's humble opinion, there was no need to table M-103, singling out Islamophobia. Will it really change attitudes for the better? Why a special focus on one religion? Are the existing laws not sufficient to protect religious freedoms? If not, then why not table a motion restricting prejudice against all religions?
Our community's concern is that the motion will, in some manner, stop valid criticism of Islamist terror and will prevent our children from standing up to defend criticism of their own faith.
My family, friends, and community very strongly believe and urge that Canadian laws should not be diluted to accept regulations imposed on us through international influence. To cite an example, one only has to look at England where the government gave in to the Muslim population who demanded and got a change from the historical common law to sharia law in some of their cities. This has had a devastating effect on the original British inhabitants who have moved out.
In 2011, Britain's Muslims began demanding that sharia replace British common law and it became the only law in towns with large Muslim populations, including Manchester, Liverpool, and several other towns. In one such east London enclave, their streets are plastered with posters declaring that you are entering a sharia-controlled zone. Islamic rules enforced, and Muslim imams now issue death threats to women who refuse to wear the hijab.
Over 100 sharia law courts have been established across the U.K. and these sharia courts have been issuing rulings that contradict British common law. In 2011 British Prime Minister David Cameron said that multiculturalism has been a failure and has promoted Islamic extremism across Europe.
If M-103 is not opposed or altered to include all religious groups in Canada, we feel that this push toward exclusive individual treatment will not stop here. Instead of creating peace and harmony among different faith communities, this motion only moves us in the direction of division and separation.
We, in our community, do not want to see our next generations being led back into what we have faced and escaped from. As a Christian community, we will stand and continue to voice our fears and our concerns so that our children and grandchildren will never again have to go through what their parents and grandparents have been through. We will stand on guard for Canada.
Once again, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. God bless Canada.