Quebecers are ‘not racists,’ Trudeau says amid Amira Elghawaby backlash

Amira Elghawaby, who was appointed last Thursday, has faced criticism since her appointment was announced over an opinion piece she co-wrote about Quebec's Bill 21 in 2019.

Quebecers are “not racist,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says, as backlash continues over his choice of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s first-ever special representative on combating Islamophobia.

Elghawaby, who was appointed last Thursday, has since faced a flood of criticism and questions over an opinion piece she co-wrote in 2019.

In the piece, Elghawaby criticized Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans certain public-facing employees, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols on the job. Pointing to a poll done at the time, she suggested “the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment.”

While the Quebec government says the law is intended to defend secularism — the province’s official policy of separating religion and state — critics like the National Council of Canadian Muslims have called it discriminatory and a law that “causes second-class citizenship.”

Elghawaby clarified late last week that she does not believe Quebecers are Islamophobic. However, for officials in the Quebec government, her response has fallen short.

While Trudeau said on Tuesday that he supports Elghawaby “100 per cent,” he acknowledged on Wednesday that he was not aware of all her past remarks when he made the appointment.

He also spoke in English about the cultural differences in Quebec around secularism.

Quebecers, Trudeau explained as he walked into a caucus meeting, have come to “a place of defence of individual freedoms and rights and liberties” after they “suffered the yoke and the attacks on individual rights and freedoms of an oppressive church.”