Being Canadian

"This is not simply a practical measure. It is a matter of deep principle that goes to the heart of our identity and our values of openness and equality.
"The citizenship oath is a quintessentially public act. It is a public declaration that you are joining the Canadian family and it must be taken freely and openly.
"To segregate one group of Canadians or allow them to hide their faces, to hide their identity from us precisely when they are joining our community is contrary to Canada's proud commitment to openness and to social cohesion... We cannot have two classes of citizenship ceremonies." Canada's Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney

When people emigrate from their countries of origin they do so to find a place for themselves and their families with opportunities that are not available to them in the lands of their birth. They leave those countries because there are no advancement opportunities for their children in education and in equality in the prevailing and customary social environment. They leave because they are the victims of oppressive state policy.

They also leave because if they are not among the majority as represented by ethnicity, heritage and custom, and religious adherence they may be fleeing persecution. They leave because of domestic and social unrest, sometimes civil war, sometimes war between ideologies resulting in huge insecurities, sometimes leading to sectarian atrocities. They leave because of poverty, of circumstances leading to widespread famine.

And often they bring with them social vestiges of their former homeland. The religious and ethnic-cultural practises with which they are familiar and which bring comfort to them. There are times when these customs can be incorporated into the general mainstream values of the prevailing culture within their new homes, where countries like Canada have prided themselves on their inclusiveness and 'multicultural' inclusion.

On the other hand, that relaxed attitude toward the infiltration of alien practices into Western cultures and democratic principles of equality and mutual respect have led immigrants to believe that there is no need for them to learn about and begin to practise Western democratic values and deeply-held convictions that have great meaning to Canada and to Canadians.

Cultures that have long practised a patriarchal view of women's place by denying them social and legal equality a case in point.

When traditions demand that women lead cloistered lives out of public view, that a woman is being disrespectful to her religion and to social expectations enshrined in cultural heritage and within the laws of the land if she emerges from her house without a full-length body covering, and with face exposed, this is antithetical to Canadian values. In an egalitarian society like Canada's women are held to be equally endowed with men in terms of respect and intelligence and independence.

Importation of cultural-religious norms that run counter to Canada's social contract are simply unacceptable for a number of reasons, the leading one of which is that a visible manifestation of female subjugation cannot be accepted with equanimity in a social community that, though it seeks to respect other cultures, finds itself agreeing to the oppressive atmosphere of female severance from society in accepting face coverings as a cultural prerogative.

It is not, and to accept it as such in our own cultural domain is tantamount to aiding in the diminution of women's rights in this country. People have to be led to understand the full consequences of what certain acts lead to, and were Canada to accept the use of female face coverings because it is seen as an accepted virtue in support of female modesty, the larger issues of women's rights are abandoned.

In Canada, women have a right to be themselves, secure under the law and through hard-gained social convention, that they are equal in all respects to men. There is no need for women to take a back seat in privilege; it is their right to be assertively equal. The same culture that insists women be discreetly covered so as not to offend the sensibilities of men and arouse passion in them, holds women responsible if they are raped.

The offensiveness of the entire web of male domination over women is a social convention that is entirely unacceptable. It is a short stroll from male insistence and female acceptance, that modesty in women be demonstrated by full coverage of body and face to the reality that this represents an ideology that sees women as the property of their male relatives. This is the same mindset that leads to a culture of honour killings.

That this country has decided, finally, to inform immigrants in no uncertain terms that we equally respect both genders can be liberating for women whose backgrounds do not reflect this basic tenet of human rights. Those women who insist it is their right and that it brings them comfort to wear the burqa and the niqab may continue to do so, and it seems discomfiting to deny them that right in a free society.

On the other hand, for certain ceremonies that take place in a legal or a security framework henceforth; for example in a court of justice, when presenting a passport, when attending a citizenship ceremony, women have an obligation to disclose their facial features. It is the Canadian way.