Last month, the Canadian parliament passed a motion that condemned Islamophobia. The motion was spearheaded by Liberal party member Iqra Khalid, who tabled the more draconian Motion M-103, which in effect treats Islamophobia as a hate crime, at the time.
Inherently Orwellian, M-103 deliberately fails to define the offense of “Islamophobia,” leaving open the possibility of any and all “insults” or offenses against both the religion of Islam and Muslims as a people.
To say that Motion M-103 is anti-free speech would be an understatement. Canada has already toyed with legislation that criminalizes “mis-gendering,” or identifying an individual by a gender that doesn’t fit their “preferred” pronoun. According to University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson, “Canada’s Federal Bill C-16… adds legal protection for “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal code.”
But the desire for a measure like M-103 lurks, ready to strike again. Liberal Canadian MPs are hoping to use similar legislative powers to criminalize “Islamophobia.” The irony here is, of course, that most Muslim-majority countries would scoff at the term “transphobia,” citing Sharia law (perhaps erroneously) and other Islamic edicts to persecute gender non-conforming individuals.
Despite the fact that Canadian liberals have yet to draw unanimous consent for their draconian measures, encountering opposition from minority Conservative MPs, Khalid and his colleagues appear hell-bent on making sure Canadian law sees “Islamophobia” as a serious offense.
Last month, “Liberal MP Khalid introduced another more comprehensive motion that “the government should recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear… condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it…and request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study,” reports The Daily Caller.
With far-left multiculturalism-minded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm, it’s only a matter of time before the Canadian government institutionalizes de facto Islamic blasphemy laws.