For one Liberal MP the refugee backlash cuts close to home: Tim Harper
2015/11/24 Leave a comment
Arif Virani, newly elected MP for Parkdale-High Park, on his life story and reactions to intolerance:
There was a backlash in 1972, as there is now, and it surfaced sporadically over the years. It happened again during the campaign, where a handful of voters told Virani they would never vote for a Muslim.
That stings as much today as it did 23 years ago when a guy in a North Bay bar called him a “Paki,’’ or 10 years earlier when the same label was affixed to his mother in a Toronto grocery store.
“You know, I’m a fairly level-headed guy, I like the sound of my own voice,’’ Virani said Thursday.
“I’m a litigator and I can talk and I can usually deal with issues and I’m well-versed in responding at the door.’’
He could handle himself when people objected to the Liberal position on trade, or CBC funding, or anti-terror legislation, but that ease melted away when he faced intolerance.
“Whether you are 3 or 43, when somebody volleys an intolerant, bigoted sentiment to you, it stupefies you for a moment. You want to say, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ But you can’t say that, because you always want to be respectful.
“I was tongue-tied. I would pause. I would say I’m sorry you felt that way, that’s not the type of Canada I believe in, have a nice day.
“It’s very demeaning and dehumanizing when you get attacked on something because of your skin colour or your religion or your place of origin.’’
So, he agonizes over the mosque-burning in Peterborough, the vandalism of a Kitchener temple, and the assault of a Muslim woman in his old Flemingdon Park stomping ground. The woman was picking up her son at Grenoble Public School, where Virani’s sister used to attend, when she was assaulted in what Toronto police called a hate crime.
Two Muslim women were accosted and verbally assaulted on a subway at Sherbourne Station on Wednesday. A Muslim woman in Ottawa found a threatening note in her mailbox.
Virani believes the Rob Ford regime at Toronto City Hall, then the injection of the niqab in the Stephen Harper campaign, emboldened those who had kept such thoughts to themselves, ripping the filter off those who silently harboured racist views.
“It gave people an issue to latch on to and something to go on the attack about,’’ he said.
But he takes heart in the response to the backlash. The Peterborough mosque raised more money than its goal after it was torched. There was a similar outpouring of revulsion over the Flemingdon Park assault.
That shows progress, he thinks, but adds: “To be blunt, there will always be an element in Canada that is resistant to change and . . . are somewhat intolerant. They fear the unknown.’’
Source: For one Liberal MP the refugee backlash cuts close to home: Tim Harper | Toronto Star
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