Urback: A wedge has emerged on religious freedom. Pierre Poilievre is on the right side of it

Someone needs to ask Poilievre regarding the niqab to see if his approach applies arguably to more extreme attire, where public opinion is more opposed:

….Mr. Poilievre has been clear about his opposition to Bill 21 since he ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2022. And to his credit, he said the same thing, in French, just last week during Radio-Canada’s Cinq chefs, une élection program. “We shouldn’t have a state that forces people to wear or not wear something,” he said. When pressed by one of the interviewers on whether that should include people in positions of authority, he noted that a member of the RCMP that has been assigned to protect his family wears a turban. “He’s ready to save my life. He’s ready to save my children’s lives by giving his. Am I going to say that he shouldn’t have a job because he wears a turban? I don’t agree.”

Few outside of Quebec took note of Mr. Poilievre’s response, with the exception of one particular network: the Punjabi edition of OMNI Television. In a subsequent one-on-one interview, the reporter asked Mr. Poilievre a similar question, to which he gave a nearly identical response. “I don’t think the government should tell people what clothing to wear,” he added.

Mr. Carney, by contrast, has declined to say anything of substance on the law. When asked earlier this month what he thinks of expanding Bill 21 to include volunteers and whether he thinks the law is discriminatory, he replied in French, “I don’t have an opinion on that.” The question for him, he said, is about the government’s pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause as it relates to Bill 21. It’s about as safe a response as one can muster considering the remarkable wave of support Mr. Carney is currently riding in Quebec.

There is a path to electoral success for Mr. Poilievre outside of Quebec (though it would help if the Bloc could regain some of the support it’s been bleeding to the Liberals), as demonstrated by the Harper Conservatives in 2011. The Harper government, however, had the incumbent advantage in that election, and it succeeded in part because of the skilled and co-ordinated outreach to immigrant communities led by Jason Kenney, who had been minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism.

Mr. Poilievre’s defence of religious freedom will resonate in areas such as Brampton and Mississauga, which contain some of the most ethnically and religiously diverse federal ridings in Canada, but at the moment, the Liberals are projected to sweep much of the region. These areas are accessible, though; they are Progressive Conservative ridings provincially, and did vote Conservative in the 2011 election, which, granted, was a political lifetime ago. It will take more than one story about Mr. Poilievre’s personal RCMP detail, obviously, and it would be ignorant to presume that voters in the region would swing over just one issue, but this is one particular wedge that carries with it deep meaning for millions of people across Canada. And it just so happens that Mr. Poilievre is on the right side of it.

Source: A wedge has emerged on religious freedom. Pierre Poilievre is on the right side of it