Sharia Courts and Other
Mythical Creatures
By Asad Ali
Point 92 of the Draft Political
Resolution, ‘Secular Education and Legal System’, says that a
bill introducing Sharia courts was defeated. There never was such a
bill. Even the Coordinator of the International Campaign Against
Sharia Court [sic] in Canada (ICASCC) claimed they were already legal
since 1991i,
except even then these courts never existed. ‘Sharia Court’ was
initially a promotional terms used by the Islamic Institute for Civil
Justice (IICJ), a registered business, to promote its arbitration
service. The promotion of these arbitration services used erroneous
and unfounded claims that religious laws would be enforced by the
Canadian judiciary. The founder of the Institute, a lawyer, later
admitted this exaggeration and said that the arbitration services his
organization offered are not a parallel system of justiceii.
Arbitration agreements are contracts,
not courts, and cannot violate or parallel the law but are a under
the law just like any other contract. The first law covering
arbitration in Canada was the British Arbitrations Act of 1889, but
religious arbitrations have been occurring legally from before
Confederation. The Arbitration Act of 1991 did not create a parallel
legal system, it was a standardization based on United Nations Model
Law. The Ismaili Muslim Conciliation and Arbitration Boards had
heard over 700 cases alone between 1998 and 2003, 2/3rds of which
were ‘matrimonial’ and 1/3 ‘commercial’iii.
Point 92 is correct in saying there was
a bill associated with the bogus campaign, but that bill was not
defeated – it was passed. This is Bill 27 which did not propose
Sharia Courts but was based on former Attorney General Marion Boyd’s
report. Bill 27 was supported by the ICASCC, but the most
eloquent opponent in parliament was not a Tory but left-wing
NDP MPP Peter Kormos of Niagara-Centre who said
"It's been a
debate where the disingenuousness of some of the participants has
been frankly overwhelming and very regrettable…. I regret that the
public part of the debate, the public debate, the debate out there in
communities as presented to people in the media – newspapers, radio
and television – has nurtured some racism and some hateful
commentary. I hope everybody here joins in condemning that part of
the public discussion. … The arbitration that people participate in
has nothing to do with some sort of legislative authority, the
"external source." It's basically a contractual matter, an
agreement between two people, two parties, to submit to a particular
kind of dispute resolution – nothing more, nothing less. …To
somehow suggest, however inaccurately, that the Arbitration Act,
1991, served to bring church and state closer together is not only
inaccurate but is a commentary that reveals a failure to understand
what's written in the Arbitration Act, 1991…. But if there are
people who have concerns about faith-based arbitration and the
establishment of alternative court systems, Bill 27 doesn't address
or deal with those concerns. Do you understand what I'm saying?"iv
So why was there an international
campaign against Sharia Courts if they never existed? The campaign
coordinator, Homa Arjomand, is on the Central Committee of the
Worker-Communist Party of Iran, which despite its name has no history
with the world communist movement and calls real communist parties
‘bourgeois socialists’v.
The campaign website warns that Muslims will demographically take
over Canada, Sharia Courts are the first step and next is public
funding for Islamic schoolsvi.
The website also has petitions calling for the banning of all
Islamic schools because they ‘provide the perfect basis to recruit…
terrorist forces’vii.
During the heightened danger of war on Iran this Party called for
closing all Iranian embassiesviii.
The draft resolution is correct however
about the fundamentalist danger to family law. The Niagara-based
Equipping Christians for the Public Square (ECPS) organized a
demonstration of over 10,000 to overturn the legalization of same-sex
marriages, which featured Stephen Harper who tried to make good on
thisix.
The ECPS also defends homophobic teachers from the Human Relations
Commission, which its director dubs the ‘Commie commission’x.
The Director of ECPS, Tristan Emmanuel, ran in Niagara under the
Christian Heritage Party and got almost 700 votes. In his column ‘No
Apologies’ Tristan Emmanuel blames a secularist alliance of
homosexuals and ‘Jihadists’ for the progress in abortion and
queer rightsxi.
It’s notable that the Canadian
Islamic Congress, which opposed the bogus anti-Sharia Courts
coalition, did not fall for homophobic demagoguery and asked the
Muslim community to vote against the Tories in the 2006 federal
election. This was despite condemnation from some homophobic leaders
within the Muslim community who taped campaign messages for the
Tories over reversing the legalization of same-sex marriages.
Point 92 also calls ‘fundamentalist’
organizations involved in the Multi-Faith Coalition for Equal Funding
for Faith-Based Schools. The principals in the coalition are lay
organizations that are among the largest and most mainstream in their
communities. One organization representing Muslims in the coalition,
the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), is said to be the
largest umbrella group for Muslim organizations in North America,
which is a big group to tar as fundamentalist. The Ontario
Association of Jewish Day Schools, whose staff person is the Chair of
the coalition, includes some Jewish schools which are completely
secular.
The draft resolution is correct however
about the plot to destroy public education. When Mike Harris
proposed private school tax credits, the National Citizens’
Coalition said this would "save about $7,000 for each student
who does not attend a union-run public school"xii.
The NCC was lead by Stephen Harper, and in the last provincial
election attacked John Tory for not advocating the public funding of
all private schools like Alberta. The NCC lamented that the
proposal to fund religious schools missed the whole point of their
campaignxiii.
It’s notable that the NCC was founded by an insurance executive in
1967 to fight the creation of a public healthcare system.xiv
I agree that there is a danger to
public, secular law and education, but point 92 requires changes to
match the facts and I will be proposing a substitute at the
Convention.
i
Arjomand, Homa, speech to the Ontario Parliament concerning Bill 27,
Jan. 16, 2006
ii
Boyd, Marion, "Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting
Choice, Promoting Inclusion", Dec. 2004 AKA The Boyd Report,
p.55
iii
His Highness Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili National
Conciliation and Arbitration Board for Canada, "Submission to
Ontario Arbitration Review", Sept. 10, 2004
iv
Kormos, Peter, speech to Ontario Parliament on Bill 27
vi
Enola, Elka, "Shari’a, a Threat to the Canadian Society",
found on www.nosharia.com/elka04.htm linked from
http://www.nosharia.com/main.htm
viii
Arjomand, Homa, Worker-communist Party of Iran Briefing, Jul.
27, 2005
ix
Boag, Keith, "Canada’s Evangelical movement: political
awakening", The National/CBC, Jun. 13, 2005
x
e.g. see Emmanuel, Tristan, "Freedom-snatching
Commie-Commissions", No Apologies, Jul. 26, 2007
xi
Ibid.
xii
Mackie, Richard, "School tax-credit plan hailed as a money
saver", Globe and Mail, 19 Jun., 2001
xiii
see Cobella, Licia, "Lesson for Ontario", The Calgary
Sun, Sept. 26, 2007 as posted on
http://nationalcitizens.ca/cgi-bin/news.cgi?articleID=1190812199&rm=display
xiv
National Union of Public and General Employees, "The National
Citizens' Coalition loves you - ha! ha! ha! 35 years of fighting
for fat cats while posing as ordinary citizens", web posted at
http://www.nupge.ca/news_2004/n08no02a.htm,
Nov. 8, 2004
