Monday,
September 12, 2005 Updated at 5:11 AM EDT
From Monday's
Globe and Mail
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Toronto —
Seeking to end months of debate, Premier Dalton McGuinty
now says "there will be no sharia law in
Ontario" -- an announcement that should quell a growing public-relations
crisis concerning the use of Islamic law, but which also exposes Queen's Park
to attacks from other religions.
Following widespread
condemnation of a plan that would formally allow the tenets of sharia to be used in resolving family disputes, the
Premier said he'll make the boundaries between church and state clearer by
banning faith-based arbitrations.
This means that orthodox
Jews and some Christian leaders may soon make a common cause with
fundamentalist Muslims in seeking to limit the scope of the new proposals. our reaction is we're disappointed, we're very
disappointed," said Joel Richler, chairman of
the
"It's what we consider
to be a knee-jerk reaction against the sharia
issue."
He said orthodox Jews have
used tribunals to settle family disputes for centuries, but the future of these
tribunals is no longer clear in
Many moderate Muslims say
they are overjoyed by the Premier's announcement.
"I'm so happy today.
It's a victory for the women's rights movement," said Homa
Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant who has launched a
campaign to stop sharia in
"Women's rights are
not protected by any religion," she said.
But fundamentalist Islam,
in particular, can be harsh, she said.
"Divorces are
happening behind closed doors and the woman is banned from having custody of
her children," Ms. Arjomand said. "She is
being sent back to her home country to live with her relatives."
She went so far as to say
that proposed new laws ought to allow for the prosecution of religious leaders
involved in faith-based arbitrations.
While it's unlikely that
amendments to the Arbitration Act will go that far, Mr. McGuinty
told The Canadian Press yesterday that "I've come to the conclusion that
the debate has gone on long enough. There will be no sharia
law in
"There will be no
religious arbitration in
Legislation will be
introduced "as soon as possible," he said.
The 1991 legislation was
originally hailed as a victory for multiculturalism, but since then
Already imams are using
Islamic law to help settle family disputes -- and will likely continue to do so
regardless of what
But outspoken opponents of sharia fear that well-intentioned politicians
seeking to steer family feuds away from courtrooms will, through religious
arbitration, end up ensconcing outposts of fundamentalism in the West.
"It's happening in
Last year, former NDP
attorney-general Marion Boyd recommended the province handle Islamic
arbitrations as it long has other religious arbitrations. She said participants
must go into the process voluntarily, and that all decisions could be appealed
in court.
Yet the proposal is
exceptionally controversial. In the past week alone, there have been a series
of marches against sharia and reports of
female Ontario Liberal MPPs denouncing the
initiative. This past weekend an open letter from prominent Canadian women
urged Mr. McGuinty to take a stand against "the ghettoization of members of religious communities as well
as human-rights abuses" that religious tribunals would bring.
Many observers said the
Premier's means of pulling the plug on sharia,
by talking to one news agency on a Sunday afternoon, was a curious way to go
about ending a debate that has raged for months.
"By letting it go on,
and suddenly ending it mysteriously on a Sunday afternoon, is not probably the
best kind of leadership that one could show," Progressive Conservative
Leader John Tory told The Canadian Press.
Government sources told The
Globe that Liberal MPPs have been inundated with
telephone calls in recent days from their constituents, expressing concern that