Sharia
wouldn't harm women's rights: McGuinty
|
|
|
|
|
Canadian Press |
September 6, 2005
|
|
|
|
TORONTO -- The rights
of women "will not be compromised'' if Ontario becomes the first Western
jurisdiction to allow Muslims to use a set of religious rules known as Shariah law to settle civil and marital disputes, Premier
Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.
"Whatever we do
will be in keeping with the values of Ontarians and Canadians, I can say that
much,'' McGuinty said after visiting a local school
for the first day of classes.
"I'm not going to
say any more than that at this point in time. People will just have to be
patient.''
A report by former NDP
attorney general Marion Boyd recommends Ontario allow Muslims to establish Shariah-based tribunals similar to Jewish and Catholic
arbitration bodies already operating in the province.
The government has had
Boyd's controversial report in hand since December, but McGuinty
was offering no clues Tuesday about when or even if the province will act on
its recommendations.
Attorney General
Michael Bryant was still examining the report, he said.
"I know that he's
reviewing it and at some point in time he's going to come forward with some
recommendations for us,'' McGuinty said.
"And then we'll
act on it at that point in time.''
Conservative justice
critic Bob Runciman said he couldn't understand why
the Liberal government decided to tackle the Shariah
issue in the first place when there was little call for it from Muslims in
"I'm not sure why
they put their toe in the water,'' Runciman said. "I don't know that there was an enormous demand for
it to occur.''
The New Democrats
believe
"The public courts
should not be used to enforce anything other than the public law,'' said NDP
justice critic Peter Kormos.
"That doesn't
prevent anybody from going to their imam or their rabbi ... to resolve their
differences, except that it (would) be voluntary compliance.''
Opponents claim the
push for Shariah is part of an extremist Islamic
agenda, and say it discriminates against women in basic matters such as
divorce, inheritance rights and child custody.
Almost 100
organizations have banded together under the banner of the International
Campaign against
On Thursday, they'll
march in at least five Canadian cities:
The Boyd report was
prompted by a retired Muslim lawyer who in 2003 announced he was setting up the
Islamic Institute for Civil Justice to train arbitrators to use
But Syed
Mumtaz Ali's view of Shariah
was considered unabashedly fundamentalist and political, unlike Boyd's vision
of provincially regulated religious arbitration under the mantle of family law
and
© Canadian Press
2005