Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander accused the Liberal Party of “decades of racism” after Liberal MP John McCallum said Alexander “equates terrorism with niqabs.”
The heated question period exchange began when McCallum asked Alexander to apologize to Muslim Canadians for his comments about women who wear niqabs.
“It’s the most predictable thing in Canadian politics. Someone says ‘Muslim’ and a Conservative minister says, ‘terrorist,’” McCallum said, adding that Alexander “assumed all Muslim women who wear the veil are terrorist unless proven otherwise.”
Alexander, in turn, accused McCallum of putting words in his mouth and challenged him to repeat the same statement outside the House of Commons.
“That is, of course, not what I said. If the honourable member wishes to repeat those remarks outside of this chamber, we will have a reckoning with him on the facts of this matter,” Alexander responded.
McCallum responded by accusing the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of “toxic anti-Muslim rhetoric” as a contributing factor to rising hate crimes against that community.
“This is the only prime minister in my lifetime who seeks to attack a whole community for political gain,” McCallum said.
Alexander called McCallum’s statements “outrageous untruths” and went on to ask the Liberal Party to apologize for its own actions dating back to 1921, when William Lyon MacKenzie King was prime minister. He said MacKenzie King blocked the immigration of South Asians, East Asians and Caribbeans, and also accused former prime ministers Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien of the “injustice of backlogs.”
Mackenzie King is the longest serving prime minister in Canadian history, serving from 1921-1930 and 1935 to 1948. Trudeau was prime minister from 1968-1979 and 1980-1984. Chrétien served from 1993-2003.
“It is that party that has been the racist party in this Parliament over decades,” Alexander said.
“The real question is, why will the Liberal Party not tell the truth about their sorry record on immigration over decades and their inability, unwillingness to do anything to face up to the real threat of terrorism in this day and age. They have done nothing to strengthen our measures to revoke terrorism, to cancel passports, to take action against ISIS.”