Juno News - The government wants nothing to do with ＂Muslim Voting Guide＂

The federal government denies it had any role in funding or supporting a controversial Muslim Voting Guide published by Laurier University researchers days before the most recent federal election. But why did a government logo appear on the document in the first place? And why is the government funding a research project that is aimed at advocating, not researching, the notion that Canadians are Islamophobic?

00:00:00.000 The federal government is denying it had any role in funding or supporting a controversial

00:00:13.760 Muslim voting guide published by Laurier University researchers days before the most

00:00:18.900 recent federal election. I spoke about this voting guide when it came to light, a document

00:00:24.000 that was basically telling Muslim Canadians that Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier get failing

00:00:29.320 grades across the board and telling Muslims they should vote for the other ones, the ones 1.00

00:00:35.240 that are getting passing grades for their positions on combating Islamophobia, hate crime legislation,

00:00:41.600 supporting M103. This document was published and produced by an Islamophobia project at

00:00:47.740 Laurier University led by Professor Jasmine Zine. On the front page was a big giant Government

00:00:54.540 of Canada logo as well as the logo of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,

00:00:59.380 a government organization responsible for dispensing money in grants to all kinds of projects in academic

00:01:05.960 circles across the country. But in this particular case, a spokesperson for the Social Sciences and

00:01:12.420 Humanities Research Council said there was no support given by the federal government to this

00:01:18.080 Islamophobia project. They're looking into it. The logo has since been removed from the archived

00:01:24.160 document, although in many cases too little too late because the election is done. And the big question

00:01:30.200 raised by this whole episode is why did it appear there on the first place? Now worth noting is that the

00:01:36.740 SSHRC has actually given a grant worth almost $25,000 to Professor Jasmine Zine's project and this money has gone

00:01:45.680 towards this initiative of mapping the Islamophobia industry in Canada. That's exactly what they're

00:01:52.820 calling it, the Islamophobia industry. What the researchers contend is a massive industry on Twitter

00:01:59.680 and think tanks and academic circles in the media of people peddling Islamophobia. So it's entirely possible 0.81

00:02:06.640 that they just decided on their own, we want to produce this report card underneath the banner of the

00:02:12.340 research we're already doing. But this raises the bigger question of why is the government funding a

00:02:17.440 research project that is basically aimed at advocating, not researching. This initiative is advocating this

00:02:25.220 notion that Canadians are Islamophobic, that there is an Islamophobia problem that is so bad that we need to 0.93

00:02:32.300 be told how to vote and specifically that Muslim Canadians need to be told how to vote to combat this. That's the 0.99

00:02:38.800 very premise of this. So why is this something that's getting government funding? Now I accept that this

00:02:44.580 may have been a little bit overzealous for Professor Zine to put the Government of Canada logo on this

00:02:49.480 specific report card. There are questions that need to be answered here such as were there any terms or

00:02:55.160 stipulations or conditions put on that money that would preclude Laurier from doing something like this

00:03:01.860 or was it here's the money do whatever you want and make sure everyone knows the government's bankrolling

00:03:06.540 this. It could be that or it could be again a researcher that wants to lend credibility to this

00:03:12.240 report card that is absolutely shoddily researched if researched at all by saying hey look everyone

00:03:18.280 this has the backing of the federal government that may be what happens here I'm going to be holding

00:03:22.820 the government and the SSHRC to account when they say they're looking into this all right share the

00:03:28.700 answers. Government should not be funding efforts to re-elect that government or efforts to vote against

00:03:35.260 other people which is exactly what this report with its government logo on the cover page did. We can't pit

00:03:42.300 groups against each other which is what this government funded Islamophobia industry research project is

00:03:48.100 doing in the first place. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

Juno News - November 04, 2019

The government wants nothing to do with ＂Muslim Voting Guide＂

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