Justin Trudeau hase become the first elected prime minister of Canada to speak about Muslims and the hijab in his victory speech.
The Liberal Party candidate toppled Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives with a stunning majority, taking 185 of the 338 seats in the next House of Commons.
In his victory speech he shared an anecdote about a Muslim woman in a hijab. His comments come in the wake of rising Islamophobia in Canada where – only in the first week of this month – two Muslim women were attacked in separate incidents.
As per a poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion in September, anti-Muslim sentiment has gone up “markedly” across the country over the past four years while views on other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism didn’t change much.
Harper’s crusade against banning the niqab has added to the stigmatization of Muslims. Around 82 percent of Canadians support the niqab ban, according to a March poll by Forum Research for the government, released right before the elections.
But Trudeau has promised to put an end to divisive politics in order to promote multiculturalism and diversity.
“I will be the prime minister of all Canadians,” he told a rally in Montreal right after winning a historic Liberal majority government.
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