It is time for Amira Elghawaby to step down

KAMOURASKA, QUE.—I first met Amira Elghawaby in the fall of 2000 when we were both students in an international reporting class at Carleton University. Our professor, the late David Van Praagh, was well connected, and we met diplomats at several embassies. After each meeting, we were to write a column quoting the diplomats we met. Up until that time, Elghawaby struck me as a studious woman with an interest in journalism. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, had not yet occurred, but I had been working for the United Nations in Muslim Bangladesh and Macedonia, where Muslim Albanians had sheltered during the 1999 war in Kosovo, so I was sympathetic to the situation of Muslims abroad. As she wore a hijab, I engaged her in conversations, and she invited me to appear on the program she hosted on the Carleton radio station. One afternoon, we went on a field trip to the United States Embassy in Ottawa. The questions were mostly related to Canadian-American relations. Suddenly, she stood up and began denouncing the United States. To me, it was a sign of extremism and lack of judgment: these were field trips, designed to allow us to get access to experts in the field and write about our impressions. Not moments to harangue. In subsequent years, I have read her work, notably a 2019 op-ed accusing Quebecers of racism after the passage of Bill 21. The law prevented anyone from working in the public service who wore “ostentatious” religious apparel, like a turban, yarmulke, or hijab. The column, co-written with former Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber, cited polling data to say that "a majority of Quebecers" who supported Bill 21 also held anti-Muslim views. On her appointment as Canada’s special representative on combatting Islamophobia in early 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have expected there would be criticism from ministers in Premier François Legault’s government sensitive to “Quebec bashing.” I have worked with Deborah Lyons, the special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, who had been a long-time diplomat and UN representative in Afghanistan. Lyons took the place of Irwin Cotler, our former minister of justice, and has been balanced in her approach. Elghawaby was nothing like either of them. I was concerned she would be more of an advocate for extremists than an apostle for understanding. Now that she has been at her job for 18 months, my greatest fears have come true. Since Israel was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and responded, so-called “pro-Palestinian” protests and occupations have manifested support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and called for the extermination of Israel. Elghawaby has added fuel to the fire: on social media this past February, she defended protesters who blocked Toronto’s historically Jewish Mount Sinai hospital chanting vile antisemitic slogans, accusing critics of Islamophobia. In her post, Elghawaby said the protest route had a “negative impact and that's troubling and wrong,” but what was “also troubling and wrong is the rush to label protesters as antisemitic and/or terrorist sympathizers.” Most recently, she wrote Canadian university administrators to say—according to a Canadian Press report—that "since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, a dangerous climate has arisen on campuses." She suggested the way to ease tensions would be hiring more professors of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian origin. Quebec’s Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry said Elghawaby should “mind her own business,” stating hiring professors based on religion goes against Quebec’s principles of secularism in Bill 21, and was a federal incursion into provincial jurisdiction. While I consider Bill 21 anathema, have denounced Quebec nationalism, and support affirmative action, this was not the way to go about it. Even The Suburban newspaper in Montreal—no friend of the Legault government—wrote: “Elghawaby’s views are divisive and inflammatory. She exacerbates tensions rather than fostering dialogue.” Both the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs have called for her to step down. Her office budget is $5.6-million, and she is paid more than $162,000 a year. For that money, there should have been prudence on her part, and advisers who could have counselled her from making inflammatory statements. It appears that is not the case, and, in my opinion, Elgawaby’s time is up. As they say in sports, she has “lost the room.” She has limited credibility in promoting a mandate for “greater understanding and awareness between people and reducing Islamophobia.” By speaking out in support of radical Muslims, she has only encouraged them. Surely, someone else could do a better job. Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a town councillor in Kamouraska, Que. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times