The leader of Canada’s principal opposition Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, has condemned the growing incidence of Hinduphobia in the nation.
The leader of Canada’s principal opposition Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, has condemned the growing incidence of Hinduphobia in the nation.
Poilievre is the first leader of a major Federal party in Canada to address the phenomenon. In an interview with the local network, Prime Asia, he said, “We have to stop Hinduphobia and nasty comments that are made about Hindus and the vandalism and other violence targeting Hindu Canadians. This is totally unacceptable.”
He also called for bolstering the security of places of worship with matching Government funds for guards and cameras and other protections against religious violence.
Since July last year, there have been at least five incidents of desecration of Hindu temples in Canada, with the latest episode at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in the town of Windsor in Ontario this month. At the time, Windsor Police Service said it was “investigating vandalism at a local Hindu temple as a hate-motivated incident.” While security cameras images of two persons were recovered by investigators there has been no further updates on the matter. No arrests have been reported in the four prior incidents either.
These attacks have been condemned by senior members of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet including Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly and Defence Minister Anita Anand. Anand, in fact, visited the BAPS temple in Windsor on April 13 and later tweeted that she “reaffirmed” to the mandir leaders and the community that this “hateful and discriminatory behaviour has no place” in Canada. In February, Joly had tweeted, “The repeated vandalism of Hindu temples in Canada must stop.” However, Trudeau himself has yet to address the crisis.
Speaking in the House of Commons in January, Liberal Party MP Chandra Arya had asked Canadian authorities to “take serious note of this alarming trend and respond appropriately.”
“Like Islamophobia and anti-Semitism resulting in hate crimes against our mosques and synagogues causing pain to our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters, Hindu Canadians are experiencing the same pain due to rising Hinduphobia,” he said during a speech on the floor of the House.
On February 14, the target was the Shri Ram Mandir in the town of Mississauga in the GTA.
Prior to that on January 30, the Gauri Shankar Mandir in Brampton was similarly desecrated. Before that, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, located at the Vishnu Mandir in Richmond Hill, was defaced in July last year. The 20-foot tall bronze statue was situated in the temple’s Peace Park. Weeks later, in September, an episode of such vandalization occurred at the front entrance to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Toronto.
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