By introducing a private member's bill, Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Steven Blaney has revived the controversy surrounding the use of the niqab by Canadian Muslim women.
Many Muslim women in the country have claimed that they can't remove their veil even while voting. In the bill introduced in the House of Commons February 11, Blaney has asked that everyone be required to show his/her face before voting without referring to the Islamic head covering.
'For me it is important that we all share this transparency,' he said while introducing his bill. 'We are all proud to live in this country, we are all proud to share (its) basic principles. I think one of these basic principles is transparency through our election and democratic process, so that's why I'm presenting this bill and it is applying to everybody and treating everybody in the same way.'
This controversy first erupted in 2007 after Elections Canada ruled that Muslim women could vote with their faces covered during Quebec by elections.
That year the federal government passed a law that required voters to produce identification not necessarily with a photo if two pieces of ID bearing the voter's name, address and signature are presented. But the Conservatives dropped their plans to ban veiled voting in 2009 amid opposition dissent.
Image: Fneiche Elsy (C) and a group of fellow Muslim women meet with residents of the Quebec town of Herouxville.The Muslim group met with the residents to voice their objection to the town council's recently passed code of social norms that new immigrants would have to adhere to.
Photograph: Shaun Best/Reuters
