Ottawa: India has flagged to Ottawa the Indo-Canadian community’s concerns over a bill before Canada’s Parliament to ban the sale and display of hateful symbols, including the swastika for its association with Nazism.
A private members bill, tabled by National Democratic Party MP Peter Julian, which has the support of party leader Jagmeet Singh, has infuriated the Indo-Canadians over “demonization” of a sacred symbol of the community.
The bill seeks to “prevent the display or sale of symbols or emblems such as the Nazi swastika and the Ku Klux Klan’s insignia, flags such as the standards of Germany between the years 1933 to 1945 and those of the Confederate States of America between the years 1861 to 1865 and uniforms, including the German and Confederate States of America military dress of those periods, as well as the hoods and robes of the Ku Klux Klan”.
It was brought after such symbols were seen at the first weekend of the truckers protest against cross-border vaccine mandates, during which protesters laid siege to the Canadian capital of Ottawa.
“Swastikas and confederate flags have no place in Canada. We have a responsibility to make our communities safe for everyone - it’s time to ban hate symbols in Canada,” Singh said earlier this month, promoting a petition in this regard.
India’s Consul General Apoorva Srivastava said India has “formally flagged this issue to Government of Canada and shared with them the petitions received from Canadian groups in this regard”.
In a letter to all MPs and Senators, National Association of Indo-Canadians president Azad Kaushik said the umbrella body “strongly opposes” the bill as “it would infringe upon the rights of Hindus, Jains and Buddhists to freely and publicly practice their religion”.
