Canada’s First Muslim Woman Member of Parliament: Why did the Media Miss the Story?

The recent federal elections will be remembered for a number of seminal events: the first husband and wife team in the Commons, the first quadriplegic MP, the first Sikh woman member of Parliament, and of course the first African-immigrant MP from Quebec.

The national media covered these developments in detail, and today Mr. and Mrs. Grewal from B.C., Dr. Ruby Dhalla from Ontario, Steven Fletcher from Manitoba, and Maka Kotto from Quebec are household names.

Lost in these accomplishments was another first for Canada. It was the election of Canada’s first Muslim woman member of Parliament - Yasmin Ratansi from the Toronto riding of Don Valley East. Her achievement went completely unnoticed.

The question is this: How could the national media miss such a historic milestone for Canada’s 600,000-strong Muslim community?

After all, Ms. Ratansi was not a new kid on the block. She first contested a federal election in 1988, losing narrowly to Alan Redway. Describing herself as "a business person with a strong social conscience," Ms. Ratansi persevered for more than 15 years to accomplish her dream of entering Canada’s House of Commons.

It was a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering that Ms. Ratansi came to Canada from Tanzania as a young immigrant. She is a role model not just for Muslims, but all immigrants who decide to make this country our home.

One can perhaps understand the media not covering this development. Maybe it was simply an innocent oversight. How do we explain the reaction of traditional Muslim organizations that refused to acknowledge Ms. Ratansi’s accomplishment?

From the Canadian Islamic Congress to CAIR-Canada, from MuslimVote.ca to Radio Islam, there was not a word, either prior to, or after June 29, about the campaign of Ms. Ratansi.

I believe that both the media and the traditional Muslim organizations are guilty of seeing Canada’s Muslim community through the prism of social conservatism.

The search for the authentic Muslim has forced reporters and editors to look for women in head covers and men in beards. When a Muslim does not fit that stereotype, he or she is simply discarded as not a genuine Muslim.

Traditional Muslim organizations are particularly guilty of creating and sustaining this stereotype. Just because Ms. Ratansi does not cover her head, she did not fit their criteria for a good Muslim woman, and was therefore not on their list of Muslim candidates.

However, the story does not end here. There is a strong sectarian streak in how these traditional Muslim organizations determine who qualifies to be a Muslim and who does not.

In the weeks leading up to the election, many Muslim organizations published a list of Muslim candidates running for Parliament. Conspicuous by their absence on these lists were the names of Liberal Yasmin Ratansi and sitting Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer. They were ignored because they belong to the Ismaili sect of Islam and thus are not considered worthy of the label Muslim.

The divisive and sectarian attitude of the traditional Muslim leadership is not just devoted to picking and choosing who they consider good Muslims or bad Muslims. They have now turned their attention to Muslim culture and customs and are judging good Muslim culture and bad Muslim culture with the media in tow.

Next month, a group of conservative Muslims has organized what they call a MuslimFest, ostensibly to celebrate Muslim art, music and painting. However, the organizers have barred all female performers and rejected the use of the sitar and guitar. They have also forbidden any paintings depicting the human face.

Organizers of the MuslimFest claim that all festivity at this event will be Sharia-compliant. Imagine a Muslim Festival where a Muslim icon like Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan would be barred from performing; where Om Kolthoum would not be allowed to sing and where Mughal miniatures would be considered satanic.

Sad, but this is what will happen. Canada’s news media is complicit in covering the most conservative Muslims in Canada. Unintentionally, perhaps, they have neglected the vast, silent majority of Muslims who do not wear beards, do not cover their heads and who do not follow the direction of imams and self-styled leaders in determining their politics.

In their search for genuine Muslims who carried credentials of authenticity by the conservative leadership, the media overlooked Ms. Ratansi, and failed to give her the credit she so rightly deserves as a torchbearer for Muslims in Canada.