“but they are backwards and their culture is retrograde, it does not deserve to be protected as a Canadian Charter right.
(…)
About a year ago, in a heavily Muslim area of Montreal, I had a number of conversations with a devout Muslim man who wore the traditional beard, head-gear and tunic, and bare feet in rubber sandals in the middle of winter. He used a prayer mat several times a day on the premises of his business. He had been in Canada for 26 years, he had brought four children into existence as Canadians on our soil, and his wife and daughters wore the hijab.
(…)
“After I explained to him what a Constitution was, and repeated my question about the rule of law and the supremacy of God, he proceeded to explan that the “God” referred to in the Preamble of our Charter is ‘Dog’ spelled backwards, whereas Allah is the same spelled forwards and back, and therefore we in this country pay reverence to a false god, in other words a Dog!
“This Muslim immigrant to Canada believed that the English language has magical properties spelled backwards and forwards, just like his own, and that merely spelling the word God backwards proves Canadian ignorance.
“That a Muslim immigrant to this country could be so blatantly ignorant of the Constitution, and so appallingly misinformed about what ‘God’ stands for when it stands for anything in this country, gave me a sense of helpless terror I have never felt before…”
