Motion to allow keffiyehs in Ontario legislature fails for a second time

TORONTO — The keffiyeh took centre stage at the Ontario legislature Tuesday as protesters unfurling the scarves were ejected from the public galleries and an independent member draped one over her shoulders in open defiance of a Speaker’s ban on the attire.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles had tried for a second time to get the legislature to pass a unanimous consent motion to overturn the Speaker’s ban on keffiyehs, which he says are being worn to make a political statement, contrary to the rules of the assembly.

But a few Ontario members of the governing Progressive Conservatives voted against Stiles’s motion, and shortly after it failed a group of four people watching question period stood up, waved and put on keffiyehs, shouting “free, free Palestine” and “you can’t cancel us.”

Legislative security ejected them and around the same time Sarah Jama, who sits as an independent after being kicked out of the NDP caucus last year, put on a keffiyeh and was not asked to remove it for the remainder of the hour-long question period.

“This is the least I could do, is stand up in solidarity,” Jama, who has Palestinian family members, said outside the chamber. 

“It’s completely ridiculous and theatrical that we’re not allowed to wear this cultural cloth in this place. And so I’m standing up for a lot of the people who feel like they can’t say anything right now.”

A keffiyeh is a checkered scarf typically worn in Arab cultures that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestinians.

Speaker Ted Arnott said since Jama sits at the opposite end of the chamber from him he could not definitively see the pattern on her scarf.

“(When) I come in to the chamber to start question period I don’t do a scan of what everyone’s wearing as my first priority,” he said after question period. 

“If it’s drawn to my attention by way of a point of order, I’d obviously have to deal with it.”

Jama said she would continue wearing it.

Stiles said the act of banning the keffiyeh politicized it, but people of all backgrounds should be comfortable displaying their culture in the legislature.

“This is cultural attire,” she said. “It’s not about a political statement. It is about protecting people’s right to wear, to show their culture and heritage.”

Progressive Conservative backbencher Lisa MacLeod was one of the people who voted against the motion, calling it antisemitic because it came during the Jewish holiday of Passover.

“I think that these tensions that have unnecessarily spilled over into the Ontario legislature really have been a distraction for the work that we’re supposed to be doing here,” MacLeod said outside the legislative chamber.

“I think that when Marit Stiles suggests that all Ontarians are in support of this, she is ignoring the fact that the Jewish community in the province feels like they’re under threat and under attack.” 

Stiles responded to a question about the timing of the motion and Passover by noting that this is the second time she introduced such a motion, with the previous one voted down last week.

The leaders of all political parties in the legislature, including Premier Doug Ford, have called on the Speaker to reverse his decision on the keffiyeh.

Ford said later Tuesday that his Progressive Conservative team had an open discussion about the ban at a caucus meeting.

“I let people speak freely and I don’t punish them for speaking freely,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2024.

Allison Jones and Liam Casey, The Canadian Press