Canadian lawmaker bans keffiyehs in Ontario Legislature

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA) - A keffiyeh ban in the Ontario Legislature remains in place after a vote Thursday failed to remove the prohibition.

The Speaker of the Legislature had banned the checkered scarf that has come to embody Palestinian solidarity because he said it made an “overt political statement.” He said it is a symbol showing solidarity with Palestinians as an Israeli onslaught against the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip rages.

Speaker Ted Arnott controls the Legislature and has the final say in such matters.

But Premier Doug Ford said he disagreed with the ban and at a news conference Thursday, explained why.​​​​​​​

“This will just divide the community even further,” said Ford. “Why divide the community even more than it is already divided?”

Arnott said in an email to CBC News on Wednesday that there is precedence for the ban as articles of clothing that make a political statement have been prohibited in the Legislature.

“After extensive research, I concluded that the wearing of keffiyehs at the present time in our (legislative) Assembly is intended to be a political statement,” Arnott said in the email. “So, as Speaker, I cannot authorize the wearing of keffiyehs based on our longstanding conventions.”

The ban covers lawmakers, staff and visitors to the Legislature.

New Democrat Party Leader Marit Stiles brought forth a motion Thursday that would have removed the ban. She was supported by Ford and the leader of the Liberals.

“The wearing of these important cultural and national clothing items in our (legislative) Assembly is something we should be proud of. It is part of the story of who we are as a province,” Stiles said in a letter to the speaker, as reported by CityNews. “Palestinians are part of that story, and the keffiyeh is a traditional clothing item that is significant not only to them but to many members of Arab and Muslim communities.”

But the motion needed unanimous consent and even though the three leaders of the political parties backed it, the motion failed to pass.

At the Thursday news conference just before the vote, Ford said he hoped the Speaker would reverse the ban but did not say he would tell members of his ruling Conservative Party to support the motion.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive against Gaza since an Oct. 7, cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, in which less than 1,200 people were killed.

Nearly 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and more than 76,800 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.