An Alberta high school teacher has introduced a petition calling upon the Trudeau government to prohibit U.S. President Donald Trump from entering Canada until he withdraws his executive order barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Petition e-813, initiated by Joy Gerwien of Okotoks, Alta. and sponsored by NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, says Canada’s hate speech laws and multicultural character are incompatible with Trump’s order, which “unfairly specified Muslims to be banned from entering the United States.”
“We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to prohibit President Donald Trump from entering Canada until he withdraws his Executive Order that prohibits travel from Sudan, Syria, Lybia, Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen because it violates human or international rights,” reads the petition.
The petition was introduced on Jan. 31, 2017, and will remain open for signature until May 31. It had 166 signatures as of 9:30 pm EST Saturday, with Ontarians contributing 73 signatures and Albertans 36.
It will need to garner at least 500 validated signatures before it can be presented in the House of Commons.
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Gerwien, 48, is under no illusions as to what the petition can accomplish.
“I know that Canada’s parliament will not bar Donald Trump. What we are hoping for however is to let the government know that action is required. I hope that our parliament hears that we still believe in our founding values of a cultural mosaic,” Gerwien told Global News.
She said she’s bothered by the rise of hateful rhetoric in both the U.S. and Canada, which she said her students find “confusing and concerning.”
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“There is a groundswell of frustration and fear that is surfacing as anger in our country. I’m seeing a lot of it coming through social media, mainstream media, etc.,” she said.
Gerwien added that many of her American teacher friends thanked her and other Canadians for speaking up on their behalf, “while they live in an environment where they’re afraid to speak out.”
In a Facebook post, Gerwien wrote that her empathy towards refugees stems from her family’s experience moving from Ontario to Alberta in 1979, when “we were teased mercilessly for our accents and told that we were rats and should die.”
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Many Canadians have been up in arms over Trump’s travel and immigration ban, with thousands demonstrating outside the U.S. consulate in Toronto on Saturday to pressure the Canadian government to condemn the measure. Anti-Islamophobia rallies were also organized in Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary.
A federal judge in Washington state blocked the ban on Thursday, but Trump has said that he will look to reinstate it.