Canadian Nurses: "Until This Crisis is Over, We Are All Muslims"

People in Canada of Arab decent and of the Muslim faith in particular are being victimized. Muslim Canadians, Arab Canadians are no more responsible for these acts of terror than Christian Canadians were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Nurses have traditionally been advocates for those who are vulnerable. Caring for the health of all Canadians is what nursing is about. Caring for the community is what trade union activism is all about.

From this perspective, I say that this hatred, this harassment is wrong and it's anti-Canadian. We are a multi-cultural society made up of people from all over the world. And no one...no hate is going to take this from us. So we propose the first step in a solution.

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The King of Denmark during World War II wore the Star of David on his coat in order to protect his fellow countrymen and women from harm. Today we are asking the leaders of Canada to don this sticker which says "Muslim Canadian supporter... We are all Canadian" to help protect our fellow countrymen and women and their children from harassment and worse.

There are 300,000 people in Canada of Muslim faith. I represent 120,000 nurses and we say, we are all Muslim Canadians until this crisis is over --all 420,000 of us.

So today we are calling on the Prime Minister and all the members of the government and the Parliament to join our ranks. We also call on our fellow trade unionists and their families to wear these stickers until this crisis is past.

Kathleen Connors is president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions.