Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the "American right-wing" for Canadian Muslims' opposition to gender ideology and LGBTQ curriculum in K-12 education.
The video was of Trudeau speaking with the Muslim community last week at a Calgary mosque – Baitun Nur Mosque – after hundreds of protesters rallied against gender ideology in schools, chanting "Leave our kids alone."
The frustration reached a boiling point after audio surfaced of an Edmonton Public Schools teacher berating Muslim students for skipping school in order to avoid pride events.
"It goes two ways. If you want to be respected for who you are, if you don’t want to suffer prejudice for your religion, your color of skin or whatever, then you better give it back to people who are different from you. That’s how it works," said the teacher.
A Muslim individual explained to Trudeau where the community was coming from, according to the video. "I ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, please protect our culture, our belief, the sin that you are doing to them."
He responded, "First of all, there is an awful lot of misinformation and disinformation out there [from] people on social media, particularly fueled by the American right-wing are spreading a lot of untruths about what is actually… in the curriculum."
Trudeau's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On June 25, in Calgary, Alberta, hundreds of protesters screamed "Leave our kids alone!" and "Our kids, our choice!"
"My brothers and my sisters. We cannot stay hidden anymore for [the issue is]… getting closer to each and every one of us," said Mahmoud Mourra at the event. "If you're not a father today, tomorrow you will be. If you're not a mother today, tomorrow will be. You'll have a daughter. Or do you have a son who is of minor age? He's so vulnerable, and you have some hyenas and really powerful predators they are willing to go. They to do whatever they can take your... kids away from you."
"We will protect our kids as much as it takes," he continued.
Trudeau went on to claim that right-wing forces were driving a wedge between the Muslim community "that is hurting the fabric of respect and openness that allows Canada to be one of the places where we support and defend the Muslim community more than just about any other Western Canadian."
"If you look at the various curriculums…, there is not… aggressive teaching or conversion of kids into being LGBT. That is something that is being weaponized by people… of the far right who have consistently stood against Muslim rights," he said.
"But they are weaponizing the issue of LGBT, which is something that, yes, Islam has strong opinions on. The same way that the religious right in Canada, the Christian right, has strong opinions against as well. They are using those fears to drive a wedge between a government that will always stand up for all your rights."
"Just like I will always stand up for the rights of LGBT kids, including if they're LGBT Muslims... We're going to defend your rights even when you disagree with us defending other people's rights."
Left-wing commentators in the U.S. have similarly responded to Muslims' uprising against gender ideology by stoking fear about what an alignment with the right could mean.
Michelle Goldberg, an opinion columnist at The New York Times called the supposed ideological alliance between Christians and Muslims on education "strange new political bedfellows," and went on to list the right's purported phobia of Muslims.
MSNBC peddled a similar narrative, at least twice in recent weeks, claiming the right was "recruiting" Muslims. The claim was disputed by an executive at the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the national deputy director at CAIR, said, it was time for "liberal commentators" like MSNBC's Psaki "to accept that Muslim parents are independent, intelligent people speaking for themselves."
CAIR is the "largest Muslim civil rights organization" in America.
The director of the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team for the Religious Freedom Institute, Ismail Royer, told Fox News Digital that Psaki's remarks were insulting to Muslims.
"The left wants to scare Muslims into accepting its indoctrination of our children in exchange for a smile and pat on the head," Royer told Fox News Digital. "They insult Muslims by portraying us as having no agency or intelligence but can’t imagine that we’ve weighed the bargain they offer us and rejected it."
Another activist, Sameerah Munshi of the Muslim-led organization called the Coalition of Virtue said at a board meeting in Montgomery County, Maryland, "Our faith is not partisan and our people are not backward."
"Part of the American dream of our people is that they pass on their values to their children. But members of this school board have mocked our values."
