I thought very seriously having something more like a normal life where I might have my weekends and evenings off, and be able to read and have a more robust personal life.

There's not a word in the Quran or the Hadith that requires that women cover their faces. To the contrary, the only requirement is that they uncover their faces when they're doing the haj.

I have said explicitly from day one when I announced this policy in, I believe, November of 2011, that I and our government oppose the idea of banning the wearing of the niqab in public.

You go to a lot of small communities in rural Alberta and you'll find a degree of diversity that probably hasn't existed in terms of immigration for a century - you'll find the Filipino grocery store, and the African Pentecostal church and maybe a mosque. Albertans are pro-immigration; they're also pro-integration. In my years in this province I cannot recall more than a handful of expressions of xenophobia or nativism that I've encountered. It's the land of new beginnings and fresh starts - it is rare Albertans who trace their roots here back more than a generation or two.

I thought very seriously having something more like a normal life where I might have my weekends and evenings off, and be able to read and have a more robust personal life.

Naheed Nenshi is a friend of mine. We - he - knows how close I am to all of the cultural, ethnic, and religious communities in Canada, particularly his own Ismaili community. By the way, the vast majority of Canadian Muslims, particularly Ismaili Muslims that I know, strongly support our government's reinforcement of the public nature of the public citizenship oath.

The federal court has not commented on niqab as being a violation of any putative Charter right, but rather has said that the court believes that the policy ought to be anchored in legislation or regulation as opposed to an administrative order from the Minister. We disagree with that. But this is not a Charter ruling.