THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, March 20, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 4 p.m. [ET] to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally.
Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I am Wanda Thomas Bernard, a senator from Nova Scotia and deputy chair of this committee. In the absence of the chair, Senator Ataullahjan, I will chair our meeting today.
I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples from across Turtle Island.
Today, we are conducting a public hearing of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. I will ask members of the committee who are here participating in this meeting to introduce themselves.
Senator Omidvar: My name is Ratna Omidvar. I’m from Ontario.
Senator Hartling: Senator Nancy Hartling from New Brunswick.
Senator Arnot: Senator David Arnot from Saskatchewan.
Senator Manning: Senator Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba from Quebec.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Today, our committee will continue its study on Islamophobia in Canada under its general order of reference. Our study will cover, among other matters, the role of Islamophobia with respect to online and offline violence against Muslims, general discrimination, as well as discrimination in employment, including Islamophobia in the federal public service. Our study will also examine the sources of Islamophobia, its impact on individuals, including mental health and physical safety, possible solutions and government responses.
After having held two meetings in June 2022 in Ottawa, followed by public meetings and visits to mosques in September in Vancouver, Edmonton, Quebec City and Toronto, we continued our public hearings in Ottawa last fall and last month. Let me provide some details about our meeting today.
This afternoon, we shall have two panels. In each panel, we shall hear from the witnesses first, and then the senators will have a question-and-answer session.
Now, I shall introduce our first panel of witnesses. Each witness has been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We shall hear from all witnesses, and then turn to questions from the senators. I wish to welcome our first witness, who is joining us today by video conference, Fahad Ahmad, Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University; and our second witness, who is with us in person at the table, Thomas Juneau, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.
I now invite Mr. Ahmad to make his presentation, followed by Mr. Juneau.
Fahad Ahmad, Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, as an individual: Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the topic of Islamophobia.
I am an assistant professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University and a research affiliate at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto. I co-edit a book series at the University of Toronto Press, and our first book, Systemic Islamophobia in Canada, provides an account of Muslims in Canada facing othering and discrimination as a result of state actions.
In my own research, I’m especially interested in the impact of the racialized practices of countering violent extremism, or CVE, on Muslim community organizations and on social relations more broadly. In the few minutes I have today, I would like to highlight the ways in which CVE reproduces Islamophobia.
At the outset, I want to clarify that Islamophobia is not merely the “irrational fear or hatred of Muslims or Islam that leads to discrimination,” as was suggested by a parliamentary committee report in 2018. Like racism, Islamophobia is an ideology in which Muslims are assumed to be inherently violent, pre-modern and unassimilable in Western society.
As legal scholars Reem Bahdi and Azeezah Kanji have emphasized, this ideology informs state actions, which in turn feed individualized incidents of violence against Muslims. They also note an uncomfortable truth about Canada: State policies often target Muslims without it being named explicitly. This makes it particularly difficult to pinpoint. With this understanding of Islamophobia, I am going to highlight a couple of ways in which CVE has targeted Muslims negatively.
As opposed to the coercive practices of counterterrorism, CVE is presented as a soft, pre-criminal strategy to supposedly prevent future terrorism. It includes things like community outreach and educational programming to address the alleged root causes of radicalization and extremism. While counterterrorism approaches in Canada have long been critiqued as heavy-handed and discriminatory towards Muslims, some argue that CVE is a corrective to these critiques. I want to stress that CVE is just as culpable in the reproduction of state-sponsored Islamophobia as Canada’s counterterrorism regime.
The first problem with CVE is the way in which security agencies have mobilized the concept of radicalization. Security agencies have treated radicalization to essentially be a problem of Muslims being drawn to Islamist ideologies which are assumed to be necessarily violent. As a result, state agencies have targeted Muslims in Canada as the “suspect community,” blurring the distinction between community outreach and national security investigations.
This is especially evident in the unsolicited visits by the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, to Muslim workplaces and homes, as well as Muslim student associations on university campuses. These visits imply that the Muslim community is under surveillance. These visits are stigmatizing and fear-inducing. Policing agencies take advantage of people’s precarious statuses, such as immigration, to coerce them for information.
A recent academic article by Baljit Nagra notes that:
. . . CSIS engages in the mass surveillance of Muslim communities, transforms mosques into spaces of surveillance, creates a community of informants and undermines political activism.
Second, CVE invites Muslim community organizations to participate in national security efforts. However, an immense power imbalance exists between state agencies and Muslim community organizations, making the supposed partnership entirely lopsided. Muslim organizations are securitized and can be disciplined at the behest of government agencies. A recent report by Anver Emon and Nadia Hasan brought to light the case of the Ottawa Islamic Centre and the Assalam Mosque. The charitable status of this mosque was revoked because the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, found the mosque promoted “hate and intolerance.” This was based on the assessment of certain speakers the mosque invited who gave past lectures that might be linked to “radicalized individuals.”
The report and my own research highlights that Muslim charities feel targeted, and they then subject themselves to self-censoring. This limits their ability to fully and freely express the concerns of their constituents. Despite policy documents asserting that the government is concerned about all forms of violent extremism, the experience of Muslim communities and community organizations makes apparent that CVE disproportionately targets Muslims.
In conclusion, I’d like to highlight that the logics and practices underpinning CVE are not that different from that of Canada’s problematic counterterrorism approaches. Both are sites of Islamophobia.
I have likely run out of my limited time to make recommendations in my oral remarks, but I have included them in my written submission, and I am happy to address them in the question and answer. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ahmad.
Thomas Juneau, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, as an individual: Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you today.
Unlike my colleague who just spoke, I am not an expert on Islamophobia, but what I can hopefully help you out with are recommendations on how intelligence agencies can engage with Muslim and other minority communities. What I will speak about is based on two experiences in particular.
For three years until last year, I was the co-chair of an independent body called the National Security Transparency Advisory Group, or NS-TAG, which advises the intelligence community on how to be more transparent, and, among other things that we did last year, our third report was specifically on engagement with racialized groups. I would recommend to this committee that you engage with the NS-TAG if you haven’t already done so.
The other experience that I will base this on is an academic article I recently published on this topic, and I will be happy to share it with the committee if you are interested.
The starting point, as my colleague said, is that relations with Muslim communities — and other minority groups, for that matter — have been historically difficult with intelligence organizations in this country. There are many reasons for that, but one of them is a lack of transparency. My key point in one sentence is that this lack of transparency by the intelligence community is a national security problem, weakness or vulnerability. Put differently, transparency is a tool to better protect Canada’s and Canadians’ national security that we vastly underutilize, and that, in many ways, is self-defeating.
This is true in relations with Muslim Canadians — our topic today — but also in relations with other minority groups and in other realms of national security, for that matter.
What can we do? I’ll give a few recommendations very quickly, and I would be happy to unpack them more after.
One: We need to revise our definitions of transparency. Too often in the intelligence community, transparency is defined in narrow and passive terms. Basically, we release information of our choosing in the context of our choosing. We need broader, more proactive definitions of transparency based on sustained engagement with a wider range of stakeholders involving two-way dialogue and not a one-way speech.
Two: We need intelligence and national security departments and agencies to develop systems processes to measure transparency and engagement. That may sound bureaucratic, but it is essential to better identify weaknesses, progress when there is progress and, in particular, to help accountability and allow civil society, the media and others to participate in these debates.
Three: We need much better engagement units within the intelligence community with clear and strong mandates and with staff with the skills and experience necessary to engage with Muslim Canadians and other minority groups. We don’t have enough of that at this point.
There are some good examples. The Academic Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement team at CSIS has progressed a lot, but there is still scope for improvement.
On foreign interference that we hear so much about these days, it is not just about China, it is also about Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and others, and in those cases, Muslim Canadians are the victims more often than not. We need better engagement to work with them to protect vulnerable Canadians. However, this engagement must be built on trust, which too often, as we heard previously, is not there. In this sense, this lack of trust is a national security vulnerability.
Another point is that transparency is an essential tool to counter disinformation. The lack of transparency helps create information vacuums, which hostile actors can fill, putting vulnerable Canadians at risk.
More transparency and engagement are essential to healthy human resource practices in the intelligence community. The lack of trust and the lack of engagement prevents the intelligence community from hiring and fostering a workforce that reflects the diversity of this country, including but not only with Muslim Canadians.
To conclude, I would be happy to unpack a lot of these recommendations and offer more, but before my time is over, I would just emphasize one point that comes up a lot in these discussions: Transparency and engagement are difficult. They are time-consuming. They are energy intensive. It is not a matter of simply flicking a switch and then simply being more transparent. But so far in this country, despite progress in recent years that I think is worth highlighting, our performance at this level is not especially good and remains a major flaw in developing the resilience that is — or that should be — one of our main lines of defence against many of the threats we face, including but not only foreign interference.
I’ll stop here. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you both for your presentations.
Before asking and answering questions, I would like to ask the committee members and witnesses in the room, for the duration of this meeting, to please refrain from leaning in too close to the microphone or remove your earpiece when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff in the room.
We will now proceed to questions from senators. As was our previous practice, I would like to remind each senator that you have five minutes for your question, and that includes the answer.
Senator Hartling: Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today. It’s always interesting to have more information to think about. You told us a lot. What would you tell this committee — and you’ve each mentioned recommendations — are some of the top things you think we could look at?
We will be writing a report on this issue, so could you expand a little more on those recommendations and what we should make sure to include in our report?
This is for both of you — whoever would like to go first. Thank you.
Mr. Ahmad: I’m happy to get us started.
I’d like to build on my colleague’s point earlier. One of the things I think needs to happen is a continued push for more civilian oversight across federal agencies with a national security mandate. The creation of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA, was, of course, a good first step. Many Muslim organizations have welcomed NSIRA’s recent decision to look into the work of the Review and Analysis Division, or RAD, of the Canada Revenue Agency, but we need oversight on agencies like the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA. We need better data on national security investigations, including a breakdown of race and demographics. We need better insight into the work of CSIS, which continues to enjoy expanded powers of disruption. We need to learn, for example, about how the RCMP and CSIS are developing their own knowledge frameworks and indicators of radicalization and to what extent they’re responding to the many critiques of national security practices over the last two decades or so.
The Access to Information and Privacy, or ATIP, requests are a tool for researchers and the community to learn about internal decisions and actions of state security agencies. However, the ATIP system is essentially broken because requests to the RCMP and CSIS either take far too long or, in some cases, receive no response.
Relatedly, I’d like to recommend that the government immediately move away from using some of the counterterrorism provisions that are non-transparent in nature and have disproportionately targeted Muslims: the listing of terrorist entities, the no-fly list, security certificates and the arbitrary visits by the RCMP and CSIS that I mentioned a moment ago — these are just a few examples.
Also, I think we have ample evidence now that the criminal law has a provision to deal with terrorism and ensure that adequate protections of the criminal law are afforded to defendants. Therefore, more should be done to use the criminal justice framework already in place instead of the Anti-terrorism Act, or ATA.
Thank you.
Mr. Juneau: Jumping on that, one point I will mention very quickly is the issue of engagement units. CSIS has the Academic Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement, or AOSE, program, the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, has the Cyber Centre and others have a range of different units that can perform activities like this. A number of things can be done to improve their work. Clarifying their mandates and authorities — what they can and cannot do — and increasing their staffing and resources are obviously essential steps. These units — such as AOSE — are very small. They only have a handful of people, so there is a very low ceiling to what they can do.
This gets into the weeds, but what kinds of people do we want working in these units? There is a bit of a tendency to take intelligence officers or analysts and simply rotate them into their shops, which is not necessarily a bad idea. Some of them can be skilled at that. In many cases, however, engagement requires different skill sets than being a good intelligence analyst or officer. Should we think a bit more in terms of career paths, recruitment and retention and so on?
Another point about their work is to be transparent about transparency in their case. CSIS produces an annual report in which there are always a couple of pages about the work of this unit. But there is scope to be more transparent. What kinds of meetings do they have and what kind of information is provided? There is some on the website that produces documents on foreign interference and others, but there is always scope for more.
Beyond the engagement units themselves, there is a need to make sure that the work of these engagement units is carefully integrated into the broader policy and operational work of CSIS, the RCMP, CBSA and others to make sure their work is not conducted in isolation or in parallel as a box-ticking exercise just to show that they engage and that’s it. What happens to the products of that engagement? Is it incorporated into the work of CSIS, the RCMP, CBSA and others? That is something you could look into to make sure their work is relevant as opposed to being marginal and in parallel.
Beyond the engagement units, I would say that organizations themselves should routinize transparency. Yes, engagement units should be stood up, strengthened, better resourced and have stronger mandates, but it shouldn’t be only them. Transparency and engagement should be the role of the organization as a whole. How do they do that? Some things are fairly obvious: more public speeches, more public engagement, more briefings to the media and more meetings with civil society, et cetera — and not just from a quantitative perspective, but from a qualitative perspective too, which goes back to the point I was making about broadening the definition of transparency and not viewing it in more passive terms as a bit of a data dump.
As a last point, I would reinforce what my colleague said on the role of NSICOP and NSIRA. These are new organizations that are growing and showing significant potential despite major growing pains in the relationship. I hope that among the multiple issues they look at, they look at the issue we’re talking about today — plus foreign interference more broadly — because they will absolutely have a role to play too.
Senator Hartling: Thank you.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you to both our witnesses. Let me start with a question to Professor Ahmad. You said you had tabled and sent in your recommendations, but in fact they have not been distributed to us because they weren’t available in both official languages. I certainly look forward to receiving them on paper.
I’m afraid I missed the definition or the words behind CVE. You talked about it, and I must have missed that. What do those three letters stand for?
Mr. Ahmad: Absolutely. Thank you for the question. I will make sure I resend my remarks after I log off today.
CVE stands for “countering violent extremism.” In Canada, countering violent extremism is presented as a pre-criminal, soft alternative to the coercive approaches of counterterrorism. They take the form of things like community outreach, educational programming and various kinds of social interventions to supposedly address the root cause of radicalization and extremism.
CVE policies — sometimes they’re called “counter radicalization policies” — came into effect in Canada relatively recently after 2015. They take on different forms in different provinces and municipalities, but in most provinces and municipalities they are police led or police mediated. Unfortunately, they suffer from quite a few problems, which is what the thrust of my remarks were.
In fact, one of my recommendations is that state security agencies refrain from expanding CVE across other forms of what CSIS has called ideologically motivated violent extremism because CVE has some fundamental weaknesses. The concept of radicalization remains fairly unclear and undefined, yet it is being expanded to signify a range of ideological positions — for example, from Islamism to White supremacy to even the anti-vax movement. As the case of the Assalam Mosque that I mentioned a moment ago illustrates, the fear of future radicalization is so great that it can create an imagination of the severity of future threats even if its probability remains low.
In the case of Muslims in Canada, CVE has led to targeting based on guilt by association. It has eroded trust with Muslim civil society, it has fed into a chill on political expression and activism and it’s a tool of racialized surveillance and securitization. There is nothing to suggest that CVE has been effective in reducing political violence. At worst, CVE is furthering racial prejudice and likely to be deployed against Indigenous movements and other marginalized communities who are deemed to be security threats by policing agencies.
As recently as today, an article in the CBC says there continues to be widespread fear among Muslims in light of the anti-Muslim violence witnessed, for example, by the attacks on the Afzaal family in London, Ontario, and the mosque shootings in Quebec City.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you so much, Professor Ahmad. We have been deep in the study for quite a few months, and we have heard from a variety of academics and community perspectives, but no one has raised or framed it as CVE.
Is CVE a formal policy construct or is it framing that you have provided?
Mr. Ahmad: No, in fact, it is not my framing. It is the language that the professionals in the field have come up with. As I said, in some instances, it is referred to as CVE. The United Nations has preferred this kind of terminology. Sometimes CVE is called “preventing violent extremism” or PVE. In other cases, it is called counter-radicalization.
In 2018, Public Safety Canada, for example, put out a national strategy for addressing radicalization to violence. The responses to that can broadly fit under this umbrella of what I have referred to, using other people’s terminology, as CVE.
Senator Manning: Thank you to our witnesses for appearing here this evening. My first question is for Professor Ahmad. You have recently written about how counterterrorism training in Canada continues to fixate on Muslims and operates to dehumanize perceived outsiders.
In the RCMP training that you observed, what components contributed to these negative outcomes? How did your identity inform your experience at the training and your subsequent analysis?
Mr. Ahmad: Thank you for the questions. Yes, I recently published work based on an RCMP counterterrorism information officer training that I attended in 2019. This was right before COVID. What I argue in that paper, with my co-author Jeffrey Monaghan, is that these trainings tend to display a propensity to viewing radicalization as a problem of Muslim violence.
This is evident in a few ways. One, just the curriculum of Counter-Terrorism Information Officer, or CTIO, training itself. We looked at not only the training that I attended, but also, as I mentioned, used ATIP to request syllabi of CTIO training across provinces in past years as well. We see an emphasis on RCMP officers trying to provide attendees — and that includes security officers in the private sector, ministry officials at the provincial and federal levels, firefighters and first responders broadly — essentially a one-on-one on Islam in these training exercises. Furthermore, they are trying to educate — that is, if it can be done in a workshop that’s only three days long — the attendees about certain strands of Islamist violence or Islamist movements that, again, are linked to incidents of terrorism or incidents of violence in the last two decades or so. That’s one way in which we came to learn that the way radicalization is presented has an association, oftentimes implicit, with Muslim violence.
The other way we have come to learn about it is views of radicalization indicators. Again, in this workshop, one of the RCMP officers who was offering the training announced that 95% of all investigations are Islam-related. They view benign religious and cultural expressions as indicators of risk. The RCMP has produced a guide for terrorism and violent extremism. In that guide, changes in dress, changes in appearance and changes in whom you interact with, for example, in mosques are all indicators that a person might be radicalizing. Furthermore, RCMP-CTIO documents obtained using an ATIP request by my co-author Professor Monaghan revealed that, despite claiming bias-free policing, RCMP training materials, for example, had a slide with a grainy picture of a young girl in a hijab standing next to a box or a suitcase while clutching some sort of device. The title of the slide was, “The Future of Terrorism.” Together, those things suggest that police see even Muslim children as potentially radicalizing to terrorist violence in the future.
The other question you asked was about my positionality. Naturally, my own experience as a Muslim researcher has informed my analysis, but I should also add I have studied this area for at least the last seven years. I feel fairly confident that the inferences I reached would be reached by any researcher looking at these materials objectively. Thank you.
Senator Manning: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: In recent weeks, Quebec has seen a wave of accidents or unfortunate events leading to the disappearance of young people from school in one case, and young children from a daycare centre in another. More recently, a couple had their life destroyed. Every time this happens, we don’t hear about these terrorists’ or people’s origins; the focus is on mental illness instead. As you said, Mr. Ahmad, in your practices, the media sees Islam and Muslims as a threat and it shows in their reporting.
Can you tell us where the line is between extremism and counterterrorism when it’s fuelled by institutions and the media and embedded within them? Is there anything that can be done to change the media discourse which immediately considers an unfortunate event committed by a non-Muslim person to be an event related to their mental state, meaning a mental illness?
What can we do for the media to rethink their approach or language, which naturally leads to condemning Muslims in their reporting? Is there anything we can do? In their testimony to our committee, some members of the media told us that they uphold professional ethics, while others told us that the language of terrorism is really part of the media.
What can you tell us about the state of affairs? Mr. Juneau, what can the government do regarding transparency? What can it do to make things simpler for those immediately considered terrorists?
Mr. Juneau: It’s very difficult for the government to interact directly with the media because you want to keep a clear separation between the two. I think there are some specific things the government can do in terms of its interaction with the media, and that’s where transparency can help.
In Canada, governments — the federal government in terms of national security — are not very transparent. As much as possible, they limit information that can be conveyed not only publicly, such as in speeches in the House of Commons, but also in briefings for members of the media or academics. Information is often very minimal.
In the long run, with respect to the media, it’s possible to have a much more mature and sophisticated relationship, where the government gives more information on a day-to-day basis, but also provides a more general idea about threats, as well as the lack of them when that’s the case, to help the media cover issues, whether they are security issues or not, with a lot more information in hand, which is not always a foregone conclusion.
In the case of foreign interference, which we’re talking a lot about these days, the government should provide a lot more information about the threat instead of constantly hiding behind a wall of secrecy, saying, “We can’t talk about it, it’s classified,” and so on. It would help the media cover the issue in a much more nuanced way, because these are very complicated issues. It would be helpful in general, but it would be particularly helpful when it comes to the issue of anti-Asian or anti-Chinese racism in the current case, because that’s a debate you can’t untangle from the issue.
Is there a magic bullet? No, but by giving more information to the media in general, I think we can support coverage that could become more nuanced over time.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Senator, I’m sorry, but your time is up. Do you want to go on a second round?
Senator Gerba: Yes.
Senator Arnot: Thank you, witnesses. This question is directed to both of you. Thank you for coming today to assist us in this work.
I assume that your research in these areas demonstrates that there is a deep-seated cultural bias or ethos in the security agencies and intelligence agencies in Canada. I would say that one of the answers, then, is greater transparency, but transparency seems to be antithetical to the business of surveilling or spying. You are asking for a significant paradigm shift in the culture in those agencies. How you can objectively and effectively measure transparency in the workings of those agencies?
Second, with respect to federal government ministries that could be involved in a proactive and constructive way in dealing with these issues, what advice would you have for Public Safety and what advice would you have for Canadian Heritage considering that, in Canada, we are a multicultural, multi-theist, multi-ethnic country — these are the principles in our constitution — but it seems that we are very weak on educating Canadian citizens about those principles?
Mr. Juneau: There is absolutely a deep ethos of secrecy within intelligence organizations. I think that is changing slowly. We are at a better point today than we were 10 or 20 years ago. There is still a lot to improve upon, but, to be fair, it needs to be recognized that things have been changing in a positive direction, albeit from a low point.
Is it antithetical to their business? Yes and no. In some ways, of course, it is. I would never advocate for radical transparency on issues like sources and methods, for example, which should remain absolutely protected. However, much else could be said and is not being said on objectives, priorities, threat assessments and training, for that matter, as my colleague previously demonstrated.
What are ways to change that? Hiring. In national security organizations, we are hiring in search of specific skills and not others. There are ways to change that. Promotions are one. We are promoting on the basis of certain skills, and transparency and engagement are not some of those. So there are ways to change the incentive structure for promotions, too. Training is another. There is huge debate to be had on the poor quality of training in the national security community in general, and specifically on some of these issues.
Overall — and I will finish with this to let my colleague speak — there is a need to change the risk-reward structure within intelligence organizations to incentivize more engagement and transparency. Right now, the risk-reward structure incentivizes over-classification and risk aversion on issues of information sharing. There are ways to change that, but yes, it is hard.
Mr. Ahmad: I will answer your question in reverse; I will pick up on the point about recommendations for Public Safety Canada and Canadian Heritage.
One of the things those two agencies are particularly suited to do is invest in studies that take up the questions of state-sponsored Islamophobia more systematically. There is value in a deeper study of anti-Muslim violence and discrimination in the Canadian context. We often find that to be underrepresented in comparative global studies. This will not only help us better conceptualize Islamophobia, but also consider its intersections with anti-Black racism and economic marginalization.
To your second question regarding the culture of intelligence agencies, I very much agree that the culture is at the root of this issue. It is not only that of secrecy, but discrimination that is present in these agencies. We learned about this from the accounts of former CSIS employees like Huda Mukbil and others who have exposed the systemic racism in agencies like CSIS.
Until those agencies work to — first, they are secretive; second, from what we know about them, they are not good at dealing with issues of racism and Islamophobia within themselves. So much work can be done in that regard.
The Deputy Chair: We will go now to the second round. In this round, senators have three minutes for the questions and answers so that we can complete on time.
Senator Omidvar: You are putting us under pressure. My question is to Professor Juneau.
I appreciate your comments on transparency, engagement and training, but I want to go back to what could be the root cause of all of this. I go back to 2001 and the Anti-terrorism Act passed by Prime Minister Chrétien. I think we all agree it was passed in a rush. It was followed in 2015, roughly, by Prime Minister Harper’s Assessment of Inherent Risks of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in Canada.
Do you think it is time for both of these to be reviewed? The entire machinery of government rests on those.
Mr. Juneau: Yes, I absolutely think it is time for them to be reviewed.
As you said, a lot of these measures were passed quickly. After 9/11, there was a specific political context at that point. By the way, one of the lessons to be learned from how some of these measures were passed in a rush is to be cautious. We absolutely need to do much more to counter Chinese interference, but one of the lessons of 20 years ago is that if we are not cautious and take these measures too quickly without thinking through their implications, one of the consequences, in addition to them just not being effective, would be targeting Chinese Canadians in this case, which is exactly the opposite of what we should want to do.
Therefore, yes, I do support reviewing them, especially in a context where the spectrum of threats that Canada faces today is much more diverse than it was 20 years ago. That is not to say that al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other groups do not exist anymore — they do — but their priority ranking is not the same as it was 20 years ago. Right there, that warrants a re-evaluation.
Senator Omidvar: Do you believe the fixation, if I may call it that, of the security machinery on threats from Muslims distracts us from dealing with other threats like White nationalism, foreign interference and others?
Mr. Juneau: That’s a very good question. I have two answers to that.
I would say today, far less than five years ago. If we were having this discussion in 2015 or something like that, I would have said, yes, we need to start looking at right wing or far-right Christian extremism — however we want to call it — economic espionage and others.
National security agencies have been shifting quite a lot. The pandemic and the convoy provoked that shift, and this current debate is provoking that shift.
Have we shifted enough? I don’t think it is possible to say from the outside.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you.
Professor Ahmad, we will hear from NSIRA next week. They have been in the news; you mentioned them as well. What questions should we ask NSIRA about their review of RAD?
Mr. Ahmad: I know you all have invited witnesses who are in a far more informed position to tell you specifically what to do about RAD.
In general, regarding questions that should be posed to NSIRA and that build on my colleague’s comments — as well as the earlier comment that was made about what governments agencies can do when interfacing with this general problem of extremism and the balance between that and secrecy that is important for these agencies — I will say that in a democratic society like ours, it is important to have civilian oversight over these agencies. Otherwise, we know that the counterterrorism apparatus affords the government a great deal of power, and the potential for abuse of that power is high unless there are strong mechanisms of democratic accountability and civilian oversight of these bodies.
I hope that you will all be able to ask NSIRA about mechanisms and about some degree of accountability that will allow communities that are especially targeted by these policies, laws and the overall apparatus to be told the reasons or be brought in as equal-as-possible partners when engaging in conversations about policies and actions.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you.
Senator Manning: My question is for Professor Juneau. Can you tell us what the research shows about the relationship between radicalized communities and Canadian intelligence and national security agencies? What evidence exists of systemic Islamophobia persisting in Canadian intelligence and national security agencies that you have found?
Mr. Juneau: I will answer your question quickly, but maybe I can leave time to my colleague for an answer because the evidence for Islamophobia is something that he has looked at much more than I have, so he would be better qualified.
The one point I would make to back that claim would be primarily through the three years of work that I did as Co-Chair of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group, the independent body that I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks. I was the co-chair of that group when it started in 2019 until last summer. As part of our work for that group, we heard testimony from dozens of civil society activists, academics, government people, retired government people and government people from allied countries.
I am reluctant to use the word consensus, but the overall view was that there is a problem. For me, the fact that from such a wide range of perspectives — including from people very critical to the government to people within the government or not critical of the government — the recognition of an overall problem was very clear, whether on the Islamophobia side or on other sides, for that matter, such as anti-Asian racism and so on.
For me, the unavoidable conclusion of three years of testimony in that group makes it very clear that there is a problem which is why, from my perspective in my research, I focused more on the answers. I haven’t looked deeply into the problem itself, but there is no doubt, after three years of work, that there is a problem. Maybe my colleague can answer quickly on that.
Mr. Ahmad: I think there is ample evidence ranging from government commissions to research reports by numerous academics that have pointed to the problems in the counterterrorism regime in general. Things like the use of security certificates that were popular in the early 2000s to things, more recently, like mobility restrictions that Muslims face because their charitable contributions of small amounts to Muslim-majority countries are flagged as suspicious and therefore that impedes either their mobility or in some other cases, as my research informants have told me, it might impede their immigration or citizenship applications and so on.
The thing about Muslim charities being prejudicially targeted by the CRA is obviously very much on your minds, as your questions illustrate, and also there are tons of reports on this already. There is ample evidence. Again, I point to inside information of employees of CSIS who have exposed the fact that these agencies have internal problems that reflect Islamophobia and racism. I will stop there.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: My question is for Mr. Ahmad. In your studies, do you have data on the percentage of Muslims working for security agencies and the Canada Revenue Agency?
I’m asking the question to follow up on the conversation with Mr. Juneau, because I’m wondering if one of the solutions would be to have more Muslims at these agencies.
[English]
Mr. Ahmad: The short answer to your question is that I don’t have that data. We wish we had that sort of data because this is the kind of information that we would like agencies to come forward with.
However, I would say two things. First, in response to your previous question about media representation of extremism and the fact that when the perpetrator is not racialized, it is often presented as a mental health issue. Whereas when they are Muslim, oftentimes the media representation makes a connection between their faith or cultural background or the Muslim-majority countries they might have a connection to and the act of violence, which is how this discrimination plays out. How the media addresses it is something the media needs to reflect on.
One way that government agencies can be more thoughtful is in the way the government agencies themselves put out communication around arrests or how they present a particular act of violence. There have been incidents in the past — and this has been noted across different academic articles — where the act of counterterrorism is a kind of sensationalized media performance that the media picks up on and recirculates. There is something to be said about that.
The other thing is about granting non-racialized perpetrators their full humanity and perhaps looking at mental health versus pathologizing mental health, attributing it as a contributor. That, too, remains somewhat problematic.
I think a more sophisticated or nuanced engagement, as my colleague was saying, with these concepts, which are fairly complicated, and not trying to simplify them would help everybody. It would help the media and the community.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I would like to sincerely thank our witnesses for agreeing to participate in this important study today. Your assistance with our study is greatly appreciated.
Colleagues, I shall now introduce our second panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We shall hear from them, and then turn to questions from the senators.
I wish to welcome our second panel of witnesses. With us in person at the table is Tim McSorley, National Coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. Joining us by video conference today is Abdul Nakua, Executive Member, Muslim Association of Canada; and Barbara Jackman, Lawyer, Jackman and Associates.
I now invite Mr. McSorley to make his presentation, followed by Mr. Nakua and Ms. Jackman.
Tim McSorley, National Coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group: Thank you, senators, for having me.
Our coalition’s focus is on the impacts of national security and anti-terrorism laws in Canada and our country’s role and actions throughout the so-called war on terror, on civil liberties and on fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international human rights agreements.
Through our work, we have observed the constant and undeniable problem of racial, religious and political profiling abetted by the vague and overreaching definitions of terrorism and national security found in Canada’s laws and policies. The most pervasive of this profiling has been the targeting of Muslims, Arabs and those perceived to be Muslim or Arab as the leading threat to the security of Canadians despite evidence to the contrary. This systemic Islamophobia has had a tangible, negative impact on Muslims not just in Canada, but around the world.
When thinking of this impact, we believe it is important that we remember the victims and survivors of these laws and listen to their words. Those who have directly experienced the most drastic forms of rights violations must be included in our policy discussions if we hope to truly address these problems.
I want to share some of the words of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was renditioned from his home in Mauritania and eventually imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay prison for 14 years, where he faced horrific acts of mistreatment and torture. All of this was based on faulty intelligence provided to the United States by Canadian intelligence agencies. Last May, Mr. Slahi told reporters with the Middle East Eye:
I want Canada to tell the world this was a mistake… I want to clear my name. This is very important to me. . . . Without the Canadian government, I would never have been kidnapped. Without the Canadian government, I would never have been selected for the torture programme. Instead of the protection I was seeking, I was literally thrown under the bus. . . . I just wanted an apology and I want them to give me back my papers that they took away, because I need a life — because my country won’t give me a passport. I want to be able to go to Canada freely, and meet my readers and meet my supporters, and do my talks in all the cities in Canada. Because I love the Canadian people.
Canada has ignored his request for an apology, forcing Mr. Slahi to pursue justice the only way he can: through the courts. His is just one tragic and enraging case among many.
Others who have also faced mistreatment or torture either at the hands of or with the complicity of Canada in the name of counterterrorism include: Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin, Omar Khadr, Mohamed Harkat, Hassan Diab, Abousfian Abdelrazik, Benamar Benatta and more. It is no coincidence that all of these are Muslim men.
Over the past few decades, studies have repeatedly documented the disproportionate impact of national security measures on Muslims in Canada. For example, a 2019 study found that 98% of individuals prosecuted under Criminal Code anti-terrorism provisions have been Muslims or linked to Muslim groups. The vast majority of these cases did not involve any executed act of violence whereas most White perpetrators of actual mass violence have not been prosecuted as terrorists. Our own research has shown the disproportionate, unsupported and prejudiced targeting of Muslim charities by the CRA under the guise of countering terrorist financing.
Other examples include discrimination and profiling in immigration; racial profiling at the border while travelling, including via the Passenger Protect Program or “No Fly List”; information sharing with rights-violating regimes; and the harassment of Muslims at work, on campus and in their places of worship.
In recent years, laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015, and the National Security Act, 2017, have expanded national security powers without adequate rights protections, transparency and oversight, and have not gone far enough to address the profiling and systemic discrimination faced by Muslims in Canada. If the federal government truly wishes to address Islamophobia, it must forego policies that are predicated on the vague and politically malleable idea of terrorism. Instead, what is needed is legislative reform, real accountability and justice for the survivors of rights violations in the name of counterterrorism.
This includes — and I have six specific points. First, rescinding rights-violating anti-terrorism laws, including CSIS threat disruption powers; second, increase resources for and augment the powers of review and oversight agencies, including independent review of CBSA; third, establishing clear accountability mechanisms, including to address CSIS breaches of duty of candour; fourth, mandate the collection of disaggregated race- and religion-based data to inform policy; five, end the prejudiced audits of Muslim charities under the guise of combatting terrorist financing in the charitable sector; and six, re-examine the resources granted to national security agencies with a goal of reallocating resources toward solutions that promote mental and physical health and well-being and combat exclusion, prejudices, discrimination and poverty.
Finally, as I mentioned, it is key that there is justice for the victims of counterterrorism abuses. Taking those steps would show a concrete change in approach and undermine the pervasive, unfounded image of Muslims posing a threat to the security of Canada. Some examples of this include but are not limited to immediately repatriating all Canadians currently detained in northeastern Syria; lifting Mohamed Harkat’s security certificate and ending his deportation proceedings; calling on the French government to end all proceedings against Dr. Hassan Diab and committing to no new extradition; resolving the cases of both Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who I mentioned earlier, as well as Abousfian Abdelrazik, and issuing apologies to both for mistreatment with the complicity of the Canadian government; and to request a transfer of Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy from the U.S. prison to Canada, where he could, at a minimum, be supported by his family and community and receive mental health services.
I would be happy to expand on any of those cases during the question and answer period. Thank you very much for your time.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Abdul Nakua, Executive Member, Muslim Association of Canada: Good afternoon, senators and chair. Thank you for inviting me to be part of this. My name is Abdul Nakua. It’s an Arabic name, so however you pronounce it, it may not be the accurate name. It sounds like “Nakua.”
I am a first-generation Canadian, and I come with experience of Islamophobia that maybe many of you did not have. I have been in this country since the 1980s, and I have witnessed both Persian Gulf wars, the Oklahoma bombing, 9/11, the Maher Arar public inquiry, the reasonable accommodation debate, the niqab saga and the fuss about the burkini, the barbaric practices snitch line, the infamous Bill C-51, the Trump Muslim ban, and lately in this list is Bill 21.
I am with the largest Muslim charity, Muslim Association of Canada, and I am active with the non-profit sector in Canada, whether it’s in the Ontario Nonprofit Network or with Imagine Canada and the Equitable Recovery Collective. I consult with governments over issues of Islamophobia, and I contribute articles — I would be happy to share them — about the subject and the intersection between Islamophobia and multiculturalism.
For the sake of time, I will try to make three quick remarks, and hopefully I will have the time to mention three recommendations.
My comments will be a little bit broad, but one thing about Islamophobia as a community is just how quickly it grew and emerged into an industry. As an industry, its currency is really weaponized in anger and stock in outrage, and it evolved an ecosystem that amplifies its messages, but the sad part of it is that, at its core, it creates and finds its way to the larger Canadian context and informs some policy choices for some political parties. That is where we see the issue with Islamophobia, and its proper place is really within the anti-racism spectrum. It is akin to the anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism. It should be seen in that perspective because that gives the full view of it.
We know that politicians love to link it to hate and hate crimes. Hate crimes are an outcome of the prevailing system of anti-racism.
One of the things we know about how this system works is that some of these narratives are amplified by self-proclaimed experts — security experts — that give opinions and commentary and then write and submit documents, and then that figures it way into the political discourse.
Mind you that two gentlemen attended a similar hearing at the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Mr. Vidino and Mr. Quiggin, who basically provided the pretext that really started the RAD audits. Hopefully NSIRA will expose some of that, but we have evidence that some of their writings and opinions did manage to make it to decision makers in that area.
Another example is in the reasonable accommodation debate and how, after analysis of some of the stories that were used there, we figured that many of them really were inaccurate, to say the least, and propagated by tabloid press. Then that narrative figured its way into the political discourse of the province of Quebec, where four bills in 10 years were introduced and at least two of them were enacted. The latest is the infamous Bill 21.
Islamophobia, as with any system of racism and discrimination, permeates other institutions. Most recently — and this gets less attention than others — is in the banking sector. This is not just a Canadian issue. There are a lot of examples in the U.K., the U.S.A. and Australia, but this is becoming a major issue for accessing financial services, whether for individuals, organizations or businesses. The way the laws are written and the way they’re interpreted, the de-risking, really disfavours Muslims because of connections to overseas, because of some transactions or because of names, and that really gives licence for some banks and financial institutions to limit their risk and deny people access to these essential services in a modern society.
What is striking about —
The Deputy Chair: Excuse me, Mr. Nakua. You’ve actually gone quite a ways past your time. If you could wrap up in the next minute so we could hear from Ms. Jackman, and then the other points you want to make I’m sure will come up during questions from senators. Thank you.
Mr. Nakua: I just want to say that we all have the same issues. There remains a process that lacks transparency, precision and legal recourse. These are some of the major issues with those actions.
I want to highlight the political inaction and lack of seriousness in addressing Islamophobia, and that really propagates all these issues. I will address my recommendations perhaps in the questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you so much. Ms. Jackman, the floor is yours.
Barbara Jackman, Lawyer, Jackman and Associates, as an individual: I’m a lawyer in private practice. I specialized in immigration and refugee law over the years. Because of that practice, I’ve ended up specializing in national security cases.
I would say that there have been problems that have developed over the years prior to 9/11, but they have certainly been exacerbated since 9/11. The basic premise that we see in terms of national security cases is that they’re based on group identification. The perception of the dangerousness of the individual is rooted in an assumption of the dangerousness of the group as a whole to which they’re believed to belong. That has included Latin and Central Americans — the political left in those countries — and oppressed nationalities, where there is an armed resistance such as Tamils, Kurds, Muslims and Palestinians. In some countries — Bangladesh is a good example — it includes opposition parties because there has been violence in the course of elections.
Since 9/11 — and even before 9/11 — there has been a focus on religion, but the only religion that the focus has been on has been Islam. Even though there is an extremist Christian movement that has engaged in violence, the focus that I’ve seen over the years has been a focus on Muslims.
The kinds of cases we have seen have been serious ones like the Canadians who were detained in Syria: Almalki, Arar, El Maati and Nureddin. You would do well to speak to someone like Abdullah Almalki because I can’t speak to you about how profound Islamophobia is, but he can. He spent two years in a Syrian jail being tortured because of misinformation and assumptions made about his beliefs that no one ever talked to him about. That’s the kinds of serious effects of Islamophobia.
The security certificate cases — the five Muslims that were held under those certificates — in those cases, they faced mandatory detention without bail for a number of years until 2007 when the Supreme Court struck the law down as being an arbitrary detention.
I would say that if you could characterize Canada as a persecuting country, it’s on those cases. We actually kept them in solitary confinement for months and months, if not years for some of them. They weren’t allowed to have bail. They could not be considered for release.
The two who were not vindicated — because three of them won their cases, ultimately — are still subject to onerous conditions that are completely inappropriate in terms of their circumstances. That has an incredible effect on their mental health and physical well-being. It’s one of the hardest things as a lawyer to handle those kinds of cases because you can see your clients and their families decompensating over time, and there is nothing you can do about it as much as you want to. They are terrible cases.
In any event, the government is not using the security certificates now. Instead, they’re using immigration division hearings into the person’s admissibility on the same grounds with fewer rights than were afforded to the security certificate detainees. Those cases are run-of-the-mill; there are lots of them. They don’t receive press, but we are deporting people based purely on association and not because they present any threat to Canada.
Then there is the continuation of not helping Canadian citizens who find themselves in dire circumstances with the Canadians in northeastern Syria. Regarding that case, the Federal Court told Canada to bring the Canadians back to Canada. Instead of doing that, it went and sought a stay in the Federal Court of Appeal, and it is appealing the decision.
Then there’s the “No Fly List.”
I have handled cases in all those areas, and I just want to say three things.
First of all, there needs to be different training. The CSIS officials, the CBSA officers and the RCMP we deal with have no real understanding of any of the movements they’re addressing. It’s just a matter of being able to show to a decision maker that there are attacks on people and that, therefore, they have engaged in violence. That’s it; there is no understanding. Proper training is necessary so that they do understand the context to ensure they can be calibrated in terms of what steps they take against people. We shouldn’t be trying to deport people who present no threat to Canada, and we certainly shouldn’t be assuming they present a threat because they’re Muslim.
Second, the law has to be changed. There is a provision in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is also in the Criminal Code, in terms of group identification. If you’re a member of a terrorist organization, you can be deported from Canada. You don’t actually have to be a member, but if you have an association, that’s good enough. It’s there in the terrorist entities, too. There is a presumption that the person is a bad person and a threat to Canada because of the identification with the group. That shouldn’t exist at all. If people present a threat in their own right, that’s fine, but not based on group identification.
The last area that people never talk about is who the decision makers are. If you look at the Federal Court, for example, it’s a court where the judges are appointed to deal with competition law, property, maritime law, mining law, intellectual property and matters like that. Eighty per cent of their caseload is immigration and refugee law. They have no expertise in that area at all. So you argue in front of a judge about Islamophobia, which we did in the security certificate cases, and their minds go blank — they don’t understand the problems.
CSIS put an opinion before the court in the summer that we were trying to get security certificate detainees released saying that once you were a terrorist, you were always a terrorist if you were an Islamic extremist. Not one of the judges rejected that as stereotyping. It was taken into account in terms of the imposition of too many unnecessary, restrictive conditions that continue to exist for these people.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Ms. Jackman. You have gone over your time as well, but thank you very much.
We’ll go to questions now.
Senator Hartling: Thank you to the witnesses. It has been a very interesting evening.
I want to address my question to Ms. Jackman. I think you hit on something really important when you talked about training and understanding. We see that in other forums where judges — I’m going to use the example for sexual assault or things like that — they don’t understand it.
I want to ask about training. Is there training developed somewhere in the world that could be used in Canada to help people understand these issues? Obviously, they’re reacting to what they know, but they don’t know the whole story. Do you have any sense of that?
It seems like it would be important at many levels — other people would have the training and understanding of this.
Ms. Jackman: I think Mr. McSorley would be better to answer that, but I was at a meeting that he organized just recently. There were a lot of Canadians there that could have been involved in really productive training of decision makers. It was very well organized and they were very clear on the issues.
Mr. McSorley: Thank you for the question, senator. It’s an important one.
I wouldn’t be able to point to a specific training system in other parts of the world where they train judges on this. I do think that, within Canada, there are multiple organizations that do very important training around the impacts of Islamophobia.
There is the Muslim Association of Canada, for example, that Mr. Nakua is with; the National Council of Canadian Muslims; the Noor Cultural Centre; the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and others.
There are ample groups in Canada that can adapt the training that they have and present it to judges. I think the comparison to training on issues around sexual assault is an apt one that would help inform and ensure that some of those cultural prejudices and stereotypes are addressed among judges.
Senator Hartling: Would you say we could have that as a recommendation for our committee?
Mr. McSorley: I think so, yes. It was not one I thought of coming into today, but I definitely think it is a model to look at, especially since there is a precedent in training around sexual assault issues.
Ms. Jackman: In addition, it would be useful to recommend that there be a specialized branch of the Federal Court. There’s a criminal branch and a civil branch in the provincial court. The Federal Court doesn’t have that. You could go on a very complicated refugee case in front of a competition law judge. That’s not appropriate.
Senator Hartling: That makes sense. I appreciate that. We have courts now for family violence. I think we have to expand our understanding of how we deal with people who have various issues. Thank you.
Senator Omidvar: I would like to get a quick question and answer to all three of our guests. Mr. McSorley, thank you for being with us. I listened to your presentation with interest. The mandate of our national security agencies is to protect Canadians, regardless of who we are. They have to protect us.
Do you believe that if the government were to follow through on your recommendations, Canada would be safer or less safe?
Mr. McSorley: I believe it would be safer. Of course, it is hard to say 100%, but I think that we cause great arm to our own society by continuing to engage in systemic racism under the guise of national security.
Senator Omidvar: Do you believe that victims who are oppressed in this way become part of the dissatisfaction and disturbance in our society? That is, instead of addressing them proactively, we “overvictimize” them which creates a harm of its own kind?
Mr. McSorley: Do you mean victims of systemic racism?
Senator Omidvar: Yes.
Mr. McSorley: Yes, I believe it sows division. I wouldn’t argue that it’s the reason for people engaging in violence, but it’s what forms the basis for the ongoing discrimination and division within our society that can lead to different forms of it. In fact, some of what we argue is that the far-right extremism we see in Canada, as well as the attacks on Muslims in Canada, can be fed by the systemic racism they see by the government. If the government is constantly saying that the number one threat to Canada are Muslims, it is no surprise that individual Canadians would then internalize those beliefs as well. It’s important that we look at how those influence each other.
Senator Omidvar: Mr. Nakua, I read your recent article that was published in the Institute for Research on Public Policy magazine where you state that it is time for Canada to review its anti-terrorism laws and replace them with new, fit-for-purpose alternatives. Could you expand?
Mr. Nakua: Yes. As you heard from Mr. McSorley and from others, lots of work is being done to look at the anti-terrorism laws. Some of the issues that were created were really embedded. Maybe all that we see could be under a legal umbrella. They are acting within the confines of the law, but the laws themselves are discriminatory. A review of those laws, some privacy provisions, the definition of terrorism itself, how the risk is done, the transparency and the legal protections and process would be a good place to start.
For those who are interested, I recommend you go back to a Royal Commission of Inquiry such as the McDonald Commission. It tackled similar issues. Back then, it was the October Crisis and the abuses that happened in Quebec. I think it emphasized the rule of law as the litmus test for any discussion that the government should have in exercising its authority. I think the anti-terrorism laws give almost a free ride for agencies. It gives them license to abuse and to circumvent some protections. It gives them leeway to circumvent the legal protections that people should enjoy, and that needs to be corrected.
If we want to start this journey, we must consult the New Zealand royal commission. It did similar things to their local laws regarding anti-terrorism. Actually, that was their recommendation, namely, to redo them with the intention of achieving social cohesion.
Senator Omidvar: Did New Zealand follow through on those changes?
Mr. Nakua: It’s new. The report was issued in 2021, so I’m not sure. They said they would follow through, but the report had some detail on the gaps and where the outcomes of those laws were the reverse. They said they needed a new framework where social cohesion would be the overriding principle of such laws.
I guess the review and the fit-for-purpose would be how can we do laws such as these in a multicultural society where we protect the rights of everyone? So far, there is little interest from various governments to come close to this review, but I think this is the way to go.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you. I will have to wait for my question to Ms. Jackman.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you to our witnesses. Mr. McSorley, you spoke at length about the unreliability of data used and interpreted to charge Muslims and then imprison them. It’s an issue that comes up regularly.
You work to defend human rights, both nationally and internationally. Do you have examples of countries that improved the reliability of their data, or whose practices are much fairer when dealing with this type of situation?
Mr. McSorley: Thank you for your question.
[English]
That’s a very good question. In terms of other countries, I can’t think of one that has developed what we would point to as best practices in terms of ensuring that information sharing is reliable. What I can say — and I can share it with the committee afterwards — is that there have been international studies and submissions to the United Nations in particular around this issue of information sharing.
We do know there are ways that Canada can improve information sharing. Part of that is to review the Security of Canada Information Disclosure Act in order to tighten the definitions of what kinds of information can be shared and under what circumstances.
Along with that, there is no mechanism for disclosure to individuals when that information is shared. Something that is missing is that individuals — and this is something that our Privacy Commissioner has raised in other contexts — can access, verify and correct the information about them, if it is shared, to ensure it is shared correctly.
The last thing I will add is often our country will rely on what’s called diplomatic assurances. They’ll share information with countries that they know engage in human rights abuses, but they will do a weighing exercise in order to see if the benefits of sharing outweigh the risk. If not, they will sometimes search out diplomatic assurances from a country where the information won’t be used, for example, in situations that could lead to mistreatment and won’t be shared further with other agencies. However, we know that those diplomatic assurances are not always followed, and there is rarely any follow-up on them. That is another area where we believe there should be greater restrictions — this idea that diplomatic assurances somehow make up for or eliminate the risk being posed to Canadians or others.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Before we go to the second round, I have a question. Mr. McSorley, I think you made a comment earlier as part of a response to a question where you are calling into question Canada’s ability to address systemic racism or the need to stop addressing systemic racism under the guise of national security. I want to make sure I have it right. Can you expand more on what your thinking around that is, please?
Mr. McSorley: I will try to clarify it. I’m not sure exactly what I said, but to be clear, I believe systemic racism is something that needs to be addressed as a whole-of-government issue. National security agencies do need to be taking systemic racism seriously, and we need to clearly address issues of systemic racism in national security bodies.
One comment I made was around the fact that the systemic racism within these national security bodies can lead to greater racism, discrimination and violence in other parts of Canadian society. There is an interplay there between a government constantly criminalizing and demonizing a certain population, and then individual Canadians internalizing and acting out on those. Obviously, it’s more complicated than that, but we see that in the rhetoric of these right-wing extremist groups that believe that because, for example, the terrorist entities list of Canada is primarily made up of Muslim-associated organizations, there must be a problem within Muslim communities or that the targeting of Muslim charities is there for a reason. When we look deeper at those issues, we know that it is based on faulty policies and faulty risk assessments that equate — as both Mr. Nakua and Ms. Jackman were saying — guilt among an entire group of people and guilt by association rather than looking at the actual risks posed by either a particular individual or a particular group.
I hope that helps to clarify a little bit.
The Deputy Chair: It does. I have a follow-up for you. Given Canada’s track record in addressing systemic racism generally in this country, are there any specific recommendations you would make to this committee to address the concerns you’ve raised around systemic racism under the guise of national security?
Mr. McSorley: I mentioned a few earlier, but a big one that really speaks to the heart of this is that we need to be questioning our idea of what terrorism and national security are. Terrorism is a politically malleable term that — not just since 9/11, but for a long time — has been used to target particular communities and can twist based on who is viewed as the enemy of the day. What we’ve seen since 2001 and with the adoption of the Anti-Terrorism Act is that it is enshrined in law, and those laws are based on association and on pre-empting acts. So rather than focusing on targeting individuals who are committing and engaged in criminal acts, it is an attempt to prevent people from engaging in those acts. That idea of prevention and the vague wording around an association, facilitation or group allows a government and allows for systemic racism to continue under the guise of fighting terrorism.
We believe we need to question the idea in our approach to fighting terrorism generally. That will help alleviate and eliminate the powers and the ability for the systemic racism to flourish.
Senator Omidvar: Ms. Jackman, I’m kind of stunned by what you told us: 80% of the cases before the Federal Court have to do with immigration, identity and citizenship issues, likely, and yet the competencies are out of sync with the caseload.
Has the judicial system thought about setting up a specialized branch of the court as you suggest? What are the implications? What competencies would be required of the new appointees? Is there any wind behind this idea? It is a very interesting one.
Ms. Jackman: I think it’s a recent problem because when the Federal Court was created in 1970, people were appointed to the bench not necessarily because of those kinds of training. But in recent years, those are the judges they are looking for because they deal with competition law in those kinds of cases. So we’ve got a court now that has maybe three people who have expertise in refugee or immigration law — and that’s it — of all the judges.
I don’t think there’s been any discussion. I know the court is breaking down into chambers — there is a specialized unit doing competition law — but as I understand it, they view immigration and refugee law as just run-of-the-mill, that anyone can do it. I don’t think that is true. They are looking specifically for maritime lawyers, competition law lawyers and intellectual property lawyers, but not anybody who is involved in immigration or refugee law. I think that’s wrong. I think it needs to be corrected.
It wasn’t always like that. There was a more even balance of judges before, but not now.
Senator Omidvar: We would certainly take a hard look at that recommendation. It is a new one. It’s general — I mean outside simply the scope of Islamophobia. It has to do with the whole federal court system.
Ms. Jackman: It really contributes to the problems, I think.
Senator Omidvar: If there is any material or academic or legal papers on this, please send them to us. We would like to see them.
Mr. McSorley, if I could switch to the subject —
The Deputy Chair: I think Mr. Nakua wanted to respond to that as well.
Mr. Nakua: Yes. I have one quick comment to add to this that is very critical. One of the features of not just Islamophobia but systemic racism in general is accessibility to justice. I urge the committee to really look into this because in many of the cases, one of the key features is a circumventing of the due process and a moving from legal protections to a venue where procedural and administrative rules can be applied at the discretion of the agencies. It’s really a feature of the anti-terrorism laws and a feature of, it seems, systemic biases. They don’t like to be in the courts with their full protections of the legal process because they get more leeway when they go the administrative route.
I think this area is really critical. CRA is one of them. The de-banking and the de-risking of banks is another. At the heart of it, it is really circumventing the legal protections people have.
Senator Omidvar: Mr. McSorley, I want to dig deep on what you and I both engage very deeply in, which is charities. We’ve had conversations with the CRA on the absence of data and evidence.
They have said that there is no bias in their processes, even though the outcome is revocation of Muslim charities. As you have pointed out in your research, more Muslim charities are revoked than other religious charities, but CRA does not collect data based on religion.
Do you believe that the CRA should start collecting data that disaggregates charities by religion at every stage of the process, such as registration, audit and revocation, so that we can get a comparative analysis as to whether Muslim charities are more deeply impacted than other religious charities? We don’t know that, so please shed some light on that for us.
Mr. McSorley: Thank you for that question, senator, and thank you for all your work on that issue. It is key.
I believe it would be important for the CRA to update how they collect information about the charities that they audit. Right now, they only collect it on the broad four categories of charitable activities, I believe. It has to be done carefully to make sure it’s collected in such a way that it can’t then be used to further stigmatize by saying, “Okay, these are the Muslim charities, so we can better identify them for targeted audits.” I believe it is beyond time that the CRA updated its information-collecting practices so that they can analyze.
It’s possible that the information is shared with NSIRA and other bodies so there is a third party and independence to it that could then properly analyze that information. Until we do that, I agree, we won’t clearly understand how the CRA treats one community within the charitable sector versus another.
Senator Omidvar: You talked about civilian oversight. I do not believe there is any civilian oversight of RAD revocations, so I want to ask you specifically whether you believe there should be an independent civilian authority of some kind that oversees the decisions to revoke before they are actually sent off to the charity.
Mr. McSorley: I think that’s a very good suggestion. NSIRA, as a body, does have the authority to examine any national security activities by the Canadian government. I think it could be interesting to grant them with the appropriate resources. This is always the question, as we can give review bodies more and more powers, but they don’t have the appropriate resources. But they would have a role in perhaps not reviewing every single audit as it happens — that may be difficult — although it will become clearer once we know how many audits RAD engages in because that information is not public. There could be an annual review, for example, that is mandated or that RAD needs to report regularly to NSIRA so they can be on the lookout for any problems or irregularities. I think that would be a good solution.
Senator Omidvar: That’s a very useful suggestion. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I have a three-part question for Mr. Jackman.
You mentioned the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Generally speaking, do you think our legislation goes far enough to prevent Islamophobia within our institutions?
If not, do you suggest amending or reviewing any legislation?
For the last part, do you think that new legislation specifically targeting the issue of Islamophobia would be feasible?
[English]
Ms. Jackman: I think that getting rid of section 34(1)(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would go a long way towards reducing the demonization of immigrant communities and would reduce Islamophobia. If you pass a law where the focus is on the group, you demonize the group in getting at the individual. What happens is you have people like — we have the case of a young guy who became a British citizen and is working at an accounting job in England. His wife sponsored him. He may be refused permanent residence because he went on a hunger strike at the end of the war in Sri Lanka, along with some other students at the university, and they’ve decided that might have supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The same kind of assumptions happen to Muslim students too. You can’t have group identification and not expect the entire group to be demonized. That’s what happens. The first thing I would do is get rid of that provision.
I think the terrorist entity is also the same problem. It is not that you can’t have in mind that an association with some group may be problematic, but when it becomes determinative of the fact that you are a bad person, that’s wrong, and that’s the same thing with terrorist entities in the Criminal Code. I think they should get rid of group guilt by association because we have it in full force in the immigration scheme.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you. I’d like to come back to Mr. McSorley. Do you think increasing the number of Muslims in security agencies could change the game regarding systemic racism?
[English]
Mr. McSorley: Thank you for the question. I think in a short-term and limited way, it could help to alleviate some of the symptoms of systemic racism, but until we fundamentally address the laws that are at the heart, we will continue to see problems.
As to what was previously mentioned, there have been cases of Muslim and other racialized employees at CSIS quitting and suing the agency for workplace discrimination, so there is a culture that needs to change, and that could help. But fundamentally, the laws themselves that lead to the systemic discrimination can be applied in a systemic way.
We are talking about Islamophobia today, but we are also concerned that these laws, if they continue to exist, could be turned against any group, not just Muslims. Ensuring that there is equity among groups that are hired and work for national security agencies could help alleviate some problems, but fundamentally, it would not address the underlying issues of systemic discrimination in national security.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Mr. Nakua, I think I saw your hand up earlier, and I meant to ask if you wanted to respond. I totally forgot, so I apologize. Is there something else that you wanted to share with the committee?
Mr. Nakua: I think I had a thought during one of the answers, but it escapes me now, so I will pass.
The Deputy Chair: If you have something else, you could certainly send it in to us.
I have one final question that I would like to ask Ms. Jackman.
Over the course of this study, our committee has heard from witnesses whose degrees from other countries are not recognized and whose careers and salaries in Canada do not therefore reflect their qualifications. How can the federal government better address this issue?
Ms. Jackman: I don’t know enough about what’s in place, but I think that a standardized quick assessment process for new immigrants with common standards wherein they can see the education in their home country might go some ways towards trying to resolve it. The problem, as I understand it, is people get caught up in these long procedures trying to get recognized, and it can take seven or eight years for that to happen. That shouldn’t be. There should be some quick evaluation process to assess them.
Can I just say one last thing? There needs to be diversity in the courts as well. It is a very White court.
The Deputy Chair: With the question I was asking, might that be an example of systemic Islamophobia?
Ms. Jackman: In terms of the documentation for recognition?
The Deputy Chair: Qualifications, yes.
Ms. Jackman: Yes, I think it’s part of it. It can be, for sure. It goes beyond just Muslims, though; I think people of other backgrounds also face discrimination in that field.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I see your hand again, Mr. Nakua.
Mr. Nakua: Yes, I want to use the last minute just to iterate an important point. It’s not the point that I forgot; it’s another one.
I think it’s a test, and I think it goes back — there’s something fundamental about systemic racism, especially when you have the lived experience of it. It’s really the norms of fairness, which are supposed to be the legal standard for discretion and government security, its duties and its agencies in executing their duties.
From what we have witnessed and what we have lived, that “norms of fairness” test is one that any government in the last 20 years would fail — in many instances and with flying colours. I think until we, as a society, figure that out, call it out and challenge our governments, there is — we give governments so much discretion. They will always find ways of going around the rules. There has to be a societal wake-up call.
My thoughts in the last two weeks have been going around how the Canadian-Chinese communities can now be viewed and treated with the news about this interference by China in Canadian elections. The overtones of it sound just like we were treated at 9/11 and post-9/11 — that suspicion. Somehow there is an excuse for governments to forego legal protections, fairness and norms and to figure ways to circumvent those legal processes and go through the administrative route where there is much leeway.
As a society, we really need the mantle of protecting the democratic order under which all of us are protected if we live to its attributes and its aspirations.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you so much. I want to sincerely thank our witnesses for agreeing to participate in this important study and for sharing your expertise, experiences and perspectives with us today. Your assistance with our study is greatly appreciated.
(The committee adjourned.)