THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
EVIDENCE
TORONTO, Wednesday, September 21, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 9:10 a.m. [ET] to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally.
Senator Salma Ataullahjan (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I am Salma Ataullahjan, senator from Toronto, and the chair of this committee. Today we are conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my colleagues and senators who are participating in this meeting. We have Senator Arnot from Saskatchewan, Senator Gerba from Quebec, and Senator Oh from Ontario.
Having held two meetings in June in Ottawa, today we continue our study on Islamophobia in Canada under our general order of reference. Our study will cover, among other matters, the role of Islamophobia with respect to online and offline hate of violence against Muslims, gender 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, and possible solutions and government responses.
We are pleased to be here in Toronto and to hear from witnesses about Islamophobia in this part of the country. This is the fourth of our public hearings outside of Ottawa. Two weeks ago, we were in Vancouver and Edmonton, and yesterday, we were in Quebec City.
Let me provide some details about our meeting today. This morning we shall have two one-hour panels with a number of witnesses who have been invited. In each panel, we shall hear from the witnesses, and then the senators will have a question-and-answer session. There will be a short break around 11:00 a.m.
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 senators. And witnesses, I ask you to respect the five minutes. I don’t like to interrupt people, but sometimes I have to just, you know, because you’ll raise issues that the senators will want to question, so we want enough time for that.
So, from the Muslim Educators Network of Ontario, we have Omar Zia, who is an educator, and Rizwana Kaderdina who is an educator. Then we have Rabia Khokhar, teacher and equity and education consultant, and from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, we are waiting for Safwan Choudhry, who is stuck in traffic, to join us. So, now I invite Omar Zia to make your presentation.
Omar Zia, Educator, Muslim Educators Network of Ontario: Thank you and thank you for inviting me to be here. I’ll begin by recognizing that the land that we’re situated on, that I’m a settler on stolen land, to set the context. Thank you for inviting me to speak to this topic of Islamophobia.
A Muslim student sits in class and is taunted by his peers who ask him if he’s ever eaten pork and how much he is missing out on gelatin marshmallows. “Oh, you must be one of those halal-only guys,” they taunt. The student approaches a classroom teacher to self-advocate against the bullying and Islamophobia. The teacher sighs and tells him he’ll just have to learn how to live with it.
A Muslim female student comes to school wearing hijab. Through the first two months, she is teased by boys in her class who ask her questions such as, “Do you have any hair under there?” and “I think she’s bald.” The teacher clearly hears the chatter but does nothing to address it. A few months later, the female student removes her hijab. This student then notices one of the male bullies with his mother, who is actually wearing the hijab.
A professional learning day occurs on a Friday. There are no students in the building. A Muslim teacher lets the principal know he’ll be needing to leave for 15 minutes to perform the Friday prayer. The principal refuses, then questions, and then says she’ll first have to check with the superintendent.
A female Muslim teacher is visiting a school to attend a professional learning opportunity. She asks a colleague for a quiet room to complete her afternoon prayer. The colleague scoffs at her and retorts, “Why couldn’t you just pray at home? Why do you have to pray here?”
A Muslim student is in class when a teacher is teaching history and decides to speak about 9/11. She says the attack was carried out by Islamic terrorists and that Osama bin Laden is an Islamic terrorist. The student writes a private note to the teacher about how she was harmed by the teacher’s comments because she is Muslim, and terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. The teacher writes back and says, “Should I disregard his Muslim background?”
Islamophobia has a foothold in our educational institutes. They exist as bullying, as hate, and is rarely recognized or addressed as racism. We must recognize that the source of Islamophobia in our great nation is a lack of education on Muslims in our school systems. What can the federal government do to stamp out Islamophobia in schools? And so, I have a few points to share.
Number one, in order for faith-based identities to be included and supported, we must first de-centre Christianity in our systemic norms. We must make space for a multi-faith point of view in our systems. For example, in the Ontario Education Act, section 264, it limits the concept of “morality” to Judeo-Christian values. This exclusive clause implies that the concept of morality in other faith groups are either non-existent or does not meet the threshold.
Number two, supporting Muslim-identifying students means ensuring all provincial boards of education, as well as private schools, provide the following: a prayer accommodation policy for daily prayers and Friday prayers, and resources for students to create a Muslim Student Association club, much like the Gay-Straight Alliance or the Black Student Association.
Number three, every province must mandate their board of education to create an anti-Islamophobia strategy. This includes boards and schools where there may not even be any Muslim students attending because Islamophobia is not a Muslim problem, it is a Canadian problem. Through education across our nation, we can eliminate this form of racism. The strategy must include the following four elements:
Number one, hiring Muslim teachers because representation makes a difference. For example, some boards in Ontario use section 14 of the Ontario Human Rights Code to hire Black and Indigenous teachers.
Two, revision of the curriculum with questions such as “How do Muslim students experience schooling? How do Muslim students see themselves in curriculum and curricular resources?” For example, do the science and math curriculum explicitly share the contributions of Muslims to humanity on a global scale? How do the history books represent Muslim societies? What conversations are happening in class to support Muslim students and celebrate Muslim brilliance and experience and joy? Or are Muslims only defined through the lens of terrorism, alienation, and othering?
Three, an emphasis on the mental health impact on Islamophobia: direct trauma to Muslim students and indirect trauma to non-Muslim students. For example, a white Christian student who tells her South Asian Muslim friend, “Don’t worry, if Trump is elected, I’ll protect you.”
Four, in addition to the English curriculum which teaches students to examine media through a critical eye and to dismantle Islamophobia which is often spread through various forms of media. This is important so that Muslim students are not constantly having to justify to their teachers and peers that they are not terrorists, and that the religion they follow does not promote violence, abuse of women or hate of other groups. Thank you.
Rizwana Kaderdina, Educator, Muslim Educators Network of Ontario: Good morning, and may peace be upon you. My name is Rizwana Kaderdina. I live on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples, now covered by Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties. I’m joining you today as a member of the Muslim Educators Network of Ontario. I’m honoured to be here, and I’m grateful this work is taking place. Our communities have experienced Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism for a long time, but that real lived experiences have too often been dismissed, denied, minimalized, or justified as deserved.
In the aftermath of the murders of the London family, many of us heard from our students about their very real fear of the consequences of being perceived as Muslim, and their newly forming understanding of how deeply not wanted it can feel to be Muslim in this country. Unwantedness, of course, is not a new experience for us and for many other communities, but it is hard to see a new generation have to come to this realization.
I want to tell you a story. When I first started teaching, I was the only teacher at my school who wore a hijab. I often crossed paths with a particular kindergarten class on its way to the library. Imagine the cuteness of about 20 four- and five-year-olds walking down the hallway single file, each with a small “finger on your lips, hand on your hip.” There was one child who would just watch me, every time. The way her eyes lit up when my smile would land on her was a lovely “teacher moment” and one day, she braved quickly taking her hand off her hip to give me a tiny wave. I was special to her because I was Muslim.
Affirming representation matters, and it is often absent both in terms of Muslim staff and in the curriculum. For Muslims, representation validates. For non-Muslims, representation humanizes. It counters the single story of violence, misogyny, oppression, and poverty that is placed upon Muslims and that feeds Islamophobia.
In my 18 years as an educator, I have seen increasing numbers of students try to hide their Muslim identities. Recently, non-Muslim teachers have begun sharing that some of their Muslim students ask them not to let anyone, peers, educators, administrators, know they are Muslim because “it’s not safe.” Sometimes Muslim students choose not to use school prayer spaces because it’s too risky. They talk about “the Muslim kids” “being watched” by teachers and about peers asking them if “that room” is where they practise making bombs. These are not isolated incidents. Muslim students have shared that it is normal to be called a terrorist and that they consistently encounter Islamophobia, often in the form of “jokes.” And they talk about how there’s no point in reporting Islamophobic interactions because that’s just how it is for us and everyone else thinks it’s funny and their belief that no one will do anything anyway.
In this country, where a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, for many of us, being fully Canadian equates to having to be less Muslim. The more Muslim you are perceived to be, whether through faith practice or appearance, the less safe, less secure, less wanted, the less Canadian you are. The massacre at the Quebec mosque, the murder of Mohamed-Aslim Zafis, the repeated attacks on Black Muslim women and the murders of the London family have all told us this. It would be easy to say these are extreme instances of violence carried out by bad apples, but the reality is that they are the most visible aspect of the Islamophobia we encounter on an ongoing basis, both online and in-person. This is the reality that is telling Muslim youth what their place is in this country. The enactment and implementation of Bill 21 in Quebec is simply the living embodiment of the idea that to be visible in your Muslim-ness is to be unacceptable in the public Canadian sphere.
I want to be clear that this “othering” is not new. There is a strong desire in this country to attach contemporary Islamophobia solely to Trumpism. Those of us who lived through Stephen Harper’s attempt to institute the “barbaric cultural practices legislation” know better. That legislation played upon imperialist, Orientalist, and colonialist ideologies that have shaped this nation.
As far-right, white supremacist rhetoric and violence against Muslim individuals and communities intensifies and becomes normalized, we urgently need to see a societal shift away from seeing and constructing Muslims and Islam as foreign, threatening others. We need to hold accountable those in media, education, social media, and in politics who perpetuate and profit from these narratives, and we need to ensure authentic counter narratives are shared.
I’m here today with the hope that one day all students on this land, Muslim and not, can fully be themselves. Not by chance or happenstance, but because we have made a collective, intentional choice to ensure that what this 9/11 generation is experiencing is not encountered by the next generation. And not because they have given up their Muslim-ness, whatever that might look like, in order to experience safety and belonging, but because we have done the difficult work of anti-Islamophobia at systemic, institutional, interpersonal, individual, and ideological levels. It is our responsibility to ensure all our youth can be their whole selves, and that Muslim youth can know that being Muslim in all its complexity, is valued as a normal part of the Canadian landscape. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Ms. Khokhar.
Rabia Khokhar, Teacher and Equity and Education Consultant, as an individual: Good morning, respected members of the Senate and fellow members of the community. My name is Rabia Khokhar and I’m an elementary teacher and an equity and educational consultant in Toronto. It’s an honour to be here with you today to share some of my own lived experiences, ideas, and potential recommendations for this very important study on Islamophobia in Canada.
Through my various roles, I have the privilege and opportunity to work with students, individuals, organizations, educators, and school boards on how to make learning equitable for students and communities that they’re striving to serve. Some of my work specifically focuses on considering how, through education, we can counter Islamophobia.
As a racialized and visible Muslim woman, Islamophobia is a part of my daily life personally and professionally. It looks and manifests differently based on my intersectional identities and the roles I carry. I experience Islamophobia on an individual and systemic level.
As a teacher and educational consultant, my experiences often include my identities not being seen as that of a “teacher identity.” This shows up in the differential treatment and comments I experience from various stakeholders. Most of the time, my work is belittled, ignored, not acknowledged and silenced. I’ve also received comments like, “I could never respect a teacher who looks like you,” “Are you the lunchroom assistant,” “Your English is really good for a Muslim woman,” “Of course they hired you, you must have been an equity hire,” “It makes sense that someone like you is into equity, you must have your own agenda,” and “Thanks for applying to our school, but we have offered the job to someone who will fit better in with our students and school environment.” I also experience a greater level of surveillance, scrutiny and continuous microaggressions in relation to my presence, work, choices, and actions. These experiences impact me because I feel like I constantly have to prove my “competence” as a teacher and overall feel a lack of belonging.
The experiences I currently have as a teacher are not that removed or different from the ones I had as a student growing up in Toronto. I know first-hand that, unfortunately, in many ways, Muslim students continue to have similar experiences. They continue to experience low, and deficit-based expectations from those in positions of power. Muslim students are often streamed into English as a second language classes without knowledge of their abilities. There is also a lack of respect that Muslim families’ experiences and comments such as “Muslims are illiterate and backwards,” “Watch out for the dads,” “Their way of doing things is so different from our ways” are often heard. Muslim students often feel like they are not represented within the curriculum, and if they are, it is in a stereotypical way. There is also a lack of follow through on Islamophobic incidents which creates an overall negative learning environment. Islamophobia may look different from when I was a student, but it is still present.
As I reflect on these experiences, I recognize that these are just the tip of the lived experiences I carry. I hope that my lived experiences, as well as those of the other panellists, can support the work in this study. I know that individual and systemic actions are needed to create meaningful and sustainable change. Therefore, I would recommend that all school boards adopt policies and strategies to challenge and address Islamophobia at a systemic level. There should also be mandatory, intentional, and ongoing professional development for all educational stakeholders, as well as more funding allocated to purchase resources that represent Muslims authentically, more mental health supports and for further research with Muslim students and communities. I would also recommend more equity-based training in teachers’ college programs for future teachers.
As a teacher, I am deeply hopeful. I believe that education can help us move toward challenging and eradicating all forms of hate, like Islamophobia. Even though I have experienced and continue to experience Islamophobia, I see schools and classrooms as critical sites of resistance and change. By naming Islamophobia and committing to deep and ongoing work, we can all do our part to create a more fair, just and Islamophobia free society. I thank you all for the time and the opportunity to be part of this panel today.
The Chair: Wow, thank you. You all kept to the time, and you have powerful statements. So, we have senators who want to ask questions and I’ll start with Senator Arnot.
Senator Arnot: Thank you, Senator Ataullahjan. Well, thank you to the panel. That’s a very articulate encapsulation of the issues and I feel it’s very valid. The points you’re making are very valid and the recommendations that I’ve heard are, I think, critical to the future.
I’m just going to make a comment and I want your reaction to it, if you will. I have profound respect for the professional educators in Saskatchewan — or in Canada, pardon me. It’s born in my experience in my home province of Saskatchewan for a variety of reasons. I don’t want to get into it now, but I would say this. There’s an organization called the Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation that has created materials that answer the question, what does it mean to be a Canadian citizen and what are the rights of citizenship, but also, what are the responsibilities that come with those rights? In fact, responsibilities need to be focused on and how do you build and maintain respect for every citizen? No exceptions, none. And those are called the new three “R’s.”
In addition, they’ve identified five essential citizenship competencies, “The Five E’s,” so that every student should be enlightened, ethical, engaged, empowered, and most importantly, in my opinion, empathetic. These resources exist in Saskatchewan, but they have been customized to fit the Ontario curriculum, and it’s based on the thesis that in order to change the attitudes and culture in the community, you should first change the attitudes and culture in schools. If you can do that effectively from Grades K to 12, you’re going to arm students, graduates, with the tools they need to create the kind of society in which they wish to live. That’s the theory of these resources.
My premise is Canada is the most successful experiment in pluralism the world has ever seen. There’s no contest on that. We are a multicultural, multi-theist, multi-ethnic country, but governments have failed to make an investment of the order required to sustain and maintain those ideas. And the way to do that —
The Chair: Senator Arnot, can I ask you to bring the mic closer? The air conditioning is very loud and —
Senator Arnot: Okay.
The Chair: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Senator Arnot: My thesis is that we need to intentionally, and sequentially, and purposefully teach this and model this in schools. This needs to be modelled because we need attitudes to change, and the way to do that is to give students the kind of information they need to understand and be empathetic.
Having said that, and I will have some second-round questions, I’d like to hear your comments on that. Are those resources something that could be used in your schools? I think it’s also premised on the need to do really strong, professional development because teachers have such power. The teachers are change agents. You shape the society of the future in your classrooms, the seeds you sow in K to 12, and these resources I speak of are aimed at social studies mainly, but also language arts because you can have so much flexibility in language arts. I’d like to hear the reaction to that context.
Mr. Zia: Okay, thank you. I’ll give my own reaction then. Ms. Kaderdina and Ms. Khokhar can also mention as well. So, what my reaction when I hear, senator, what you’re mentioning, I think really of the triangle model of education where the tip of the triangle is the student, because everything we do in the education system is student centred, centring the student when it comes to their identity, when it comes to delivering curriculum to them, understanding what their needs are and meeting those needs, whether it’s how they learn, how they think, and the impact that education will have on these students once they graduate, go on to post-secondary and how they then contribute to our nation as Canadian citizens.
The bottom of the triangle and the other two vertices is the school, the teachers, the administration, the office staff, our custodial staff, people working at the board in the director’s offices, the coordinating principals, coordinating teachers, resource teachers that exist to support curriculum development. To the point that Ms. Kaderdina, Ms. Khokhar and I mentioned the need for ongoing professional development, as you mentioned, for those stakeholders. All of the educators who are providing that direction to the students have to be aware of what racism looks like for all students, whether it’s anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, Islamophobia, anti-Sikh racism, anti-Asian racism and homophobia, so that as we develop the children from Kindergarten all the way to age 18, 19, whenever they graduate, what they leave with is an ideal model of what it means to live in a pluralistic society and how to be accepting of those differences, not just tolerant, accepting of differences, and how to be a citizen where we include everybody rather than exclude.
So, to be aware and conscious, critically conscious about what it means to exclude and how we can actually include, to move away from oppressive voices, but how to raise all voices. That’s definitely one large support that we need. While we emphasize students, we have to emphasize the education and training that our teachers need, and as Ms. Kaderdina also mentioned, starting that training in our faculties of education across the nation.
The other part of that, the other corner is our parent community. And yes, our students are with us for a large portion of their day, but we are their second home. What’s happening in their primary home? Each of us here around this panel has grown up in a different home. I grew up in a South Asian household, right? My kids are growing up in a bit of a mixed household, so culture plays a role, where our parent communities are coming from, so we have to spend some time educating our parents as well.
We have school councils to help to support parent communities, to provide professional development for our parents to help them understand what it means to be inclusive, how they can guide conversations in their own homes so they can be part of the solution and help our country become great in terms of including all people without “othering” them, so that parents can question their own biases that they bring with them, whether they’re immigrants or whether they’re born and raised here.
And as I shared with the senator earlier, at my particular location, we have created safe spaces for parents called parent affinity groups. We have groups for Black parents, Muslim parents, Jewish parents, and parents of families who support LGBTQ students. We have an affinity group for special education, parents of special education students, because at my school, we have a program for developmentally delayed students. So, this provides a safe space for parents to come out, have a direct connection with the administrator of the building, but also provides me an opportunity in a safe space to teach and share with parents what does it mean to be a Canadian? What does it mean to be inclusive of all cultures? What does it mean to question our own racism that we may have inside of ourselves, our own biases that prohibit and create barriers for our own kids to be successful in society?
Parents themselves don’t realize that sometimes the conversations that we have in the home may actually impede our child’s success as they integrate within society. So, I would suggest that we look at all stakeholders in the process as well.
Ms. Khokhar: I agree with that and think that the model that you put forward is really interesting because I think it will help change the stories that are known about Muslims really at the ground, which is the classroom. Through my work, I really believe in professional, ongoing, intentional professional development with educators because I believe that educators are gatekeepers of what gets reinforced, what gets included in the classroom, and that educators are in some ways the curriculum, and they show who values whom. Indirectly, they might also emphasize who doesn’t value by, you know, the perspectives they might bring in or the perspectives that might be missing.
I think that all stakeholders need to be addressed, but educators are a big stakeholder because they really create the environment in the classroom. If we want to centre students and all of the beautiful identities our students bring, we have to start with the educators because educators, through professional development, will hopefully create sustainable change and accountability. I think that movement can start because those voices and those stories can be brought into the classroom, and the classroom is the place that is the site of hope and resistance, and the classroom is the place where things can change.
It’s on the ground that will impact society, and whatever is done in the classroom then manifests itself into society. That’s why I’m hopeful about the role the classroom can play, and if we want to centre the classroom, we have to centre those who are leading the classroom, which is the educators.
Ms. Kaderdina: Mr. Zia and Ms. Khokhar have made some good and important points. I would just add a couple of notes to what they’ve said. As I listen to you, senator, I hear some really important pieces come forward in this resource. The pieces around not just rights and responsibilities, but about respect being so critical, and the pieces around enlightenment, ethics, engagement, empowerment, and empathy being important.
My initial response would be to say that this would be a fantastic part of a strategy going forward, but only one part. We have seen from other strategies that are similar — when I started teaching, it was “character matters” — was that these models, frameworks and approaches were used to sustain and maintain the dominant narratives and ways of being that existed in schools while appearing to bring into the fold those who are marginalized.
I want to approach any implementation of something like this with a great deal of criticality. Anti-oppressive, anti-racist approaches need to be embedded in the implementation of anything like this and a broader anti-Islamophobia strategy where racial literacy is at play is vital. Ms. Khokhar’s point about the importance of what educators are taught in order to implement this is key. Too often, we have taken the approach of saying well, it’s going to be on the next generation to fix what we have now, so let’s teach them what they need to do. Then what we find happens is that the next generation gets absorbed into the milieu that is existent.
Our students, our young people are learning from and are embedded and entrenched in a media narrative that we have all talked about, and a social media narrative that reinforces this constantly. We hear this from our students as well. So, if we are not taking approaches that recognize that schools are a microcosm of society, right? They will shape society because those that come out of that schooling system will be the rest of society moving forward, but they are simply a reflection of what’s happening now, and we need to approach what’s happening now even as we look to the future.
I would look at strategies and resources that amplify the importance of these traits, the three R’s, the five E’s and so on, as well as things like accountability in politics and social media, and the narratives that are being brought forward now in policies and practices. No amount of empathy that’s taught to a kindergarten, Grade 1 or Grade 3 child is going to change the fact that Muslim teachers who want to practise their faith in the fullness of how they understand it — if that means wearing hijab — cannot do so in the Province of Quebec. That’s the reality, right? Critical examination of curriculum and pedagogical approaches is going to be vital. Critical media literacy is going to be vital, alongside these individualistic personal pieces around ethics, responsibility and so on.
The Chair: Thank you. Do you want me to put you on for second round, Senator Arnot, or do you have —
Senator Arnot: Yes, I’d go for second round.
The Chair: Okay.
Senator Arnot: I just want to make a comment. This panel has really given us a lot of evidence that we can use in our recommendations. I’m really impressed with the recommendations, the insight, and the articulation of these issues in a way that I think is very constructive. So, I’m hoping that the analysts and my fellow colleague senators will remember this testimony because I want some of it to show up in the final report in the best, constructive way we can. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, senator, and I agree. While the analysts do take down notes, if you can share your recommendations with us in writing, that will be really helpful to us. As Senator Arnot said, I’m very impressed also. You just destroyed the myth that those who wear hijab aren’t capable of intelligent thought because that’s what they’re saying in Quebec when they dismiss a teacher because she’s wearing a hijab. They’re teaching the children that this person can’t think, doesn’t have critical thinking and is not capable of any intelligent thoughts. So, thank you. We have Senator Oh to be followed by Senator Gerba.
Senator Oh: Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome panellists to this morning session. It’s very informative. I just want to share something that originally I am from Singapore where we grew up in a multi-racial society. I had as my classmates a lot of Malays, Muslims, Indians, Chinese, Euro-Asians — we were very mixed.
But in my time there were no racists. When I was growing up, we played football and other sports together so I think Islamophobia has a lot to do with family education. I never, at any time heard from my parents, “Oh, this kid, don’t move around with him,” or anything like that. So, I think parents and schools play an important role and the whole thing is how do you put schools, sports, families, parents and make them interactive? The most important thing is to get the kids together. Growing up together integrated, and that is the future for them. And without injecting any fears in their mind about a particular race. Can you comment on it?
Ms. Kaderdina: I can start on this, if that’s okay. I was born in Kenya, and the dream of multiculturalism that Canada holds is realized in so many different countries. Like you, Senator Oh, I grew up in a space where folks of many diverse identities lived together. That doesn’t discount the reality of settlers and it doesn’t discount the realities of colonialism that resulted in that mix, but in my case in Kenya and here as well, that multicultural reality and those interpersonal relationships that allow us to see each other as humans are absolutely vital to countering these dominant narratives, the single stories that construct us as monoliths that don’t have feelings that while you look like this and therefore, you must be X, Y, and Z? The stereotypes are destroyed when we are able to interact with each other and see each other as humans. That’s absolutely vital.
I think one of the questions that I might ask or one of the things that I might reflect on — as we talk is about the role that parents play in shaping the ideas that students have — is where the parents are getting their ideas. That leads us down a path of interrogating and investigating what it is that’s creating the broader social narratives that parents are absorbing and passing on to their children.
Senator Oh: Correct.
Ms. Kaderdina: So, this then takes us again back to, what are the media narratives? What are the social media narratives? What are the inherited narratives that come forward from hundreds of years ago. The construction of Muslims as violent, barbaric people goes back to the Crusades and before, and it has been present and continues to be present now.
So, when we talk about this piece of the role of parents, they are absolutely vital in helping with those interpersonal levels of addressing Islamophobia. It also leads us to addressing the systemic, institutional and ideological pieces. So, thank you for surfacing that as one of the many entry points into this work.
Ms. Khokhar: I think there are different stakeholders that need to be addressed, and families are definitely a big part of this. Ms. Kaderdina was talking about is this idea of colour blindness and neutrality. I think we have to get to a point — whether it’s with educators, parents or families — where we see and recognize our similarities and differences. I think that’s a key part because the main or the dominant story is very much like, “I don’t see colour,” or “I don’t see difference, I just see you as a human being,” and I think we have to see people to see their experiences.
If we don’t really see all parts of their intersectional identities, we’ll never understand their stories and we’ll never be able to locate their stories into a wider, global story — the current as well as historic. I definitely see that anything that addresses Islamophobia has to address the individual as well as the systemic, and some of those individuals are thinking about where we get these ideologies of, “we’re just neutral,” or “we don’t see colour.” I think those are definitely parts of solving the big problem with any stakeholder.
Mr. Zia: I will just reiterate a few of the points and share something really quickly. Thank you, senator. I appreciate how you mentioned bringing students together, having them work together and when they can find inclusion, integration among themselves, it would hopefully create a better society.
At my own school, this past school year during Ramadan, two students were teasing each other, and then one student turned to the other and said, “It’s Ramadan, man. We’re supposed to be nice during this month.” Neither student was Muslim, but because they were surrounded by Muslims and had Muslim friends, they understood the importance of this month, what it represents to their friends, and they feel part of Ramadan though they were not Muslim. It is great to see that our students can build those interpersonal relationships, have a positive impact on each other, be inclusive of one another, learn from each other and continue to create that pluralistic society in a way that benefits all.
At the same time, as has been mentioned, parents do have a place in the lives of their kids. So, we cannot necessarily separate the kids from their families. Their influence will always be there. So, the question again is what or how are our parents being influenced? Where are they getting their narratives from? Where are they getting their stories from about whom Muslims are, what Muslims are, and what are the conversations happening in those households?
The household I grew up in and the households anybody here grew up in are very different. Even people who might be from the same culture, the same faith, might have different conversations happening in their households. So, there needs to be some education for our families as well to disrupt and dismantle all of their influences through wide forms of media — not just what they see on the news, what they read on social media, but even as it is influenced by movies and books and other stories, and things that we might see and not understand fully — and then take those back to our homes and influence our students, our kids.
From the point of view of an educator, it really is important that families and parents themselves are also part of the solution and that they are taught to critically examine their racism, their Islamophobia and to dismantle it so that they can have fruitful conversations in their homes and have a positive impact, just as we see our kids having. It would be amazing if those same students in their homes had a conversation with non-Muslim homes where they say to their kids, “It’s Ramadan, we all have to be great here. We all have to be good to each other.” It doesn’t matter if we’re Muslim or not. That would truly be a shift forward in our thinking about what Muslims do and how Muslims navigate in society as well. Thank you.
Senator Oh: You have to remember nobody is born a racist in this world, so family education is very important. We always say that the dining table is probably the most important educational place for young kids. I hope the study will address not only schools, but parents too because parents give more information to the kids than schools. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Before I go to Senator Gerba, I want to raise the issue that we did in this committee a study on cyberbullying, and the one thing we found was that the educators needed to be educated, and also the parents. So, we printed booklets for the teachers and for the parents, just to help them understand. So, Senator Gerba, and then maybe if there’s time, I might have a question.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your very touching testimony. It confirms once again the importance of basic education. I would like to make a comment in line with what my colleague Senator Arnot said, and also in response to Senator Oh’s question. We have a model in Quebec; it is an organization that I am involved with called ENSEMBLE for the respect of diversity.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this organization. It used to be called The Tolerance Foundation and now it’s ENSEMBLE for the respect of diversity.
What does this organization do? It works with youth to promote respect for differences in order to build an environment free of discrimination and bullying. How does it work? It happens in schools. We hold workshops with educators and parents, and we engage the media. Each year, this initiative reaches approximately 25,000 students aged 9 to 18 in schools.
I think it’s a model that we need to look at, even though it hasn’t substantially changed the fact that today we are seeing that Islamophobia is growing in Quebec. However, it helps a lot. I can attest to that because I was on the organization’s board of directors for a few years.
That said, we are here to report and our report as parliamentarians will obviously be to the government.
So my question is, what can we do? What can the federal government do to resolve this growing problem of hate in our society a little bit — a tiny bit, if possible?
At the federal level, especially, what can we do? What do you expect the federal government to do? Thank you.
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Ms. Khokhar: What I would expect from the federal government is a strategy, a very focused strategy that covers the different stakeholders and that creates accountability, a process and a procedure so that when these things are done, it is dealt with. This strategy, or policy that we’ve all advocated would include curriculum because whatever comes from the government comes to the classroom, you know? So, I would really advocate for a robust strategy and policy that would then make its way into the classroom and the school and would have various stakeholders.
Mr. Zia: Thank you for your question, and thank you for sharing information about the organization, Together Out of Respect for Diversity. If I asked myself, “What do I expect from the federal government?” and “What do I expect as a result of this study?” I see the federal government as a federation, as a confederation for all of our provinces and territories, it sets the tone for how those provinces support decisions of our great nation, and I believe that there should be some oversight from the federal government of educational institutions across the nation.
It would be great if this committee or the federal government had a committee — if they don’t already have one — where the ministers of education for all of our provinces and territories came together regularly, maybe it’s monthly, to speak about what some of the issues are and to speak openly, proactively and in a constructive way about how to dismantle racism and Islamophobia.
Senator, you mentioned Quebec, and I don’t want to necessarily get into the politics of that specific province, but it is very important that while these organizations exist and you can vouch for the people who are a part of this organization, but how much voice is provided? How much agency is provided to that institution or to the families, and parents, and students who experience Islamophobia? Where is the venue for them to speak back to the provincial government and to present to the federal government the harm that they’re experiencing because of policies in the Province of Quebec, as was mentioned?
There are Muslims — people who are of any faith for that matter — who are expressing their faith openly and specifically women teachers who wear a hijab who can’t even get a job, they’re being fired. What is the impact that’s having on Islamophobia? We’re talking about Islamophobia growing in the Province of Quebec, well, there’s a reason for it. And if the federal government could step in and educate the educational institutions and the education minister and perhaps the people in charge in Quebec — if there was some emphasis on the need for them to change, then perhaps they’ll change, but if there’s no push from the federal government to cause that change to happen, then we’re all sitting here wasting our time. It’s very sad to say. There has to be something that happens from this study that tells the provincial government, you will do such and such. There has to be actual accountability.
If there’s no accountability by the provinces to change, to effect change, then our kids will continue to suffer, families will continue to suffer, Islamophobia will continue to grow, anti-Black racism will continue to grow, anti-Indigenous racism will continue to grow if nothing happens at the provincial level. I would look at the federal government to bring the ministers of education together regularly, monthly, biweekly if they have to, and actually tackle this problem head on, not just to talk about a strategy, but to build a framework to implement that framework and to study that framework and to come back on a regular basis to see.
This is what we’re taught to do in schools, a professional learning cycle. Every month, every 21 days, you start a strategy, every 21 days we come back together as a staff and evaluate how that strategy is affecting our kids. Is it improving or regressing their academic achievement or their social behaviour in schools? We need to do that as a province, across provinces and across the nation; otherwise it becomes very frustrating. It becomes an exercise in futility if we’re not going to see if those changes happen.
Senator, forgive me, but being from Quebec, I think that you can understand, the impact of what’s happened provincially in that government to further alienate and “other” Muslim families, and people of other faiths as well, and the massive detrimental impact that is having. What happened in 2017 in the mosque; that was no accident. That person who did that is a product of a school in Quebec. In London, the person who did that to that family is a product of the schools in Ontario. That’s something for us to consider. It’s something for us to really think about. That’s what our educational institutions are producing right now. So, there needs to be some serious thought about what’s happening provincially.
We talked about families. A moment ago, you referenced what Senator Oh had mentioned. You can talk about bringing kids together, but if the families and the parents are being influenced by the policies in the province and the politics that the politicians are talking about and saying, all sorts of horrible things that are Islamophobic, that’s influencing those parents who are then going home to their families and at the dining table reinforce those negative stereotypes, those falsities about Muslims and this proliferates Islamophobia within the household.
That is what is influencing parents in Quebec and families in Quebec. The rhetoric that’s happening at the political level needs to change in order to support families, rather than driving society apart from one another. Thank you.
Ms. Kaderdina: It’s really hard to follow that, especially since you said what I was going to say in terms of highlighting that the extreme violence that we are seeing has come from folks who have gone through our school systems. The microaggressions that Ms. Khokhar talked about experiencing and the overt racism, quite frankly, because a lot of it is not just microaggressions are enacted by folks who have not just gone through our schooling systems but have gone through our educational training systems and have gone through professional development that is provided and funded by our provincial ministries. They’re not learning what they need to learn in order to create inclusive environments. We are talking about inclusive environments for students. Quite frankly, there aren’t even inclusive environments for staff.
The school board that I’m in is talking about focusing on belonging, which is incredibly important, and I wonder, how do you talk about belonging when you can’t even manage inclusion? And that’s a reality in this country. When I think about the federal government’s role in education, I do get a little bit stuck because education falls under the provincial mandates. I appreciate the points that you brought forward, Mr. Zia, around, you know, the importance of the tone that is set, the oversight, the necessity of direction being given in terms of what the expectations are of what we hold up in this country and what the accountability that provinces is for ensuring that that follows through and happens. And Ms. Khokhar, your notes about policy and strategy were so important.
The reality is that while education might be a provincial mandate, pieces around radicalization that occurs through the formations and indoctrination via far-right extremists’ groups is a federal responsibility, as well as the responsibility of all of the rest of us. What happens in the media, as I understand it, is a federal responsibility, perhaps I’m wrong in that. Online hate is not something that is addressed, and you spoke earlier to cyberbullying and the need for educators to be aware. What is the accountability when online hate is enacted? I didn’t tell you some of the many stories that I’ve heard from our young people about the TikToks that they view, and not just view, but that they are channelled into. All of the data tells us that social media platforms, whether they be YouTube or TikTok, channel our young people into misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Semitism and so on. What are the overviews and purviews that we have in regards to monitoring these companies and holding them accountable for what they are teaching?
I’m going to expand a little bit beyond the purview of this particular session just to give a quick example. The Rohingya massacres and genocide that occurred in Burma, in Myanmar, was fuelled through Facebook interactions. There has been no accountability on any of that. Mr. Zia spoke about what happened in Quebec. I’ll be quite frank, I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t, “Oh my gosh, this has really happened in this country?,” it was, “We were waiting, and it was a matter of when.”
There are many Muslims who will tell you that it is not a matter of “if” our community is attacked on the whole and that those attacks are upheld by government officials, it is a question of when, and are we ready to withstand that and who will stand by us? Those are the things that keep us awake at night, and those are the moments where I think to myself, you know, I’m 44 and I don’t have children, but maybe it’s a good thing because maybe I won’t have to watch what they have to deal with.
It is not an accident that talk radio is as vile as it is when it comes to talking about Muslims. We are about 2% of the Canadian population. How much time is spent talking about us by politicians and on airways, in social media? How is that monitored? Where is the accountability? Who responds? To be quite frank, this 2% of the Canadian population has neither the time nor the resources to monitor and address all of the hate that we encounter. We don’t have time to report all of it because there is so much and when we do, it is dismissed, we know that. We know that.
In London, following the murders of the family there, there was an intensification of attacks on Muslim families and individuals, and the police system there chose not to address them and dismissed many of those. Our students tell us, there is no point in reporting. I’ve talked to staff who tell me, there is no point in reporting. Even if the person, individual person above me wants to support me, the system is too big and we are too small, and frankly, we are not seen as worth protecting. That is a reality on a global level and on a level here in Canada.
When I think about what can the federal government do and what do I want it to do, I turn back to the federal government and say, what can you do and what will you do? Is it for me to tell you what to do or is it for you to look at me and say, you know what, you are as important as every other citizen in this country, not just citizen, every other person living on this land, and you have the same right to protection even though your experience may be different, and the way that you experience harm may be different and so, we will differentiate the type of protection that is necessary for you, to you? We will look at what is causing you harm. We will use not just our social capital and relational capital that we have, but our positionality and our ability to enact and implement and enforce policy and law to ensure safety for everyone and to ensure that the proliferation of hate that is resulting in the radicalization, particularly of our white boys, teenage boys, into hate is going to be addressed and we are going to ensure that anti-radicalization programming is present, available, accessible and funded, and that teachers know how to access those supports. Social workers know how to access that support, and that the Muslim families and youth and all other marginalized families and youth who are impacted by that radicalization are supported in their trauma.
I can tell you that when it comes to trauma of Muslim students, that is dismissed. When we see Muslim students acting out in schools and we know that that is trauma, those students are channelled into special education because, “you’re not learning at school because there must be something wrong with you,” right? Or, “well your family comes from this country, that explains it.”
I’ve gotten a little emotional, but I’m not going to apologize for it because we are in a space where we should be emotional, and we should be angry, and I hope that that anger will motivate and prompt us to do good and to address what needs to be addressed. I thank you for surfacing the question because it was such an important one.
Senator Gerba: Thank you so much for your remarks.
The Chair: I think —
Senator Gerba: I am emotional too because I have four kids and three grandkids who are experiencing all those, so I can imagine.
The Chair: You have two Muslim senators and what you’re saying is not new to us. Senator Gerba will tell you, and I will tell you. I have two daughters who had similar experiences in school. We had a teacher who would make fun of Muslims that they wear towels on their head, and this was a Grade 5 teacher who was teaching students. She obviously shouldn’t have been in that classroom.
The other thing that I observed through my own lived experience was that a lot of our Muslim parents wouldn’t go into the schools. I know it has changed now. It hasn’t. I would be in the school — if my child were called a Taliban, I was in school asking the teacher what your role was in this. I would take it to the principal and be prepared to take it to the board. What we heard in Quebec also that when one of the children faced something similar, the mother told the father don’t complain, don’t complain, it will only make it worse for the child.
We have to learn how to empower Muslim parents. You bring up so many issues, the role of media, social media and the role of the police. These are all issues that we have been hearing as we’ve travelled across the country including that the police are not willing to step in. Yesterday, we heard about a woman who was abused in front of her three daughters and the police weren’t willing to file a complaint. In the end, they gave her a ticket too. These are similar stories, so you know, there’s something broken here and we are seeing a lack of willingness to fix what is broken.
As I’m listening to you, I’m thinking, how do we create safe spaces for students, of course, but also how do we create safe spaces for the teachers who are judged solely by what they wear? Your experience is similar to what we heard in Vancouver from a woman who had done her PhD, an articulate, brilliant young woman who told us the minute they see me wearing a hijab I am judged differently. We all face this as Muslims. I don’t wear hijab, but I am a practising Muslim and I stand up in the Senate, I make statements and my colleagues will know that I’m always speaking on Muslim issues. I was the first one on the floor to speak on Bill 21, and I was told by colleagues “Well, don’t do Quebec bashing” and I said no, I’m not doing Quebec bashing, I’m going to talk about the reality.
I was looking at statistics yesterday, and 46% of Canadians view Muslims unfavourably. That’s a huge problem we have, and I have to question the images. You know; here I laugh, but there is a photo of a very angry me asking a question and there’s a certain newspaper that every time they report anything on me, they use that horrible photo of me. Like you said, it’s a small microaggression. We’ve called them and said can you — you know, I’m not always angry. Sometimes I am because of, you know, what’s happening.
So, what can we say to the media? You know, I thank you for getting emotional and I thank you for being angry, and I thank you for saying what you have to because, like I told you in the beginning, we need to hear this. We need this to be a matter of record because you know what? It impacts your life, it impacts my life, it impacts Senator Gerba’s life. It impacts the lives of our children, and Senator Oh too. We saw during the time of COVID what happened with Asians.
So, what can we do? You know, and I’m asking you and I’m struggling with myself. What can we do with the media? We sit here, we talk about it, you know, don’t show angry images. Don’t identify — a terrorist is a terrorist. Don’t say he’s Muslim. How many other religions do identify? And when you look at the percentages, what is it, .01% of Muslims? Does anybody have any data on what the right-wing groups are doing, what violence they’re involved in? I know it’s higher, so there’s a responsibility on everyone. Do you think the average Canadian will admit to being Islamophobic? That’s my question to you. Sometimes when you’re held a mirror, take a look at yourself. These are the views you hold about a group. Do you think they realize that they’re Islamophobic? Do they realize that they hold views on a — you said, Ms. Kaderdina, 2%, I’m wondering whether we are closer 3% of Muslims, and Muslims are not newcomers. We’ve been here since the first census of Canada.
So, it’s gotten worse, it’s getting worse and like you, I wasn’t surprised when the attack in London happened, when the attack in Quebec happened, because of the rhetoric that I have seen coming from media, the portrayal. We heard one of the witnesses yesterday in Quebec say, “There are people sitting in small villages and all the information they get, you know, is from the media where the portrayal of Muslims is very negative.” I don’t know if there’s any answers to the questions I have asked.
And also, I’ll let Senator Arnot have the last word, but if you would like to respond to anything that I’ve said, if you feel you missed something, you can always send us a written submission. You can send it to Sebastian, the Clerk of the Committee. Thank you.
Mr. Zia: Thank you for the sentiments. Thank you for sharing the impact that Islamophobia has had on both your families as well. I appreciate you sharing that.
With regard to your question, I just have something small that maybe Ms. Kaderdina would like to share a bit more. The question, what can we do with the media? The CRTC exists, exists for a reason, it’s a federal — it’s governed through federal government. The CRTC needs to have expanded powers to control, have some oversight as to what narratives are perpetrated through, propagated through all forms of media that come in our channels. Any channels that are coming into our country from other countries need to be regulated as well.
It’s so important that we have, as a federation, some control over the narratives that our families are receiving. As you mentioned, there are some families whose only source of knowledge comes from what they see on the news or what they hear on talk radio, and if there’s an oversight then that vitriol, that hatred, that Islamophobia will continue to spread. That racism will continue to spread, and this is not something new.
I remember having conversations with my father when I was very young watching the news, and every time a person had committed a criminal act was always referred to as “Black.” The “Black man” did this, the “Black man” did this, the “Black man” did this, and my father used to always get angry. Why do they keep saying “Black man? Don’t they know that we’re all going to grow up hating Black men?” I was maybe six years old, and I still remember this.
Well, now we’re growing up in society and in a time where it’s the Muslims, the Muslim terrorists, has a bomb under her hijab, a bomb under his turban, and the Sikh community is being targeted just as much as Muslims are because of the Islamophobia that’s being perpetrated and there’s no one reigning this in. No one’s telling them you can’t do this, and until someone tells them you can’t do this or you will lose your licence, you will not be allowed to broadcast in this country. And a policy has to be created and then actually be acted upon. It would be amazing if an Islamophobic news story is propagated through CBC. The next day CBC is off the air. That’s the power that has to be given to — the federal government should be able to use and give those regulating powers to — through CRTC or another organization to cut this off immediately, to stop this.
I have to be careful not to say state-controlled narratives. I mean, we have that problem in other parts of the world. What I’m trying to say, though, is that there has to be some oversight, there has to be some regulation about what can or cannot be propagated. The people who control the media messages need to come together and have a conversation with members of different communities so they can understand the impact that their negative, stereotypical version of people’s faith and cultures is having on those students, kids, families, and society as a whole. Ms. Kaderdina mentioned, the issue of white supremacy in our country is growing and that white boys, white teenagers, males, are the next generation of that, and until we stop these errors from happening — and I recognize that we can’t do it for social media because it is global, but whatever we can do, we should be able to do. Thank you.
Ms. Kaderdina: Thanks, Mr. Zia. A few different things to address some of what you spoke to, so profoundly. The statistics around the views of Muslims are always interesting to me. I lead anti-Islamophobia workshops for educators in my school board and have used that data, and it’s fascinating to point out that often this data is higher for Canadians than it is for Americans. That always takes folks a minute to process this because there is the idea that we are nicer, and less racist in Canada than in the States.
When these statistics come to the floor, we see that the vast majority of data tells us that there is more Islamophobia in Canada or among Canadians than there is among Americans, I think we need to pause and reflect on that. We need to look at not just what are the stories that are being told about Muslims, but what are the stories we’re telling ourselves about who we are as Canadians?
Following the Quebec massacre, one of the narratives that was shared quite widely by politicians was that this is not what Canada is. That’s a very naive position to take. At best, naive, disingenuous maybe is what I would call it. I know I’m being harsh, but the reality proves otherwise. The data tells us otherwise. So, I would suggest that when we’re looking at media, one of the things we should start looking at is data; something like or similar to the Centre for Digital Hate that exists in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps there needs to be a body that collects and looks at what narratives are being brought forward by media and assesses them. Some of that work has already been done. We have anti-Islamophobia resources that point to statistics that tell us things like how many media stories there was from year this to year that, how many of them were positive, how many of them were negative, et cetera. Some of that data exists and it can be an excellent starting point for ongoing monitoring.
Ongoing monitoring is important because following the Quebec massacre, we heard all kinds of avowals, particularly from talk media about, “Oh, we need to be more careful. Oh, we didn’t know that it would result in this.” I don’t know if I buy that, to be quite frank. When you are propagating hate, you have to have some degree of awareness that this is going to impact people and they’re going to internalize it. But if people raise their hands in innocence, that’s their decision to do that, right?
However, I’m very curious to see what the pre-Quebec mosque massacre level of anti-Islamophobic or anti-Muslim rhetoric was in the Quebec media, what it was in the year after, and what it was five years from then. It would be very interesting to see the trajectory and to see what strategies media organizations are holding for themselves. What is the accountability and who are they accountable to? What is the transparency of that to the public? How does the public even know if they file a complaint what happens with that complaint?
When we talk about Muslim communities advocating for themselves, there are barriers to that advocacy. People don’t know what the channels are. Those channels are not always accessible. People don’t know what the process is and how to follow up. There is absolutely no purpose in reporting something that is not going to be responded to. Often it causes an additional layer of trauma and it entrenches the idea that hate is supported.
In addition, institutions like the CBC, CTV, and other organizations, I think we also need to make sure that there is oversight around social media channels and what is their accountability, what are the policies that they have in place? There are other countries in the world that are holding these organizations to account and saying that we will not let you function in our country if you are going to allow your platform to be a space of hate. Other countries are doing it. It is not a restriction of freedom of speech to say that you can’t propagate hate. That’s not what freedom of speech is about.
I would just say one additional thing. In terms of the question of, “do I think the average Canadian will admit to being Islamophobic”? I don’t know that the average Canadian knows what Islamophobia even means. Often the initial and immediate response to the terminology of Islamophobia is, “oh, you’re saying I’m scared of Muslims? Well, I’m not scared of Muslims.” A great deal of defensiveness comes up. And then we get embedded into a dialogue such as “Is it Islamophobia? Is it anti-Muslim racism? What’s the right term?” All of that is a detour and a deflection from the reality that people in our communities are being harmed. Employment, well-being, mental health and poverty levels, everything is impacted by Islamophobia. And that’s not about personal bias — although it does play out — it is about personal bias that plays out in systems and structures and institutions that are created to allow it to play out.
One thing that I might put forward to this committee is that as you are looking at individual responses and reactions and interpersonal relationships, please don’t forget to contextualize that within the broader, systemic, and institutional pieces. It is the systems and institutions that need to be changed at the same time. They all work together, and these levels are all interlocked.
I hope that what this committee will also take forward as you look at this not only the impact of Islamophobia on Muslims, but the impact of Islamophobia on non-Muslims, and not just non-Muslims who are taken to being Muslim and who encounter Islamophobia, but also those who enact Islamophobia. We have a legacy in this country that we are trying to grapple with. We have a legacy of residential schools. September 30 is coming up before we know it. We have a legacy of looking back at our history and recognizing the shame of what was perpetrated and continues to be perpetrated.
When I talk about anti-indoctrination work and deradicalization, I’m not just talking about it because I’m afraid of what those boys, usually boys, might do to my community. I’m talking about it because I don’t want any of them to ever have to look back at their lives and go, that’s the person that I was? I did that? I hurt someone? Maybe I killed someone? We have a responsibility to those children as well to protect them from becoming an Alexandre Bissonnette or the young man who killed the family in London. We owe them an understanding of what it means to be a human being that respects human life and all human life and to protect them from falling into that path. Anti-Islamophobia work, anti-racism work, anti-oppression work is not just to rescue those whom racism, Islamophobia and oppression are directed at. It is also to protect those who might end up causing that harm. I would ask the committee to take that forward as well as you consider these pieces.
The Chair: Thank you. We’ve gone way over, Senator Arnot. I apologize. If you have, like, a 30 second thing, that’s fine. Otherwise, we won’t have time for the next panel.
Senator Arnot: I want this on the record because I want it to be amplified. There are so many things that we’ve heard, but number one, this is a Canadian problem, coast to coast. We are using the term “Islamophobia,” but as Senator Ataullahjan has said that’s an inadequate term; it’s anti-Muslim hate. This is much more reflective of what it really is and needs to be put in that context and I’m hearing support for that. It’s based on fear and ignorance. We need education.
There’s deflection. There is a role for the federal government. I think the Heritage Department without any question as they’re responsible for multiculturalism and pluralism. They have a role to play. The professional development of educators can be optional; it doesn’t have to be mandatory. It’s a political deflection because the federal government says, “Oh, that’s provincial.” No, it isn’t; it’s a Canadian problem, public safety on radicalization.
Third point, unregulated internet, the hate speech proliferates. That has to be regulated and the federal government has that role. Fourthly, this whole point about there’s more Islamophobia or hate against Muslims in Canada than it is in the United States is an interested point. Maybe that should be the starting point of our report because that should wake up Canadians. That would be an eye-opener, because Canadians would have to admit what you’re saying is accurate. I just make those five quick points in relation to what our witnesses have testified to make sure that this gets captured well in the final report. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you and thank you to the witnesses, and Senator Arnot, just to — the reason I proposed this study was because when I looked at the statistics, the most Muslims killed in a G7 country was in Canada, and I spoke to someone from the press and he said, oh really? I have to investigate that, like, even he didn’t know that.
I think there was also a study done in the U.K., which found that Islamophobia levels were some of the highest in Canada, and I think we Canadians need to take a good look at ourselves. So, I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony, it will really help us as we write our report. And senators, we’ll move onto the next panel. Thank you very much.
Honourable senators, I shall now introduce our second panel of witnesses. Each witness has been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We shall hear from all the witnesses and then turn to questions from the senators. And witnesses, I ask you to respect the five minutes because we’re already running really late and many issues will be raised that have to be explored, and senators will have questions.
So, from the Canadian Council of Imams, we have Refaat Mohamed, the President, Taha Ghayyur, who is a member and Dr. Mohammed Iqbal Al-Nadvi, the Chairman. From the Muslim Medical Association of Canada, we have Dr. Arfeen Malick, who is the Mental Health Director. And from the Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation, we have Heather Fenyes, the Board Chair, and David Fisher, the Executive Director. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to come here, and I will start with the Canadian Council of Imams and Refaat Mohamed, you are making a statement. Thank you.
Refaat Mohamed, President, Canadian Council of Imams: Thank you so much, members of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights for this opportunity to present from the perspective of imams and Muslim religious leadership in Canada. I am Refaat Mohamed, serving as President of the Canadian Council of Imams. We are deeply disturbed by the rampant rise in Islamophobia across Canada. According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s most recent report, hate crimes in Canada increased by an outstanding 72% between 2019 and 2021. Religious hate crimes increased by 67% in 2021 alone. With a number of recorded attacks against Muslims increasing from 84 in 2020 to 144 in 2021, Canada has witnessed most deadly Islamophobic attacks, including the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting, which killed six Muslims while they worshiped, leaving behind 17 orphaned children.
Also, Mohamed-Aslim Zafis, who was killed in 2020 as he left his job at the IMO mosque in Toronto, and four members of the Afzaal family who were run over by a car in London, Ontario just last year. Each attacker of all these incidents was motivated by far-right extremism and anti-Muslim hate. Islamophobia doubly impacts imams and religious leaders for sure. It impacts them both personally and professionally. Despite resources and funds, imams in Canada wear multiple hats including prayer leaders, guidance counsellor, fundraiser, marriage and youth counsellor, trauma advisor, interfaith leader, media spokesperson, and government relations expert. Not only are imams the first point of contact for the Muslim community in times of crisis, they often become the face of crisis management. And in some cases, imams and mosque leaders are directly targeted by the anti-Muslim attackers.
Case in point, the Quebec City mosque massacre where Imam Nazar, who had just finished leading the congregation in prayer, was shot by that terrorist. Fortunately, he survived the gunshot. The attacker did not even spare the Imam’s beautiful young daughter, who was there at the incident. Fortunately, he ran out of ammunition as he aimed at her. Imagine the trauma this Imam and his family live with until this day. So, thank you, and I will leave the rest to my friend, Taha Ghayyur.
Taha Ghayyur, Member, Canadian Council of Imams: Thank you, Madam Chair Ataullahjan and the rest of the senators here today for listening to the voices of Canadian imams this morning. I am Taha Ghayyur, a human rights advocate and a member of the Canadian Council of Imams. Canadian imams are concerned about the fact that most hate crimes are charged as regular offences under the Criminal Code, such as assault, uttering threats, or harassment. This is a setback to victims of hate crimes who do not only suffer physical trauma, but also mental trauma. Our hate crime laws do not empower law enforcement adequately to lay charges of hate crimes or terrorism. There’s also a problem of rating the incident as a hate-motivated incident or hate-motivated action committed.
Moreover, imams and community activists regularly face online threats, most of which are not taken seriously by the law enforcement. Canadian imams are also troubled by the Canadian government’s unprincipled and inconsistent policies on global Islamophobia. Canada has effectively remained silent on the international stage in condemning crackdowns on human rights, democracy and religious freedom, and Canada’s foreign policy which continues to tolerate transnational Islamophobia and Muslim persecution in Palestine, India and China is at odds with the Prime Minister’s commitment to combatting Islamophobia at home.
In conclusion, the Canadian Council of Imams makes the following recommendations. Number one, criminalize Islamophobia in all forms, including hate speech, and violent hate crimes targeting Muslim individuals and institutions. Amend the Criminal Code to simplify the criminalization and prosecution of hate speech and hate crime. Abolish the requirement to seek the Ontario Attorney General’s consent to prosecute individuals promoting bigotry.
Number two, review and overhaul the foreign policy to ensure it aligns with Canada’s ideals of promoting justice, peace, and human rights for all. Ensure that trade and defence agreements with countries complicit in genocidal policies against Muslim minorities are premised on human rights provisions and that our supply chains are not tainted with slave labour from many of these countries.
And the third and last, fund special development training programs for imams, for religious leaders in the Muslim community, to better equip them to deal with media, mental health, trauma counselling, interfaith, anti-racism and Islamophobia or anti-Islamophobia initiatives. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I will now turn to Dr. Afreen Malick for her remarks.
Dr. Arfeen Malick, Mental Health Director, Muslim Medical Association of Canada: Thank you for having me. I am representing the Muslim Medical Association of Canada. I’m a child and adolescent psychiatrist at SickKids, and I also support the Muslim mental health of Muslims and work closely with the imams. I want to point out what the imams have said about them being the first point of contact for both the medical and the mental health system in our community is one that’s crucial that is documented, because imams are the first point of contact for our communities.
I’ll start off just by talking a little bit about the term “Islamophobia.” I know this was talked about just prior to this. I really want to highlight that we don’t use other terms for other groups. We will talk about anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Semitism. Anti-Muslim racism implies the commission of serious acts of discrimination, and we need to be clear that Islamophobia suggests a passive fear of Muslims where the fear is almost validated. This actually highlights the structural issues with discrimination against Muslims, and we are propagating this with this type of language.
We’ve already talked about the increase in Islamophobia via hate crimes. These are, you know, in Canada and the U.S., the European Union. These rates are not accurately depicted. We know that there’s a reluctance to report by individuals due to fear of consequences. We have many studies to show the same.
There are individuals who are impacted by Islamophobia who are non-Muslims and Muslims, and we’ve already talked about those, but there’s also gendered Islamophobia which targets visibly identifiable Muslim women. And we have individuals with intersectional identities who face multiple compounding forms of discrimination, such as those who are Black Indigenous Muslims.
There are various mechanisms of Islamophobia. Islamophobia really operates by structuring a static Muslim identity, that is one that attributes negative terms and generalizations to all Muslims. It dehumanizes Muslims, it devalues their lives, and it marginalizes them by diminishing their space and public life. This normalizes negative actions against Muslims, such as surveillance of Muslims, scrutiny of places of worship, legalizing Islamophobia through legislation that directly targets Muslims, treating them differently than members of other religious communities, such as Quebec’s Bill 21, banning religious attire, disproportionately impacting Muslim women.
It also normalizes hate speech and targeted discrimination online and through mainstream media, social media, politics, and the justice system. I assume that I was asked to be here because of my role in mental health. We know the impacts of discrimination due to race, ethnicity, and religion on mental health are large. We know this because there’s been studies for decades in the Black community. For Muslims, Islamophobia has deep impacts. Most research demonstrates a correlation between Islamophobic incidents and rates of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety, not dissimilar to the impacts of anti-Black racism on individuals identifying as Black.
Islamophobia is a type of racism and discrimination where at the level of the brain, it is understood as an exposure to a threatening life event that destabilizes a sense of security and safety on an individual and on a community level. Uniquely, Islamophobia also removes Muslims’ ability to cope by healthy, adaptive means through the demonization of Muslim communities’ spirituality, their spiritual leaders, and places of worship.
At the level of the brain, we know that targeted discrimination in this form is associated with higher levels of psychological distress as it targets the amygdala, which is your fear response in your brain. Acts of targeted violence, such as the Quebec massacre against Muslims, results in trauma-based reactions of distress to Muslims due to the perceived fear of being targeted themselves. Imagine walking around with that every day.
Scrutiny, surveillance, and targeted hate crime increases justified paranoia, another burden on the brain. Studies show that when these various experiences occur repeatedly and in prolonged fashion and are combined with microaggressions — covert forms of discrimination — they compound and can result in prolonged trauma-related anxiety and depressive symptoms. Hate crimes targeting not just individual victims but an entire community, generating serious health and mental health consequences, and I’d like to direct you to the CMAJ, the Canadian Medical Association journal’s most recent articles on Islamophobia.
Now, I could spend a few minutes understanding Islamophobes, but I won’t take my time to do that. To understand Muslim mental health, we really need to understand that Islamophobia is different than other forms of discrimination because it targets the very coping tools that we know are important to allow a community and individual to thrive and heal in the face of adversity, such as spirituality, a sense of community and feeling safe in our places of worship.
Islamophobia also differs due to the legalization of Islamophobia, which is a result of an erosion of trust with the publicly funded systems, such as the medical and mental health system. This is commonly seen as an individual’s reluctance to present to public systems due to fear of surveillance, being labelled as extremists, or terrorists for practising their faith. We know that mental illness has multifactorial causes; however, the stress from Islamophobia has been suggested to be a significant factor in increasing risks of mental illness in the Muslim population. Studies suggest more than double to triple the rates in the Muslim population, and this is without individuals who are actually accessing care. So, this is just individuals accessing the standard public care. It does not account for the individuals who are not presenting to public systems. Barriers cited by Muslims for avoiding mental health care include fear — such as seeing Ejaz Choudry, a 62-year-old man with schizophrenia shot dead by police seconds into a police call for a mental health check — discrimination, and lack of culturally and spiritually informed appropriate and adapted care. This has resulted in having to seek care privately, often by unqualified or underqualified individuals, delaying presentation to care, resulting in more severe symptoms at presentation to the Emergency Department, or Emerg, and making it harder to treat, and higher rates of untreated mental illness. I’ll end there, and I’m open for questions. There’s so much more to say about the impact on mental health for Muslims.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Malick. If you do have something else to say, you can make a written submission to us and that will be part of our study, and that’s for all the witnesses. I will now turn to Heather Fenyes to make her presentation.
Heather Fenyes, Board Chair, Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation: Good morning. My name is Heather Fenyes, and I’m the Board Chair of Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation. Thank you for the opportunity to share our relevance to Canada’s confrontation of Islamophobia. Canada is multicultural, officially. Cultural pluralism is the very essence of our national identity as it has been stated by different generations of Canada’s leadership. Diversity is a fact, inclusion is a choice and diversity is Canada’s strength.
Meaningful inclusion and belonging for everyone in every community in Canada requires fully engaged citizens who understand their rights and their responsibilities as citizens. A responsible, pluralist citizen is the best defence against racism and bigotry. The education system plays a central role in realizing such citizenship. The classroom is the most important place to combat racism. The long-term antidote to racism and bigotry is the development of critical thinking, empathy, and engagement in Canada’s youth. Effective citizenship education allows the discovery, exploration, development, and refinement of these essential qualities. Citizenship education is the study, understanding and application of the rights, duties we have to each other as citizens in local, provincial, national, and global communities. Citizenship education is intended to foster engaged citizens, who question critically, examine, advocate, and defend the rights and responsibilities embedded in democracy; lifelong learning citizens who continually strive to understand the dynamics of change in society as they critically seek new information to make reasoned, unbiased decisions; citizens with a strong sense of self, community, and place, who value and demonstrate a positive commitment to the exploration of citizenship responsibilities inherent in these relationships in local, regional, national, and global levels.
Over the past decade, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission took on the challenge of creating citizenship education resource for the classroom. The result is Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation, a CRA registered charity that administers, supports, and fundraises for the development and advancement of citizenship education. While the foundation was originated by the Human Rights Commission in 2012, it was converted to an independent stand alone in 2017. At the heart of Concentus are the Concentus Education Resources. They are extensive, robust, teaching, learning, resources for every grade from Kindergarten to Grade 12 with over 2,400 pages. Eight years and $2.4 million in the making, these classroom-ready resources support direct and intentional classroom exploration and teaching of rights, responsibilities, and respect in our pluralist society.
Central to Concentus is the principle that all persons deserve equal moral consideration without exception. There are five core competencies that are both lenses for and results of effective citizenship education. Enlightenment, acknowledgement that historical events create context for and have an impact on today’s society; Empowerment, understanding of our rights and the accompanying responsibilities in order to contribute to a society; Empathy, understanding respect and affirmation of individual’s society and cultural diversity; Ethical behaviour, decision making that respects the rights of each other and promotes well-being; and Engagement, critical thinking, and active participation that contributes to a civil society.
The spectrum of these competencies spans from understanding to action, from enlightenment and empathy and ethical behaviour to empowerment and engagement. Inherent in these understandings are the universality and relevance to us all, regardless of origin. Citizenship education is an inoculant to hate. It confronts and prevents racism and discrimination at the fundamental levels. Our resources cover a student’s continual learning career from Kindergarten to Grade 12. In today’s multi-ethnic, multi-theist, multi-social classroom, it’s essential that a pluralist and multicultural nature of Canada is purposefully taught. By teaching students in their formative years, we prevent barriers of racism from enduring. As students mature, they bring these essential values and critical thinking skills into their communities and our workforce.
Concentus is helping students, teachers, and schools in two ways. First, with classroom ready citizenship education resources that integrate with the curriculum to provide seamless instruction on delicate topics, such as mental health, addictions, disability, racism, gender identity, and Indigenous culture. Second, the resource engages students with the higher objective of citizenship education, helping students understand the new three R’s — rights, respect and responsibility. Students are informed about the rights all Canadians have, learn about the responsibility of all citizens, and come to understand the importance of demonstrating respect to all.
Our youth learn to read because they’re taught to read in schools.
The Chair: I’m sorry to interrupt. Your five minutes are already done.
Ms. Fenyes: Okay. Could I —
The Chair: If you could wrap up —
Ms. Fenyes: Yes, I will.
The Chair: — in about 10 seconds, please?
Ms. Fenyes: Absolutely. In closing, I remind you that only weeks ago, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, a colleague of yours, was verbally assaulted in the City Hall at Grand Prairie, Alberta. This is the same kind of hate that in another room becomes Islamophobia. This exchange was witnessed by an entire country and gave all Canadians and many other marginalized communities an understanding of what Muslims face all the time. Concentus Resource is the ideal response for this kind of interaction, and this is our goal and our gift. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I’ll let the senators ask questions. I’ll ask Senator Gerba, to be followed by Senator Arnot.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you so much for being with us this morning. Thank you for your testimony and recommendations.
We have heard a lot about the role of the media in fostering Islamophobia in our society. We are in a country where the topic of freedom of speech comes up constantly.
What do you think the Government of Canada can do about the media’s negative influence? Thank you.
Dr. Malick: Thank you very much. My French is not good, unfortunately.
[English]
One of the examples that I can give is that of a suicide and suicide contagion. Many of you may have or may understand that suicide is depicted in the media, and suicide is depicted in many forms in the media. One is the recent —a few years ago — series called “13 Reasons Why.” That had a large, negative impact on adolescent suicide rates, and yet we can’t censor that. That’s freedom of expression, that’s freedom of speech. But what we can do is have ways to structure support and response around individuals when they are watching that kind of content online. So, when there’s content around self-harm or suicide, that it is paired with actionable resources that people can reach out to. I am not in any way advocating for anti-Muslim discrimination on media; however, if there is no way of censoring hate speech against Muslims, there should at least be a way to buffer. For example, if individuals are going to be called terrorists online and extremists for going to their mosques to pray, I think that should probably be followed up with some type of commentary that is able to counter that narrative.
Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Al-Nadvi, Chairman, Canadian Council of Imams: Hello, and welcome the Senate Committee.
The Chair: Can you move the microphone closer, please?
Dr. Al-Nadvi: First off, I was really delighted that I was invited to attend this meeting. The media’s role, I see in three ways. The first thing is that for the most part the media, when they pick any incident, they always link it with the name of religion. So, they’re Muslim terrorists, instead of going, for example, Christian terrorists or other terrorist, they say only — but others they don’t name it as a religion. Of course, incidents happen but this does not mean that Islam is behind it, but the Muslim, maybe any Muslim can’t do anything.
The second issue is that whatever you present you must present the real facts and not assumed or, for example, imaginary things. Mostly, the bigger part comes when they present something and it is not checked; the facts are not correct.
The third issue is that they mix facts with their own opinion. Sometimes people are not able to distinguish between them. So, if the media actually cares they could remove the name of religion from that incident, and they could present the facts as they are. If they bring in their opinion that is okay, but they must be sure that the facts are right facts and then they can go with their opinion. Thank you.
Ms. Fenyes: May I add something? I think one of the other problems that we see in media is a little broader in scope. Every time an incident occurs, I think it perpetuates part of the problem, which is siloing of these incidents. So, we see an incident against the Islamic community splashed all over social media or if it’s an issue of anti-Semitism or against the LGBTQ+ community, we perpetuate what continues to happen in our society, which is siloing. We put out an immediate response. Communities come together, they respond with their own media coverage, with educational tools, with resources, which are really important, but we lose the fundamental point that this is a systemic problem that is rooted in one thing and one thing only, and that’s hate, and the hate created through these incidents will foster and perpetuate all kinds of others. As long as we keep seeing these as isolated incidents and aren’t forced as a society to acknowledge that the underlying problem is far bigger and comprehensive and interconnected, we are continuing to operate in silos.
The conversation we’re having today is essential and I’m proud to be a part of it, but it’s a piece. It’s a canary, and if we don’t acknowledge that the coal mine has far more problems — and I addressed the core of them — we’re part of what the media is allowing us to be sucked into, and we’re building walls and creating silos. Thank you.
Senator Arnot: Well, I come with a bias. I think there’s a real power in education and I’m going to ask any of the panellists to comment on the need to get into the classrooms and really teach respect, and the responsibilities that come with citizenship because we talk a lot about the rights, but very little about the responsibilities that come with citizenship, and the fundamental responsibility of every Canadian citizen is to respect their fellow citizens. This is not happening.
So, I know the Concentus material from K to 12 deals with these issues, but I’d like all of the panellists to think about that and to comment on the need to use education as a powerful tool, an elixir against the fundamental ignorance and fear that builds hate. We have to disestablish those foundations and the way to do that is in the school system from K to 12 as at least one critical component of the change we require in society because Canada stands as a testament against the history of mankind. We have these wonderful constitutional provisions, but we are not implementing them the way they need to be because, you know, we’ve failed, really, to inculcate Canadian citizens with the values that Canada stands for. Principally it is about pluralism, multiculturalism, multi-theism and multi-ethnic groups in our country. This is the strength of our country. You can’t do that by osmosis or some magic; it has to be done intentionally and explicitly. So, I’m asking that general — or making that general observation and asking for comment from all members of the panel.
The Chair: Thank you. If I can ask the witnesses to really be, you know, short with their answers? We have Senator Oh and then I have questions too, so all the witnesses, the floor is yours and just, you know.
Dr. Malick: As a child and adolescence psychiatrist the question of what impacts children comes up. My main area is supporting Muslim youth who have faced extraordinary amounts of anti-Muslim discrimination and hate from a young age. It would make any of you tearful for a young kid to be called a terrorist on a playground when they are five, six years old.
I don’t know about education. I have to say, Senator Arnot, with all due respect, education means people have to be coming to the table. People have to respect the education system. If they are going home to messages that are propagated by the media, by the family, that are inherent in their family’s values and what they have seen propagated for the last 20 to 30 years, I don’t think that all flips over just with a few sessions of education.
We haven’t actually seen that to be effective. Most students that I talk to nowadays are actually saying that they get too much Indigenous teaching. “Why are we being taught so much about Indigenous peoples?” That’s what I hear from the students. That message obviously comes from somewhere. I don’t hear that about other things that they’re taught about. Why do we learn so much about Canadians? Why do we learn so much about Indigenous people right now?
Fundamentally, I think that first we need to look at what is influencing youth and what, over the last 20 to 30 years, have they and their parents seen, witnessed and been normalized in — the justice system, in politics, and in the media — and targeted with, and then we can probably make some moves in terms of bringing people to the education system so that they’re able to listen and hear.
Mr. Ghayyur: Just adding to what Dr. Malick said. I think education is definitely a part of it if you want any form of positive change in society whether this be anti-Indigenous racism or anti-Islamophobia education. I think engagement is more important than education. That’s the piece that’s often missing in our schools and schooling systems, and I think a good example of where it can actually be fruitful and can start is a celebration of Islamic History Month or Islamic Heritage Month, which has been around since 2007, thanks to some great work by some senators as well as politicians who have done great work in this area.
Utilizing those platforms and opportunities to create more cultural engagement, opportunities for students to not only learn from a textbook, but actually hear from a person who has lived experience of Islamophobia, and centring and amplifying Muslim voices is going to be a critical part of that education piece, which is, of course, important. Thank you.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: I have two or three points in this regard. You can say that Muslims arrived in Canada after other groups. We have just been establishing our identity here as a Muslim group in the past hundred years, or so. The issue is that at the legal level and agencies level, we are seen as an additional part of this country. But how are we just — Islamic arrival as a natural way, for example, to make Islam part of this land or part of this activity. So, this is actually a great challenge. I can say that it’s a challenge.
The first generation of Muslims came as immigrants, so their feelings are mixed. They are coming from their countries, they have some problems there, and sometimes they feel the same thing here, so they take time to be homogenized here. But our new generation, they’re born here and they’re part of this thing, so sometimes their shocking part is more than us. Suppose that I, from India, have something here, I had connected with my Indian situation, but that said, my next generation, they will be very shocked how this happened. So, this is really a kind of point which we need.
Once I was in a meeting with the former prime minister Paul Martin. I said to him that we have a problem. If you leave us to solve all of our problems, we will not be able to, but if you make them a Canadian problem, both of us can solve them. Thank you.
The Chair: Yes.
David Fisher, Executive Director, Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation: I’d like to just echo a little bit of what Mr. Ghayyur said about education being a part of the approach. I know when we present such lofty ambitions as even our own presentation described, it can smack of naïveté, and the idea that a few hours in a classroom is going to see, you know, transformation is something we don’t subscribe to. We believe teachers need tools. They are part of the approach reforming justice. Every other approach that’s been described here is essential, but so, too, I believe we need to provide Canadian teachers with better tools throughout all grades to make this approach a basic part of Canadian education.
Mr. Mohamed: Thank you. I think both points which are related to media and also to education. I think it’s very important to actually take our teachers and the media spokespersons to the next level, to educate them, to give them enough training about cultures, especially with Muslim immigrants who came to Canada, started to live in Canada as their own and they took it as their home, instead of thinking of leaving the country. I have two examples of at least two imams, whom I know, who actually decided to take their kids and leave the country. Why? Because of the school system. They think their kids are exposed to something that is not matching to their own religion and culture, and at the same time, they think that they can find a safer area where their kids are not actually being fed with something that they are not supposed to be fed with.
The other part is the media, where a double standard applies. Whenever a Muslim does something, the media makes it seem like the whole Muslims community committed the crime. And on the other side, if non-Muslims do something, the media does not even elaborate about it, they don’t even consider it as terrorism in the first place as they do compared to Muslim actions.
So, actually, it’s — here, it will come with the training, training to both sections — the media sector as well as the education system. Teachers in schools, actually need to be trained before the school and given enough time so that they can welcome and understand the mentality and the culture of all Muslim children, both genders, so that they will be able to accommodate them. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. To your point, Dr. Al-Nadvi. Muslims may not be the largest number of newcomers to this country, but Muslims have been here since the first census that Canada had. We had Muslims in Alberta, and in Edmonton, we have the oldest mosque in North America. So, Muslims have been here. I’ll turn to Senator Oh. Senator Oh, do you have a question?
Senator Oh: Thank you, chair. I have a simple question. Thank you to the panel for being here. Compared to other types of crime, hate crimes and crimes motivated by Islamophobia, target women at relatively higher rates. Can you comment what might be some of the reasons why Muslim women are disproportionately targeted at higher rates? What role does the media play, and how does the narrative and public debate contribute to discrimination, harassment, and violence against women.
Mr. Mohamed: I think it is because of the visibility of Muslim women. If they walk by any open or general public location, stores, or places, Muslim women will be targeted if they are visibly recognized as a Muslim. That’s why she will be targeted first, and it’s actually because of the ignorance that people have about Muslim females such as why they are dressed in such a manner. Also, many Muslim females, for example, don’t actually shake hands with people who are not from the same family or household.
So, it’s all about education, and that, actually, should be going back to educators as well as the media — to involve Muslims more and to open rooms for them so that they can explain themselves better.
The Chair: Please keep it really short.
Dr. Malick: Thank you for the question, Senator Oh. I just wanted to say a few things about that. I just would ask you to think about what you have seen portrayed about Muslim women, what you have ever seen portrayed of Muslim women? If you think about the media, I would just encourage you to look back and type into Google, “Muslim women news.” You will see someone who is wearing a niqab, someone who is oppressed, someone who is helpless, someone who is being abused, that’s what you will see portrayed, and this is really the source of the discrimination against Muslim women.
We see Mennonites, we see individuals who are Jewish women who have similar attire and they do not receive the similar levels of discrimination, and I can say that in the medical system, being a physician who works in the medical system, there are types of stereotypes and biases that are put upon a Muslim woman when she walks into the hospital.
If we just look to our own legal system, which you all are a part of, we can look no further than our Bill 21, which actually demonizes Muslim women who are wearing the hijab from being teachers. They are no longer allowed to educate, although they are trained educators. When we look to the education system to be a source of education toward targeting Islamophobia, I think we need to really think about what my brother brought up, which is the exposure to Muslims. Why are we removing the exposure to Muslim women from the education system if what we’re trying to do is educate about Islam?
There is also the normalization of anti-Muslim hate in the legal system that is propagated through politics, and we see the various political agendas that get put forth such as “trying to keep people safe from terrorism,” and this often includes not allowing individuals who look like me to enter into any public system. So, I think we need to look no further than those examples to understand why Muslim women, such as myself, are targeted.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
The Chair: Yes.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: Yes, I think adding two or three points more. Mostly, you know, I can see the issue in different places. Suppose Muslim working women in the workplace. So, some issues are going, for example, different ways and Muslim women she is active, serving her kids, taking the kids out, buying groceries and many other things. So, sometimes she is alone. She is not in the company of good numbers of people, or she is passing from lonely places, so some kind of distance [Technical difficulties] — also mix two, three things together, but Muslim women become more visible target.
The third issue, actually, I can see there’s some kind of misconcept is in the minds of some people that Muslim women are oppressed by Muslim men, and the hijab is a kind of symbol of this kind of oppression. So, sometimes they see that it is a kind of their duty, for example, to save her or to give her freedom here, she can live and exercise freedom out of these kinds of these things. So, these are some factors are working together on this issue.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Yes, very briefly because I have —
Mr. Ghayyur: Yes, very briefly.
The Chair: — questions, and I have five —
Mr. Ghayyur: Absolutely. If you think about how anti-Muslim sentiments, more specifically discrimination against visible women enabled by a government, Bill 21 in Quebec is a very good example of that, where Muslim women, in particular, who are wearing a hijab or any form of dress that they believe is Islamic, are being told to stay out of public spaces and public institutions.
If it comes from the people right at the top, public office holders, what do you expect of common folks when it comes to dealing with issues of Islamophobia? When we are excluding women from those spaces, then the result is going to trickle down to the general masses who are going to also exclude some women, target and discriminate against them. Unfortunately, our government’s response has been extremely disappointing when it comes to such a racist, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic, and in many ways anti-racial legislation that should be condemned and abolished.
The Chair: Thank you. Just a few comments to talk about a few points. So, the name, the study, Islamophobia, it’s going to change. Because when we talk about a phobia, we’re talking about a fear of something. So if they have a fear of Muslims but it does not address the repercussions that this fear has for Muslims. When I proposed this study, I wanted to look at this issue, but I want the name of the study changed and it will be changed.
Ms. Fenyes, you raised the outrage that Canadians expressed when the Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was verbally attacked. It happened to my colleagues too. You know, it was terrible. I was very upset, my children were very upset. I have two girls, when they saw the way the man was being so abusive toward her — there’s no need for that kind of language and behaviour. His behaviour was very threatening. However, I have not seen that same kind of condemnation when a Muslim is verbally or physically assaulted from Canadian society, and I include politicians. We do get some thoughts and prayers, but I have not seen that condemnation across the board that we saw when Minister Freeland was attacked. I want to be very clear, I condemn that behaviour and I found it very disturbing.
The other thing I would like to ask you, the Council of Imams, what is your relationship with the police? I know that when we had that gentleman who was having mental health issues and was shot, I reached out to the police chief and had a long conversation with him and had a lot of questions of him. I want to know, are you called when something like this happens and what is your relationship with the police?
Mr. Mohamed: In most municipalities, we definitely have a connection with the police. Most of the Imams have a direct connection. When an incident happens, we usually try to go to the police and educate them — especially the new staff hired by the police in any of the regions — and give them feedback and some information about how to deal with Muslims. So, we do have a connection with most of the police regions, especially here in GTA, Peel Region, York Region and all other regions that are in the GTA here.
The kind of relationship that we have with the police is built over many years. I have been in the York Region for almost 15 years and I have a very good connection with the police in York Region and now in Peel Region. That relationship results in very quick responses to, for example, deradicalization or anti-Islamic hate, which is really common in different places. Also, they will call us to inform us so that we can talk to the committee and give them some comfort and some peace before they react to anything. So that kind of connection is really important, and very critical. If we don’t have that connection, we definitely will be in a bad shape. I think Dr. Iqbal has something.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: Yeah, I can give you my own experience. I was an imam in Calgary, we invited the newly recruited police officers to visit our mosque, and we gave them one- to two-hour sessions, with question and answer, and so on. And when I was a director of the Islamic Centre in Oakville, I did the same things. I think this kind of relation is really needed, so we invite and update them, or give them some kind of opportunity. But after 9/11 happened, it is mostly us who call them to try to establish a relationship with them. So, it is a limited kind of connection with them.
Another issue, actually, with Ontario, you made a very good point about the word, Islamophobia. I think it has its pros and cons. When we want to say Islamophobia, we are actually focusing that Muslims are supposed to be aware of this kind of fear. But if I see other points of view, you see that they are actually targeting us, or you are saying that we are Islamophobic, so if anything happens from us, it will be counted as Islamophobia. So, we do not have a specific solution, but some other name, I think, will be okay as well.
The Chair: Thank you. As the chair, I can take the liberty of asking a few extra questions. Dr. Malick, you raised the issue of what our children have to go through and before this panel we had a couple of teachers who made us aware of this. You opened our eyes to the multitude of issues that children are having and the very few resources available. It’s often the children who are blamed. They hear things like, “Oh, well, you come from this country, and that’s what it was like, and you’re bringing that here,” or, “you’re a Muslim and you’re reacting like that.”
How do we help our children? I don’t think the burden should totally be on the Muslim community and Muslim families. There has to be help available for them. We’re Canadians, my children don’t know any other life except Canada. They were born here, educated here, they’re Canadians. And as such, as one witness said to us yesterday, “We’re not asking for special privileges because we are Muslims, we’re asking to be treated equally,” and I think the same goes for our children.
If we saw other children that were having to live in fear, we would confront that fear. Why are we not confronting that fear when it comes to Muslim children? I know you’re the wrong person I’m asking, but it’s a question we should be asking of leadership. And as Mr. Ghayyur said, lack of leadership, we have seen it in when, at the Islamophobia Conference a year and a half ago, they decided they would appoint a special representative but nothing happened. All the recommendations that were made at that conference, nothing has been done.
Dr. Malick: I echo and agree with all of what you said. There is definitely an impact on the children and the youth. I am probably considered a third generation Muslim, and I still face that. I have walked through life with a hijab on, without a hijab on through my medical school training and beyond, and I have many of my colleagues who have done the same and yet they are treated as if we don’t belong in the country that we were raised in.
Yes, it’s heartbreaking when you actually think about it. And when we think about it from a mental health perspective, the impacts of those isolating experiences and of being fearful for yourself and your own community are ones that are very hard to come back from. We have isolated Muslims for many years from being able to go into their mosques because of fear that there is surveillance, for fear that they will be called a terrorist. You could not approach your imam for many years. We actually have that fear among us, a fear of other community members because we were told to be suspicious of each other, right? And that was normalized and it is still normalized to some extent in the legal system. We really do have to be vigilant of these things.
And then we have this message coming from the Canadian system that’s supposed to be us because we are Canadians, and then from the Muslim extremists. Also, we don’t fit in with that system either, do we? So, we’re isolated in our experience. Many youths feel that isolation, they feel caught between what these labels are — the label of being a terrorist or extremist, and then the label of being the “other” — and their identities are really shaken. Many of the youth and parents that I talk to, fear leaving a centre like Toronto or Montreal to live anywhere beyond where there are other Muslims because what they will encounter. I’m working at SickKids Hospital right now. It’s no secret. In the media, you will see that this young 13-year-old boy from Bradford has been severely assaulted in what is likely an Islamophobic, anti-Muslim hate incident to the extent of hemorrhages in the individual’s brain, a 13-year-old boy.
When we’re talking about these things, I think exposure to Muslim’s normalization of Muslims as being Canadians, yes, we can, you know, kind of say that. I agree with Brother Taha that this needs to be done. We need more exposure, but we also really need to think about why it is that still today — many hundreds of years later — “the Canadian” is still a white male. A Canadian is not an Indigenous person, a Canadian is not a Black person, the Canadian is a white male. Bill 21 is a great example of that because what are we saying? People who are allowed to teach our children are only people who look a certain way, or, only people who believe in certain ideals?
I can only come at it from a mental health perspective, but I do see increased rates of depression and anxiety as well as trauma-based responses in the children I see. Parents are left not knowing who to turn to and medical and mental health institutions don’t really know what to do. For many years, we didn’t have an understanding of the impacts of these on communities. Now we understand that there are unique issues that plague Black communities, Indigenous communities, and that having medical systems that are targeted toward these communities is really important. It’s also really important to be treated by an individual who understands your spiritual challenges, and to be able to access spiritually adaptive care and culturally adaptive care. I think that’s the heart of it. People don’t want to go see someone who is not going to understand, who is going to minimize what they’ve been through, or is going to question what it is that they’ve experienced, like this poor 13-year-old boy will likely have to do at SickKids right now.
The Chair: Thank you. I’m sorry, we’re out of time. I spoke against Bill 21 in the Senate, I don’t know if you’re aware of it. When I said I was going to speak, I was taken aside and said by a colleague who said don’t indulge in Quebec bashing. So, the issues, the problems, no matter where we are, they’re there. And imams, do you follow what’s happening in Ottawa, in Queen’s Park, to find out who are your champions, those who are not, and then educate the public to ask the right questions because you have that power.
People come to the mosques, they listen to you, and you can educate them. I think we should be looking beyond party lines. The big problem I find is that we’re sort of in this party and that party. No, you ask the right questions of everyone who comes to your door, regardless of their parties. You have a huge responsibility and a role, and I thank you for stepping forward.
Witnesses, I want to thank each and every one of you for your presentations, for taking the time to come here, your remarks today and having the patience to answer our questions. This will help us when we are ready to write this report. We are also learning and what we’ve heard as we’ve gone through Vancouver, Edmonton and Quebec is that we will have a special section on gendered Islamophobia because it is very difficult to be a Muslim woman who wears a hijab and it’s even more difficult to be a Black Muslim woman who wears a hijab. So, I thank you. Senator Arnot, really briefly. We have one more panel. Thank you.
Senator Arnot: I just wanted to say that you didn’t see it, but Heather Fenyes had a quick comment she wanted to make.
Ms. Fenyes: I can share it with you after.
The Chair: I would — yes. If you —
Ms. Fenyes: After?
The Chair: If you can be really brief, 30 seconds?
Ms. Fenyes: Yes.
The Chair: Otherwise, afterwards.
Ms. Fenyes: You said something powerful. You said lack of leadership, and it really got me thinking. This is a problem that starts at the top and is interwoven into everything. I’m not a Muslim woman, I’m not wearing a hijab, but this is personal to me too, and the woman who spoke on the panel before who said enough of this, we have committees, we have conversations, the fact that Chrystia Freeland —and that’s why I brought it up — was attacked. I hear you implicitly. The response was disproportionate, but that is a full example of from the top down, something is very, very sick and that’s why I beg of this committee that we not be sitting here just having an opportunity to be heard but be part of some fundamental change. I think I speak on behalf of all of us that we will be available in any way possible to help make that change happen and move the conversation to action. Thank you so much.
The Chair: Thank you.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: Madam, if you allow me, 10 seconds only.
The Chair: Yes.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: One very important point.
The Chair: Yes, please. Really 10 seconds.
Dr. Al-Nadvi: Our kids — a new phenomenon is emerging. They are declaring that they’re atheist and the reason behind it when they are bombarded with many questions, they say we are not Muslim. So, atheism is not a choice, but like a kind of evasion.
The Chair: Thank you. Everything that we heard today, we have our two very capable analysts sitting here. We have the clerk, you have me, you have the senators, everything. We are all writing notes because everything that is said leads us to another layer. It’s like I have picked up an onion, peeled the first layer, and there is another layer, then another layer, and another. So, we’re constantly learning, evolving, and this report — we’ll probably continue this study until December — will be released in spring. I will try to make sure that it’s noticed. There are times when what we do get noticed, times when things get buried, and we will be having very strong recommendations.
The committee sits Mondays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. and we are broadcast live, so if anyone is interested. We’re not sitting this coming Monday because we’ve been travelling all over and I think the analysts and the staff need a break. Thank you very much.
We’re now going to hear from our third panel of witnesses, or in this case witness. I want to thank you, Mr. Furqan Abbassi, I know you’ve travelled a bit of a distance, so I want to thank you for taking the time to appear before us. You’re from Soul Brothers Pakistan, and you’re a member and an entrepreneur, so I will turn over to you and if you can keep your remarks to about six or seven minutes, and then the senators will have questions. Thank you.
Furqan Abbassi, Member and Entrepreneur, Soul Brothers Pakistan: Thank you. Good afternoon. I am here representing Soul Brothers Pakistan, a not-for-profit organization. I would like to start off by saying thank you to the organizers for inviting me to speak on Islamophobia today.
The word “Islamophobia” has, unfortunately, become a more prominent, now widely accepted term in today’s modern world. Why does this word even exist? It corrupts the true perception and distorts the identity of a religion that represents peace, equality, and compassion toward others.
How can we allow such terms to become embedded within the mainstream vocabulary? It takes away from any religion’s core belief of peace and respect toward fellow human beings of every religion.
I would like to highlight the impact on Canadian Muslim women since the introduction of the term “Islamophobia.” As you may already be aware, most Muslim women identify themselves by covering their head with a scarf. Ever since mainstream media has normalized the use of the term Islamophobia, there has been a significant increase in discrimination, as well as physical attacks on Muslim women.
Our media needs to do a better job in representing the true ideals of the Islamic religion by replacing the fearful representation of the religion, as well as the false religious practice of oppressing women that has been successfully implanted in the public’s popular perception of Islam and its followers.
We need to see more news anchors, commercials and social media advertisements that have a Muslim family, or a Muslim woman included who will not hesitate to wear a headscarf and face losing their job. News stories either refer to violations of women’s rights or use their image, especially when wearing religious clothing, to illustrate views framing Islam as a problem. In general, Muslims are portrayed negatively in Western media, and sometimes with hostility.
When we look at the workforce market, Muslim women not only face Islamophobia but also gender discrimination and ethnic discrimination. These discriminatory factors are mainly triggered due to the way Muslim women choose to cover her head and body.
Within this discrimination, there are different factors that add to the level of judgment based on the type of religious attire a woman might be wearing. A lot of us are familiar with the hijab, which is the head covering done with a scarf. This might be more socially acceptable to some Canadians. However, if the same woman is wearing the burka, which is the head-to-toe long gown, she is suddenly perceived to be dangerous or more oppressed than the women wearing just a head scarf.
At the moment, Quebec has Bill 21 in place that bans religious symbols in the workplace. Those affected are mainly women wearing head coverings from different religions. Muslims are affected heavily by this ban as well. Once again, Muslim women wearing head coverings were removed from their workplaces. Now in Quebec, but the fear is so close to home about which province will it be in next.
I have had the opportunity to be welcomed into Canada and call it my home. I have established a business here and had the opportunity to create jobs for other Canadians and be a part of the economic growth. Along my journey, I have employed people of every faith, gender and country, and it saddens me at the same time to hear of the struggle Muslim women have in finding employment.
It is sad that I, as a father, have had a talk to my kids about Islamophobia and had to prepare them from a young age to be able to protect themselves. What if one day my daughter chooses to wear a scarf? How do I prepare my daughter who wants to be a doctor, lawyer or a politician like yourself, to be able to overcome additional obstacles, hardships and even discrimination in order to pursue her dreams? That one day she will have to choose between her religion or her career. We came to Canada, called it home, because of its diversity and freedom of rights.
Islam has a very clear message of peace for all humanity. The world stays silent when it comes to defending the freedom of speech for Islam and Muslims. The Muslim world still talks about peace rather than vengeance. As Canadians are considered to be the civilized nations; does it sound civilized to make fun of someone’s religion?
Thank you for listening and I look forward to helping change.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Abbassi, and it’s very telling that as you speak of your child, that she might want to wear a hijab and the fear in your heart. As a Muslim, as anyone, one should not be afraid when their child wants to dress in a certain way. That’s a fundamental right that every Canadian has, that you dress as you choose. And, you know, it’s good to get emotional because these are emotional issues we’re talking about. Thank you. So, I will turn to Senator Oh for questions. You have no questions? Thank you. Senator Gerba.
Senator Gerba: Thank you, Madam Chair. It is emotional. Being an entrepreneur myself, I have to face those kinds of scares. One day, my daughter told me, “Mom, you don’t have to wear a scarf to go to business. No one will buy from you, you cannot convince someone to buy your stuff if you are wearing something,” so I can understand. Just a comment.
The Chair: Thank you. Yes, would you like to respond? Because we both raised the issue of emotions being tied as Muslim women. Senator Gerba and myself, we understand you and your fear for your children.
Mr. Abbassi: When I was preparing this speech, when I was invited to come to this event, Islamophobia is such a point of factors for every Muslim that we go through. So, I was overwhelmed by what to say, how to say it, what areas to cover. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by a lot of females, my daughter, my wife, my staff. I’m in the health and beauty business. So, when I reached out to them and everyone in my community, and asked them, “what is Islamophobia to you,” or, what they felt it is. And women’s issue was the biggest issue, the hijab. My wife fears wearing it, sometimes. She has made comments like, “Can I travel on TTC and wear hijab? How will people look at me? What will I go through?”
Muslim females, they wear hijab and some of them told me that they have thought about going to an interview without their head scarf covering, that they have thought about applying somewhere and not wearing a face scarf for three months, until after the probation period is over, so they can continue to have a job. That’s how bad it has become for them.
It’s emotional because, yes, I hear other people talk about their rights, but to have this conversation with my daughter, when she’ll say to me, “So, Dad, what do I do? Do I practise my religion? Do I give that up or do I give up my passion?” The reason we chose to come to Canada and call it home is because of diversity. We were told that we would have freedom of rights, religion and speech, but it feels like hate speech is being hidden behind the freedom of speech clause when they say, we have the freedom say what we want.
As immigrants, when we come to this country, we are very considerate of the people living here for generations. We try to adapt their cultures, tradition, and introduce our tradition and culture in our household, so we don’t feel ashamed in public.
Madam Chair, I remember that in the previous panel, you brought up the issue of should we change the word “Islamophobia.” Islamophobia means being afraid of the religion. At a young age growing up in North America, I had a nickname because people couldn’t pronounce my name as Furqan. So, I said Frank to make it easier for people to go by. And going through it, I realized this was not okay to go through this.
Now, Islamophobia means afraid of Islam. The moment I’m Canadian, and I’m Frank, I’m enjoying and I’m living, I’m drinking, everything is fine, everyone is okay with me, there are no issues. But the moment I become Furqan, where I practise my religion five times a day, if I say Bismillah Rahamani Raheem, people look at me and say, “Oh, what happened to you? Are you okay? Are you going through a situation? Are you going through a problem?” I said no, I’m a practising Muslim. But I am like an alien within that society because I became Furqan from Frank.
So, the issue is not the Muslims, it’s Islam itself. People are afraid of it, the Islam word itself, like, “Okay, are we going to get hit with Sharia laws,” and so on, and so on, which is a right to me. Being a Muslim and practising for years, I am not aware of detailed Sharia laws as some non-Muslim are. They ask me, “Did you know about this?” I’m, like, this is taken out of context. We don’t live in those times. So, obviously, that doesn’t apply nowadays, right? But it’s people finding reasons to attack us.
What, as Muslims, do we find? I would like to share a story that a staff member of mine shared with me recently. She comes from a European background and has been employed with us for over 10 years. When she started her employment, people approached her and said, “How can you work with Muslims? They will oppress you and take advantage of you.” She was nervous starting her career with us, but soon fell in love with us. She learned a lot about our religion and our culture and said how similar we are.
Every year during Ramadan, I host an Iftar night in my house to gather all the politicians, all the non-Muslims to come to my house and see what we do, how we fast, and what our traditions are. And we’re normal people, we had dreams to come to this country and be successful. I’m a perfect example. I’ve gone through hardship and this country opened its arms to me and made me successful. I am part of the Canadian dream. I have businesses, a beautiful wife and kids, a great education, a great house, and I’m loved in my community of Bradford. But I don’t want my kids to go through a situation where they have to tell me, “Dad, I didn’t get this because I think I’m Muslim,” or, because of this reason, or that reason. So, I think we should start by acknowledging the issue and accepting there is an issue, and not to weigh down the different departments by saying, “Okay, why doesn’t the education department deal with it?”
But how can we fix this problem? As we have sexual harassment, harassment policies in workplaces, this is something we should identify, and we have. One of my store staff, they are Muslim, they wear hijab at the front desk and my wife was afraid. She’s like, “How will customers react?” I had a staff member who was wearing a hijab and a customer come in, in Toronto. [Technical difficulties] But one of my staff made a comment by saying, “Oh, of course, they’re going to hire their own kind,” or “Oh, there’s more of you now,” because there’s more than one Muslim person there. What do I do, right? So, what we did was we reached out to HR company, tried to get Islamophobia, some video about it to educate them about Islamophobia, how these types of comments are not okay. So, a solution would be where are people hugely impacted? You know, either home or workplace is where the people spend most of their time.
The Chair: Thank you. Senator Arnot, do you have a question or a comment?
Senator Arnot: Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a comment. Thank you for coming, Mr. Abbassi. I really appreciate your passion, your emotion, and these are questions that are deeply held and there aren’t easy answers, obviously. But we hope that the recommendations of this panel will lead to the recognition that everyone has rights in this country, and that everyone has a responsibility to respect their fellow citizens.
It’s a fundamental responsibility of Canadian citizenship and it has to play out in a much different and better way in the future because we have to live up to what we have, which is a recipe for harmony in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in our mechanisms of government, and we are not at that stage yet. This will not happen by wishful thinking or osmosis; there has to be intentional and explicit policies, programs, and engagement of governments at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, in my opinion.
So, thank you for giving us this information, and I appreciate what you’re saying, and I appreciate you taking the time to come here today to tell us what we need to know. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. You raised an important issue about names and that’s something that has been briefly mentioned, but we will be exploring it further. I would like to explore this further because it’s from my own personal experience. My daughter graduated as a lawyer, had a hard time finding work and was told to change her name.
You know, Ataullajhan is hard, and then I named her Shaanzéh, which makes it even worse. I apologized to her profusely and she said, “No, I’m not comfortable working in a place where they want me to change my name. They have to accept me for what I am.” So, thank you, you’ve raised an important issue and I want to thank you and the next Ramadan, when you have the Iftar, I think you’ve got a few senators you need to invite.
Mr. Abbassi: Definitely. And the thing is, the issue again with Islamophobia that comes out whenever we feel isolated, and we love opening our doors, and we are a great community in Bradford. We would love for you guys to come down, get together, and see how we get along. And I agree with the last panel — what responsibility do we have as Muslims to introduce our culture and religion just as Islamic Heritage Month. It’s a great month. We have that and we can start talking about it, do our part, and I feel like that’s why some of us Muslims fail by not doing our part. We have to struggle as Muslims, struggle to get the point to move forward, and I would love to have you guys at our next Ramadan and try some Pakistani spicy food and see how it goes.
Hopefully, this community grows, and I just want to leave with one thought. After the research and this study, please, let’s ask ourselves why we are doing this. You mentioned an incident where people said we will take actions, we will do something, but nothing was done, and I think it’s time now to start to talk about it as internationally people who are being pushed down, are speaking up now. So, I think it’s time now, as we recognize it, accept it, apologize for it so we can all move forward, and everyone be equal. This is one thing that, internationally, people see Canada as the most socialized, fair country that accepts everyone, and that’s great. So, that’s my dream to see that one day.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Abbassi: Okay.
The Chair: Thank you very much, and I want to thank you for your testimony. You know, it will go a long way in helping us as we write the report. If you feel there’s anything you missed and that you would like to add, please feel free to send a written submission to the committee clerk. I know you travelled a long way, thank you for that.
Mr. Abbassi: Thank you for the opportunity.
The Chair: Yes. And senators, we will adjourn the meeting and we’ll reconvene tomorrow morning at 9:00. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)