---

THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

EVIDENCE

---

OTTAWA, Monday, October 24, 2022

The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 4:03 p.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: Good afternoon, and welcome to this meeting. I am Salma Ataullahjan, senator from Toronto and chair of this committee.

I will now introduce the members of the committee who are participating in this meeting: Senator Arnot from Saskatchewan, Senator Omidvar from Ontario, Senator Jaffer from British Columbia, Senator Gerba from Quebec and Senator Manning from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Our committee is studying Islamophobia under its general order of reference. Our study will cover, among other matters, the role of Islamophobia with respect to online and offline violence against Muslims, gender discrimination and 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.

After holding two meetings in Ottawa in June, our committee held public meetings last month in Vancouver, Quebec City and Toronto. In addition, we visited mosques in each of those cities. Today, we are continuing our public meetings in Ottawa to hear from national organizations and from representatives from other parts of our country.

Let me provide some details about our meeting today. This afternoon, we shall have two one and one-and-a-half-hour panels, with a 15-minute break between panels. In each panel, we will hear from the witnesses, and then the senators will have a question-and-answer session.

Now I will introduce our first panel of witnesses. Each witness has been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We will hear from all witnesses and then turn to questions from senators.

We have with us Nuzhat Jafri, Executive Director, Canadian Council of Muslim Women; Maryam Khan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University; and Ali Lakhani, Editor, Sacred Web.

I will now invite Ms. Jafri to make her presentation.

Nuzhat Jafri, Executive Director, Canadian Council of Muslim Women: Thank you, Senator Ataullahjan. I would like to thank the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights for its study on Islamophobia.

I’m speaking to you from the traditional territory of the Anishinabek and Haudenosaunee peoples. It is also the land of the Petun and Huron/Wendat peoples, and it is recognized officially as the land of the Mississaugas of the Credit. This land is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. As Canadian Muslim women, we stand in solidarity with Indigenous women and girls.

CCMW is an organization dedicated to the equality, equity and empowerment of Canadian Muslim women and girls that was founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1982 by the late Dr. Lila Fahlman and a group of determined Muslim women who sought to channel their passion for faith-centred social justice work and create a more inclusive Canada for all. CCMW is a registered charity, with 17 chapters across Canada.

Respecting the diversity of our communities, we approach our work through an intersectional lens and recognize our diverse identities and expressions. We are but one voice among many.

My remarks will focus on Islamophobia as it affects Muslim women and girls.

During the last five years, there have been 11 hate-motivated murders of Muslims in Canada, the highest among the G7. With these murders and a spate of hate-motivated attacks on Black Muslim women in hijabs in Calgary, Edmonton, the GTA and elsewhere in Canada, murder as the ultimate result of this hatred and violence is not a surprise. Perpetrators of the murders and assaults are often radicalized online and then act out in violent ways in person.

Since these murders and ongoing assaults, Muslim women and girls, particularly those who are visible by their attire, are afraid to leave their homes to go to work, school and for other routine activities. They experience this violence because of the intersections of misogyny, racism and religion, particularly anti-Black racism. Eighty-seven per cent of Muslim women in Canada are racialized. Gendered Islamophobia is real. Incidents of being harassed, spat on, subjected to racial slurs, and physical and verbal abuse are the lived realities of Muslim women and girls in Canada.

In Quebec, the situation is even worse because of an unjust law where systemic Islamophobia is sanctioned by the provincial government and Quebecois Muslim women are denied employment in the public sector because of what they wear. The law gives permission to discriminate against Muslim women in the province with little chance of recourse. According to successive studies CCMW has undertaken, Muslim women throughout Canada experience high levels of underemployment and unemployment compared with women of other faiths. They also have higher levels of education but barriers such as lack of Canadian experience, non-recognition of international credentials, and pervasive racism and Islamophobia have worsened their employment outcomes.

Muslim women experience discrimination and prejudice in all facets of life, be it education, transportation, housing, health care, while shopping and so on. Their experiences are well documented in the stories they have shared with us over the years.

Policy and legislative responses must consider the effects of gendered Islamophobia on the daily lives of Muslim women and their ability to function safely in all walks of life from an intersectional lens. Canada needs to pass meaningful legislation to address online hate through effective regulation, better reporting of hate crimes and complaint mechanisms, and disaggregated data collection that considers diverse intersectional identities. The trauma caused by Islamophobia and living in constant fear, exacerbated further by the pandemic, are taking a toll on our mental health and well-being. We implore the government of Canada to take swift action. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I’ll turn now to Maryam Khan.

Maryam Khan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University: Thank you to the standing committee for having me.

For me, this a very important topic, and my research is very much involved in my own identity as a queer Muslim woman. I’m an assistant professor at Laurier, and my research and scholarship examine an intersectional queer Muslim identity, or a queer Muslim intersectionality. By “intersectional,” I am referring to the theoretical approach, which was developed by Black feminist scholars, which seeks to examine how positionality markers such as ethnicity, ability, race, sexuality, religiosity, spirituality, et cetera, coalesce and come together and impact a person’s experiences within Canadian society.

So my work particularly aims to increase the resource, social and the cultural capital of queer, non-binary and trans Muslims. My work seeks to look at the identities in a robust way that doesn’t separate religiosity from sexuality. Oftentimes, there are many different accounts of you can only be queer or Muslim, so there are a lot of normative discourses that my work seeks to challenge.

In all my own work with queer Muslims and in my own lived experiences and being involved in the queer Muslim community as an organizer as well as a social worker, it’s important that the normative LGBTQ+ community really examines its own Islamophobia, because queer Muslims face intense Islamophobia in the larger queer community. This can look very different. This can look like the constant denying of a Muslim identity or the constant denying of a sexual and gender-diverse identity.

Also, normative LGBTQ+ service providers, for example, in health care and social services, don’t have adequate training to support queer Muslims. Oftentimes, when queer Muslims are engaging with the LGBTQ+ community in terms of services related to mental health, counselling or any kind of settlement services, there is a lot of education that queer Muslims end up doing, and that is troubling for me to hear from people in the community and through research.

There is also a pervasive discourse within the larger Canadian society that constructs Islam and Muslims as inherently transphobic, biphobic and homophobic, and my work seeks to challenge that.

Of course, there is the evidence of Muslim, bi, trans and homophobia that is a real thing, and queer Muslims do experience that. At the same time, painting all Muslims and different types of Islam as inherently homophobic and transphobic is problematic.

I would like to highlight that there has been an increase in religious conservatism that has played into the oppression LGBTQ+ folks, particularly religious LGBTQ+ folks in Canada. I am from the Waterloo region, and today is election day. I don’t know if you’ve seen it in the news, but there’s been so much media attention about some of the anti-trans and homophobic candidates who want a platform in the elections.

Some of the impacts on queer Muslims are poor mental health outcomes, suicidality and substance use within queer Muslim communities. Due to the Islamophobic othering, queer Muslims don’t come out as Muslim because there is a fear of being exoticized and tokenized because you have to tell your story about, “Oh, did your parents try to hurt you?” Or, “What happened to you?” It is seen as entertainment.

Another impact is the prevalence of violence experienced by queer Muslims who are targeted based on religious identity; it could be your name or ethnicity. That is rampant within the LGBTQ+ dating scene.

The other impact that I wanted to share with you is the targeted violence orchestrated by family members and ethno-racial communities that queer Muslims experience.

Another impact is that when queer Muslims seek services within the health care and social services arena, there is a lack of culturally relevant programs and services. That needs to be championed, because people are experiencing Islamophobic and racist comments, particularly within the queer Muslim women demographic. They’re constructed as not having agency and are seen as helpless. Often, Muslim women and queer Muslim women are not seen as agentic.

Of course, there is a lack of affirmative resources on how to support queer Muslims, so affirmative resources need to happen.

One of my recommendations, based on my research, work and grounding in the community is to have a federal Islamophobic strategy and to work with municipalities and regions across Canada to develop competency and resources for queer Muslims across health care, education, social services and some of the other sectors.

My next recommendation is to have protected funding for queer Muslim organizations that actually do the work with queer Muslim communities. Right now, no funding is offered by the government. Salaam Canada, which has been a very strong voice for queer Muslims, recently closed after 30 years in the community because there is no funding from any particular body, particularly the government. It is very much based on volunteerism, and the funds are not there.

Finally, I wanted to mention having a mandate for all social service and health care organizations to take professional development courses to understand queer Muslim intersectionality and to get that equity training so people can unpack and learn their own personal and professional biases and to have more meaningful community forums, meetings with queer Muslims to learn about some of the issues happening in the community.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I will now turn to Ali Lakhani.

M. Ali Lakhani, Editor, Sacred Web: Honourable senators, members of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, thank you for inviting me to make a presentation.

I will use my five minutes first by briefly introducing myself and then speaking about my perspective. About myself, I’m a lawyer who has been practising in Vancouver for over 40 years, including at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Some 25 years ago, I founded a journal called Sacred Web whose focus is to apply traditional “first principles” to issues of the modern world. The journal has been endorsed by, among others, Prince Charles, as he then was, now King Charles III, who introduced both the Sacred Web conferences; and by other scholars and religious leaders such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Karen Armstrong, and others. Sacred Web is now the leading journal in its field and has published a lot of articles on both Islam and Islamophobia.

I’m not formally trained as a scholar. However, in 2001, I was awarded the first prize at the Imam Ali International Conference in Tehran for my paper on the roots of Muslim jurisprudence. I have written four books, including an intellectual biography, if I can put it that way, on the thought of His Highness the Aga Khan, the leader of my Ismaili community, some of whose thinking I will be referencing today.

Turning to the substance now, your briefing note indicated that you would like the opening statement to focus on gendered intersectional and intergenerational impacts of anti-Muslim hate and how different groups are affected. This is not precisely my area of expertise. In fact, my approach is very different to the one that your briefing note adopts. I would suggest that we adopt a different lens. Instead of focusing on identity interests and intersectional interests, I would propose a wider framing of the issue.

Islamophobia definitely exists, but we need to understand why it exists and to find some solutions for it. The academic categories which are influenced by postmodern exposés of power frames, and intersectional discrimination is one way to approach it. Identity politics is another. My own preference is a wider framing of looking at these issues in terms of a loss of dignity, an attack on human dignity.

I’ll quote G.K. Chesterton, who said, “When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.” Since this is the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, I thought that quotation was pertinent to framing the issues as I would like to see them framed.

What happens when dignity is ignored in the context of Muslim hate? Well, first, you get intellectual opposition. One example would be Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations thesis, which has been much challenged by Edward Said, who sees Islamophobia as an Orientalist projection; or by His Highness the Aga Khan, who says it is better to speak of a clash of mutual ignorances than a clash of civilizations.

Similarly, in academic and journalistic settings, there is plenty of evidence of studies on bias. Studies have been done on this, and I can reference some of them later. Hate speech, profiling, harassment, discrimination, vandalism and violence are all ways in which Islamophobia is expressed.

What are the sources of Muslim hate? I’d like to point to four. The first is a distortion of Islam, a mischaracterization of concepts like sharia, jihad, hijab. I can speak to each of these later. The distortion of Islam, by the way, is not only by non-Muslims but also by Muslims themselves. The second sort of Muslim hate and cause of Islamophobia is the stereotyping of Muslims, viewing the umma as though it were a monolith instead of a diversity. The third is the conflation of religion with politics and culture. There are many things that are truly political and cultural in origin that are given the name or label of religion, and this causes Islamophobia. Finally, the projection of exceptionally bad behaviour by some Muslims as characterizing the views of most Muslims. There is exceptional bad behaviour, but not all Muslims should get tarred by it.

I’ll speak about and elaborate on each of those if called on later in my presentation, but I would like to end with proposing some solutions.

The leader of my Ismaili community, the Aga Khan, in an address at the University of Évora, in Portugal, in 2006, pointed to three attitudes that he said ranked high among the great public enemies of our time. He identified them as ignorance, arrogance and insensitivity. The best antidote to all of these is the antidotes they all suggest. In the case of ignorance, knowledge; in the case of arrogance, humility; in the case of insensitivity, empathy. This explains why my focus is on a harmonizing lens and harmonizing principles as opposed to looking at things from the point of view of polarizing and divisive principles or lenses.

At the end of the day, what we need to achieve is what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks termed The Dignity of Difference, the title of his book which responded to the tragic events of 9/11.

I’ll leave you with one quote from His Highness the Aga Khan who, in The Peterson lecture in Atlanta in April of 2008, said, “It is our differences that both define us and connect us.” Now, everyone will, of course, understand why our differences define us, but it is worth pondering how our differences, in fact, connect us. And how do our differences connect us? I would answer that it is by the dignity that is the matrix of our individuality which transcends the tribalism of identity politics and expresses itself as the ethic of compassion and caring which underpins what it means to be human.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Lakhani.

I want to thank all of you for your presentations, but before asking and answering questions, I would like to ask members and witnesses in the room to refrain from leaning in too close into the microphone or remove your earpiece while doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff in the room.

Senator Jaffer: Thank you to all three witnesses. You had different points of view. I found them interesting. I’ll start with Mr. Lakhani.

Mr. Lakhani, you are a well-known litigator in B.C., King’s Counsel, in fact, and also editor of many articles beside those in Sacred Web. You referred to the concepts of sharia, jihad and hijab as being misunderstood. Can you explain what you mean about them being misunderstood in ways that lead to Islamophobia?

Mr. Lakhani: Thank you, Senator Jaffer. There are reactionary views along the lines that sharia is incompatible with liberal democratic values or Western values. We saw some of that, for example, in 2005, when there was a proposal by the Ontario government to allow arbitration in family matters based on consent by different communities. Sharia is Muslim law like the Halakhah is for Jewish law. The term “sharia” comes from entomology, “shari,” which refers to a path to water. For desert nomads, that was very important. The point is that this is a path to salvation.

His Highness the Aga Khan has said about sharia that our interest is not in the codes but in the principles behind the codes, so it’s important to understand what those principles are. There are many different interpretations of sharia, but they all come down to what they call maqasid, doctrinal goals, and maslaha, the interests of the common good. The maslaha is generally considered to preserve the five essentials of human well-being: faith, life, intellect, dignity and property.

The question I would ask about sharia and its misunderstandings is this: Is it fair to understand sharia as a set of oppressive laws that are incompatible of civil values when some of the greatest civilizational values, such as caring for the underprivileged, women’s rights, ethical pluralism and mediation in the face of aggression, are historically rooted in sharia? I’ll remind the audience here that the inheritance verses of the Quran gave women the right to inherit 12 centuries before that happened in Britain with the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882.

Second, jihad is a bit of a dog whistle for Muslims being terrorists. In fact, the term “jihad” means “to fight in God’s cause” as the surah an-Nisa, the fourth surah of the Quran states in verse 74. It is well known that the prophet of Islam referred to the jihad an-nafs — that is the struggle against oneself — as the greatest jihad.

There are very strong Quranic principles of self-defence and non-aggression. Warfare is to be conducted under very strict limits, primarily in the interests of self-defence — self-defence not only for Muslims but for places of worship of others, such as monasteries, churches, synagogues, et cetera. Fighting must happen in an equitable manner; one cannot strike someone indiscriminately or in anger. The Quran says that if others break their treaty, be equitable and give them an opportunity to reform. If they incline to peace, then incline to it as well.

One of the great Muslim exemplars in this is Emir Abdelkader. There is a city in the United States called Elkader, Iowa, that is named after him. He was renowned for his chivalry and honourable warfare. He was an Algerian who was attacked by the French colonizers, and he won them over; he won their admiration. He later won the admiration of the whole world when he sheltered Christians from attacks by the Druze Muslims in Damascus in 1860. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur by the French. He received an award from the Pope. He was a hero of Abraham Lincoln, who sent him two Colt pistols as a mark of his esteem.

So my question with respect to jihad is this: Is it fair to borrow the terminology of extremist expressions of Islam to portray a narrow view of jihad that ignores the prophet of Islam’s distinction between jihad as used in a form of struggle or defence for the nascent and oppressed Muslim community and the greater jihad against the “self”?

Finally, with respect to hijab, we are seeing in Iran, for example, and in Afghanistan certain kinds of oppression in the name of religion that is conducted primarily against women. The roots of many of these are cultural; they’re not Quranic. The holy Quran speaks about the virtue of modesty and chastity with respect to both genders. Here, it is important to distinguish between the concepts of unity and uniformity instead of seeking an enforced homogeneity imposed upon others.

That points to the importance of the ethic of pluralism and pluralistic dialogue; that people will have differences, and those differences need to be addressed in ways that are peaceable. A pluralistic ethic can achieve that.

I will sum up by saying that the Global Centre for Pluralism, which is an initiative of the Aga Khan Development Network and the Government of Canada, is a leader in this area.

Senator Jaffer: Thank you. Chair, I’ll go on the second round.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you to all our witnesses for your most enlightening presentations.

My question is to Ms. Jafri of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. As we have seen in Canada, Muslim and non-Muslim women have been marching in the streets in support of what has been happening in Iran, where, as we all know, there is an uprising against the bureaucracy and also the hijab.

How is this support for removing the hijab impacting Islamophobia and, in particular, Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab?

Ms. Jafri: Thank you for that question, Senator Omidvar. That’s a very good question.

There have been Islamophobic attacks on mosques in the GTA that we’ve heard about and against individual Muslim women who do wear a head scarf or some kind of attire that identifies them as Muslim and some others who are mistaken for Muslims.

But that is not what we are experiencing, generally. We are experiencing solidarity with women, both those in Canada who are being prohibited from wearing it and those who are being forced to wear it in other parts of the world. We’ve always believed that the woman has the right to choose.

Again, in Islam, the hijab is a very distinct concept. As Mr. Lakhani pointed out, it’s about modesty of both men and women. The word “hijab” actually means like “a curtain” or “a separation.” It does not connote a piece of clothing worn on your head. In fact, at least from our research, there is no such explicit requirement. It is always about modesty.

We believe that women have the right to choose what they wear, whether it’s wearing a head scarf here in Canada or somewhere else.

But I really do agree with what Mr. Lakhani has said when he talked about uniformity versus universality. There is no uniform for Muslim women. It’s not prescribed anywhere. We can wear what we want. If you look around the Muslim world, the diversities in the ways Muslim women dress — even in Iran, there is a diversity of how Muslim women dress.

So there is no prescription for a Muslim dress. That’s because we can exercise our autonomy. We can educate ourselves from within the Quran, from the Hadith and from within our faith traditions to educate ourselves and then decide what we want to do.

Senator Omidvar: Ms. Jafri, I’m wondering if you believe that the support for women in Iran will also equate to a reduction in Islamophobia. Will the universality and the solidarity that we are expressing with women of the world correlate to a reduction in Islamophobia, especially against women who wear the hijab in Canada?

Ms. Jafri: That’s really hard to predict, because our premise has always been that Muslim women have the right to choose what they wear. But we’re tired of the hijab debate.

Let me put it to you this way: Why are Muslim women constantly reduced to a piece of clothing as their only identity? We are very complex human beings, like any other woman. A Muslim woman is a complex human being, seeking dignity to be who she is, being a human being. We have a lot more to offer than debates about what we wear.

So we’re tired of this debate, and we’d like to get on with our lives.

When we educate people across our country, we do a lot of anti-Islamophobia education, particularly from a gendered lens, and we talk about that. We talk about the diversity of Muslim women and their agency to choose. A lot of our audiences happen to be non-Muslims. When we engage in that dialogue where we do education, they get to understand us better and not just as being reduced to a piece of clothing.

I hope that helps.

We have to tell you that we do a lot of education on this topic. One of the important things to mention about what’s happening in Iran is that the revolution, or the current protests, are not just about being able to wear something or not. They’re about freedom; they’re about the lives of those women. They’re struggling for their lives, their well-being and their right to be.

So you have to put it in context. I won’t go into the questions in Afghanistan, but it’s always about the women being able to do what they were born to do: be themselves and contribute to society.

Thank you.

Senator Omidvar: I will go on a second round.

Senator Arnot: Thank you. I have a question that I’m directing to all three witnesses. I appreciate the witnesses coming here today.

I will just preface my comments by saying that I was in Toronto in October 2010 when the Aga Khan came to Canada and described Canada as the most successful experiment in pluralism the world has ever seen. That really struck me. I believe he’s very accurate in that.

But at least to that observation, I believe we have failed in Canada to fundamentally protect and promote our multicultural and multitheistic country by inculcating Canadian citizens with the knowledge that they need to understand the rights of Canadian citizenship and the responsibilities that come with those rights.

I’ve made these remarks to many of the panellists that we’ve heard in this committee. I am particularly trying to focus on the solutions that the committee should be considering. The solutions have been amplified by these witnesses here today.

I appreciate Mr. Lakhani’s comments about identifying the sources of anti-Muslim hate and addressing those sources directly. My theory is that there is a significant power in education, and we need to harness that power to change attitudes in the community. We need to do so in two ways. One way is that Heritage Canada and others need to be much more strategic in programming and communication around the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship.

Similarly, with respect to the K-to-12 system, I believe we need resources that answer these questions: What does it mean to be a Canadian citizen? What are the rights of Canadian citizenship? Fundamentally, what are the responsibilities that come with those rights, and how do you build and maintain respect for every citizen without exception?

Canadian parliamentarians and legislators repatriated the Constitution in 1982. We are a multicultural, multitheist, multiethnic country, and we need to make an investment in that. In my opinion, we need to make sure all students in the K-to-12 system fundamentally understand the essential competencies of Canadian citizenship, which, in my opinion, are embodied in five Es: That all citizens should be ethical, enlightened, engaged, empowered and empathetic.

This fits in with what Mr. Lakhani said, and I believe that we need to teach that in every school in Canada, through every grade, from K to 12.

I appreciate that the witnesses, in terms of the solutions to this issue of anti-Muslim hate, which is obviously very acute in Canada — what they believe would be appropriate as a solution, especially on education.

I can tell you that the resources I’ve spoken about exist in Canada today in the Concentus and Citizenship Education program.

I’d really like to hear the comments of the witnesses. I believe this committee needs to focus on solutions as much as identifying issues.

The Chair: Thank you, senator. Before the witnesses answer, can I ask you to please be a bit brief in your answers? We have some senators on the second round and one senator who hasn’t asked a question, as of yet.

Mr. Lakhani, I’ll turn to you.

Mr. Lakhani: Yes. Thank you for those comments and the focus on solutions, which I fully endorse.

It’s useful to make a distinction between systemic and attitudinal barriers that lead to Islamophobia. I’ll give you examples. In terms of systemic barriers, when one goes through school, how much does one learn about Muslim civilizations? I would venture to say that prior to the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, most non-Muslim Canadians were largely unaware of the distinction between the Shia and the Sunni. That’s like saying we’re not aware of the difference between Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox Christians. It’s a very basic distinction, but where are they going to learn about that?

Then you get attitudinal problems and barriers. We’ve talked about some of them today. One of them is the stereotyping of Muslims. Let’s consider who Muslims are. With more than 2 billion Muslims worldwide, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world. It’s projected that, by 2050, there will be more Muslims than Christians. If one were to ask ordinary non-Muslim Canadians what their impressions are of where Muslims reside, you are going to get the standard countries that come to light, mostly in the Middle East, for example. However, the five most populous Muslim countries in the world are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. None of them are in the Middle East and none of them Arab, for example.

There’s a tremendous diversity in Islam.

His Highness Aga Khan said in one of his speeches — I don’t remember exactly when — that there’s something “intellectually uncouth” to choose to perceive a mass of over a billion people of any faith as a standardized mass.

You said to keep this brief, so I’ll wrap up with this. He has also spoken about the distinction between knowledge gaps and empathy gaps. He has said that we need to bridge those knowledge gaps, because by doing that, we will bridge empathy gaps, and that will deal with the problem of othering and struggling to remain empathetically open to the other.

Ms. Jafri: Thank you, senator. We would highly recommend that the focus be on education, particularly K to 12, because children absorb information at that stage. When they are learning, they hunger to learn.

We are working on producing materials that could be used in the schools. For instance, for Islamic History Month, we have been carrying features called Islamic Herstory, where we are profiling a historical Muslim woman and a contemporary Muslim woman here in Canada who has made a difference. We’ve been running this campaign through social media and a teacher approached us and said, “I’d like to use this in my classroom. Do you have more materials for us?”

In fact, we do have materials. We have provided our sessions to students, primarily in the secondary sector, but we have done some in the elementary sector as well. That’s where we need to start.

Another really important cohort that needs to have focus is high school students in grades 11 and 12 and then post-secondary students in colleges and universities because we’re noticing that they start becoming radicalized late in their high school years. They continue to be radicalized online and then they act out their violence. It is critical for us to reach those young people.

Mr. Lakhani talked about this idea that Muslims are monolithic. When we offer our program, we start with the premise of the diversity of Muslims around the world and the fact that those who migrated here to some degree also represent that diversity. The majority of Muslims in Canada happen to be of South Asian descent, because those were the migration patterns, and then there were refugees who arrived from other parts of the Muslim world as well. Also, there is the conflation of ethnicity and religion. That is, being Arabs and Muslims, although there are many Arabs who arrived here who are not much.

We need to educate to make those distinctions, but we also need to say that this is a peaceful faith. Muslims adhere to their faith only to be answerable to God, not to anyone else. They’re not practising their faith to show anyone. It’s not a performative religion. We don’t want to show our faith to everyone, necessarily. We practise it quietly.

We have many resources that we can offer. We can share with the committee as well. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Maryam, would you like to respond?

Ms. Khan: To build on what the other witnesses have mentioned, when we’re talking about the term Islam it’s important to say whose Islam. That plurality really needs to be emphasized as does that separation of culture and religion. Even today, we’re using Arab terms like hijab, jihad and things like that. These terms are not part of my Islamic parlance, if you will. A lot of times religion and culture get subsumed into one category. That needs to be teased out.

In terms of education, I really like the idea of having some kind of Islamic introduction to Islams in plural, many different types of Muslimness, or what Muslims look like. That has to include sexual and gender diversity. Oftentimes, even within normative Muslim communities, no one really talks about the transphobia, the biphobia and the homophobia that exists within these communities. That needs to be front and centre as well.

Through education, there could be research funding streams through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, and other funding bodies could have streamlined grants that focus on Islamophobia and eradication of Islamophobia. Some things could be done in that realm as well. Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony, the lessons they share and the solutions they propose.

Ms. Jaffri talked about the government’s role in finding appropriate measures to eliminate this scourge. She referred to laws that could be enacted to address violence arising from Islamophobia. Other than legislation, what can we really do to increase acceptance? I know education is important, along with awareness to help people understand the many different variants of Islam. What can we do to help Muslim women be accepted? When I say Muslim, I am talking about women with veils and men wearing religious symbols.

I am referring to Quebec, because that is where I am from. We are talking about societies that now consider themselves secular. What can we do to help these women be included in society while also preserving their identity?

[English]

The Chair: Is your question directed to anybody?

Senator Gerba: To anybody. Mr. Lakhani, who is a lawyer, or Ms. Jafri.

Ms. Jafri: Maybe we’ll hear from Mr. Lakhani first and then I’ll go next.

Mr. Lakhani: That’s an excellent question. I think what can be done is to focus on a building of acceptance of diversity rather than trying to straightjacket society into certain ideals.

There are projects that are dealing with this. I’ll give you a few examples from the Muslim world and a few examples from outside the Muslim world.

Within the Muslim world, there was the Amman Conference in 2005, which was an initiative in Jordan that was reported widely in The Economist, for example, as an attempt to block those elements within the Muslim world that wanted to view Islam in homogeneous ways.

There was the Common Word Initiative, also out of Jordan, that was a reach-out after the former pope’s address in 2006 and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s Cordoba initiative on Muslim-west relations. These are all examples of how we, in the Muslim world, are trying to focus on respect for diversity. I’ve mentioned the Global Centre for Pluralism here in Canada. Outside the Muslim world, I would single out projects like Harvard’s Pluralism Project, Brown University’s digital humanities project, even something like you have in Toronto, like the Aga Khan Museum, where people can learn about the diversity of civilizations.

Your question really goes to what do you do when there is an attempt to homogenize society? How do you counter that? One way you counter that is by showing the richness of diversity by explaining the history. In the case of the West, there is a gap of some 600 years of history from Ferdinand and Isabella’s conquest off Andalusia onwards. There is a 600-year gap or “historical amnesia” which needs to be bridged. How are we doing that? That should be done by education. You’re in a position to influence the educating of society in ways that respect diversity. I’ll just stop there.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lakhani.

Ms. Jafri: Thank you, senator, for that question.

I think it’s a very difficult challenge in Quebec because of its own history with the church, and it does tend to follow somewhat what’s happening in France. But Quebec in itself not absent of religion; it does have a legacy of its own religion. The fact that Muslim women or people of other faiths cannot visibly wear their religious symbols is kind of rich. We have to really look at Quebec’s own history.

The other fundamental question is that Quebec needs immigrants. When it was seeking to populate the province, they sought out French-speaking people from other parts of the world, for example, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon and Egypt, where some people’s second language happened to be French. They were attracted to the province of Quebec so they could come and qualify to work here. They met their requirements, got their licences to practise whatever the profession was whether teaching, jurists or law enforcement officers. But now we’re saying to them: “You can only do that if you take off the head scarf or if you take off that turban.” It’s disingenuous to ask people to come to the province for their skills and knowledge, and then the only way they get to use their knowledge and skills is if they adhere to a homogeneous view of how Quebecers should look and behave.

It’s important to go back to the campaigns that the Province of Quebec ran to attract immigrants to the province in the first place and remind everyone that these folks came because you said they could offer something to your province. Now, what you can offer them is a welcoming and accommodating culture within Quebec that respects their dignity, diversity and expressions of their faith, regardless of what it is, because the faith has nothing to do with that person’s ability to do a great job as a teacher, a jurist or a law enforcement officer. What they wear has nothing to do with it.

It’s important to go back and think about why we are here. Why are all the Muslims talking to you here? Yes, our parents brought us here, or some of us came as refugees, but we’re not here to exist separately from everyone else. We are interdependent. We like to work with everyone else. We’re not islands. We have to be respected, as everyone else, for our contributions to the society. Just imagine if a million Muslims and over 500,000 Muslim women — not all Muslim women wear the hijab — decided to boycott places where they work because they’re saying, “Well, you don’t value us as Muslims, how can we contribute to your society?” Of course, we’re not going to do that because we need each other. We need all of us to make this country the great country that it is and keep making it a wonderful place for all of us.

The Chair: Thank you. Maryam Khan, would you like to respond to that question?

Ms. Khan: I agree with Mr. Lakhani and Ms. Jafri, so I don’t have anything else to add.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Lakhani and Ms. Jafri, you spoke about this. I myself, as a practising Muslim, when I look through the Quran, all I see is, “Women, you dress modestly,” and there are also rules for men: “Lower your gaze.” As someone who grew up in Pakistan, I didn’t see the hijab until I came to Canada. That might surprise people, and I see those nodding in agreement. Some women, if they felt like covering their heads, put it loosely on their head, but mostly we didn’t see that.

Also, when women did start wearing the hijab, there wasn’t this reaction that we’re seeing nowadays. What is driving this reaction? What has changed? I’ve noticed the conversations have changed. Even for me, just a simple thing of condemning the attacks that the Imam Mahdi mosque in Richmond Hill has faced, and I’m getting a backlash from people. What has changed?

There is an obsession with the hijab. You mentioned that there is an obsession with the hijab and condemning it. I defend the right of a woman to wear a hijab or not to wear a hijab. That’s for a woman to decide. Can you explain to me what changed? What conversations are we having now that we weren’t having a few years ago?

Ms. Jafri: CCMW has been studying this issue and publishing books, studies and reports on the hijab and the niqab. In fact, right after the Iranian Revolution, there was almost like a reaction. I know Mr. Lakhani mentioned that before the revolution nobody knew the difference between Shias and Sunnis. But as a reaction to the revolution, there was a sort of orthodoxy in parts of the Middle East that needed to prescribe what a real Muslim should look like, and it started with women. Women had to dress a certain way, and that’s why you have this universal hijab that many Muslim women wear. That was not part of my culture. I came here. My mother didn’t wear it. I remember my grandmother would take a long scarf, put it on her head and then she would go out. The only time she would wear it was on public transit in her home city of Karachi when she was going to school or college because she needed to wear something. It was not this prescribed hijab. It was like a coat that had two veils, and she would choose either the thinner or the thicker one to put on because she was going on public transit sitting with men on the bus. She wanted to protect herself. That was back in the early 1960s. That’s what I saw.

But here it all changed after the revolution, and this uniform expression of the hijab only grew with the rise of conservative interpretations of Islam. A lot of other orthodoxies came into play among Muslims, and I don’t relate to them as a Muslim woman. I didn’t grow up with all those of restrictions, what you can do, what you can’t do, how you should dress, how you should not dress. These are political reactions and we get caught in the geopolitical conflicts between Muslims around the world, and then those are translated to our cities and towns here. Hence you see the attack on the Imam Mahdi mosque.

These are things we can’t solve ourselves, but we can continue to educate people about our diversity, about the fact that we’re not all the same. Just as not all Christians are the same, not all Muslims are the same. Yes, there are sectarian differences, but the commonalities far outweigh those differences.

The other fundamental thing is a piece of clothing, as I said, does not define a woman. They used to say clothes make the man. I would say clothes do not make the woman. Please, we’re way more than that.

By the way, I appreciate what my sister Maryam has been saying about more focus on sexual diversity and gender diversity in our communities because we know that there is a real struggle within our own communities. When we see prejudices against people within our own faith, whether it’s by sect or by sexual orientation, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. We’re all in this together, and we want to improve the lives of all of us. Thanks.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Lakhani: I would make the distinction between the hijab as an expression of dignity and the hijab as an expression of indignity. The hijab as an expression of dignity is when a woman chooses to wear it for a dignified purpose. However, it becomes an expression of indignity when it is imposed on her — when she is told that she must wear it and if she doesn’t, she will be punished. On that latter point, this is an example of custom sometimes being conflated with religion. Some societies are very conservative and have customs that are not accepted by the majority of Muslims around the world. But when those customs are imposed on people, as with Bill 21 in Quebec, for example, or when a uniform is imposed on a society, if it has not been internalized and accepted for dignified ends, there will be a reaction against it.

The other thing that comes out of this is when, say, women in Iran or in Afghanistan are contesting some kind of imposed clothing, it plays into Islamophobia in the sense that it becomes a dog whistle. Hijab then becomes a way of equating all Muslims as being uncivilized because the expressions of some Muslim societies, which are oppressive, are taken to be representative of Muslims as a whole.

This is where education comes in. That’s a very important aspect of it. Thank you.

The Chair: Maryam Khan, would you like to respond?

Ms. Khan: Just to add to what has already been said by Mr. Lakhani and Ms. Jafri. One of the key elements we haven’t really talked about is patriarchy and how that is part and parcel of Canadian society and many regions of the globe. That is something that needs to be critiqued and challenged on an ongoing basis. There is also heteronormativity. The presumption that everyone is heterosexual and cisgendered also needs to be talked about. Most of my conversations with people within Canadian society, particularly within LGBTQ+ circles, have been around — one of the reasons for people being Islamophobic is that there is this belief that Islam and Muslimness have nothing to do with gender and sexual diversity. That is one myth that I debunk all the time because there is documented evidence that Islam and Muslims have — whatever term you want to use — queerness, sexual and gender diversity and what have you.

There is also, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of the religious texts: the sacred Quran as well as the sayings of the prophet and the imams and stuff like that. In my own reading and research, there is really nothing inherently transphobic and queerphobic about what the Quran says about being queer. That is the work I do. I try to debunk the assumption people make that Islam says this about homosexuality, which is inaccurate. Thank you.

The Chair: I want to take this opportunity to welcome Senator Ravalia, who has joined us. Thank you for being here.

Senator Jaffer: We’ve had excellent witnesses today, and we could probably do with another hour. However, that’s not going to be possible.

Mr. Lakhani, in our discussion, Senator Arnot is always talking about education — rightly so. I wanted to ask you about that because you have pointed out in your presentation the need for an ethical education to counter unethical responses to Islam. What kinds of initiatives do you envision and what kinds of initiatives should we be recommending to the government?

Mr. Lakhani: Thank you for that very good question. I mentioned earlier the distinction between knowledge gaps and empathy gaps in order to make the point that His Highness the Aga Khan makes that it is only by learning about each other in a way that makes us appreciate the otherness of each other that we can find our deeper connectedness.

There is a famous verse, known as the Bani Adam verse, that graces the edifice of the United Nations building in Geneva. It’s by the poet Sa’adi from one of his famous books The Gulistan. In paraphrase, it goes something like this. It says that the children of Adam are as limbs to each other. If a calamity affects one, it affects all. And whoever cannot feel the pain of another is not worthy of being called a human being.

The reason I cite that, and I suspect the reason it graces the portico at the United Nations building, is because it points to our deep connectedness — our common humanity. So the education that is needed is an appreciation of a cosmopolitan ethic — that we really are a common humanity, and we should focus on coming together because if we don’t focus on coming together, we will pull apart.

Then the question becomes: How do we do that? Because obviously not everyone thinks alike. We all have our differences. This is where the ethic of pluralism becomes really important — to view pluralism as a process, not a product — as a work in process and as a way of understanding that ethics are ultimately about the expression of caring that flows from our deep connectedness. That is why at the beginning of my presentation today, in my opening statement, I proposed the idea of a different lens: not intersectionality or gender issues or any identity lens, but a frame of our common humanity — of dignity as a focus. If we keep that in mind, particularly if the standing committee keeps that in mind, I think it will be a “north star” for solutions.

Other things can be done more in the sense of countering negative influences. I’ll give one example. There is the Fear, Inc. report put out in 2011 by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which examined the roots of Islamophobia in North America and sourced the misinformation to a number of networks of funding organizations and five so-called experts — people like, as I recall, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes and some familiar names. It is also important to understand who is putting out the fake news, the dog whistles, et cetera. I think that, too, is part of the educational work we can do to relieve us of the systemic blockages that exist in the way of ethical education. Thank you.

Senator Jaffer: Mr. Lakhani, please be very short, but the stereotyping has been going on and the expression has been used throughout our hearings. Also, you used it today.

Can you suggest what the causes — you and other witnesses have touched on that — of stereotyping of Muslims? Could you give some examples? Very quickly, please.

Mr. Lakhani: Fear is the biggest one. There is also a lack of knowledge. I say “fear” because if we see something that is different from us, we feel it is going to threaten us.

Then there are the dog whistle concepts like sharia, which really should not be a dog whistle at all. There are also ones around hijab and jihad. I’ve given those three examples.

So fear is one, but there is also a kind of protectionism — a circling of the wagons that we need to band together, group together and form camps. By forming camps, we tribalize, we get ghettoize and create the other. Those are attitudinal. Attitudinal then seeps into systemic ways of stereotyping, which are very dangerous and contribute to Islamophobia.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you once again, witnesses, for your wisdom. I have particular questions for each of you, and I would appreciate it if you could keep your answers short so that I can hopefully get through them.

My first question is to Ms. Khan. Thank you so much, Ms. Khan, for your testimony today. In another committee that I chair, we are studying mental health and suicide. We have been informed that certain communities — ethnic communities, religious communities — face particular mental health challenges. You spoke about them and suicidation as well. You also proposed a solution that is targeted, protected funding for queer youth.

Could you go beyond that and talk about what supports are needed to protect and support young people, in particular LGBT+ young people who are Muslims from the mental health stresses of Islamophobia?

Ms. Khan: Thank you. That’s a great question.

One particular thing that could happen is the psychoeducation that could happen within the school systems. There could be an awareness that could be created by talking about people who are queer and Muslim, and the challenges. What are some of the strengths of having that particular social location?

Have people come in as guest speakers. Have readings, in particular, that speak to that topic will be very helpful.

A normalization of some issues around mental health, coming out and all of those things are very important because, in my many conversations as a peer support worker with young people as well as adults who identify as queer Muslims, constantly having to explain that there are different kinds of Muslims and different kinds of queerness. There’s not just one way of being queer or one way of being Muslim. So there is that awareness that can be created by inviting guest speakers in, by having material and by having articles. I’ll stop there for now.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you.

Ms. Jafri, I want to query you about [Technical difficulties]. We all know the facts, but let me briefly repeat what I find stunning. A 2015 study found that, despite being more likely to hold a university degree than the general population, Canadian Muslims, especially Canadian Muslim women who are wearing hijabs, experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment.

What solutions should we be looking at to deal with that expression of racism, and what solutions can we think of that are focused on employers as well as the federal government?

Ms. Jafri: Again, we’ve done those studies. For each wave of study that we’ve done, we’ve found the employment situation of Canadian Muslim women worsening rather than improving. Those wearing the hijab are subject to more discrimination than others.

One of the solutions we have proposed is education for employers. I know we don’t have provincial employment equity legislation, but we do have federal employment equity legislation, and within the designated groups, I would say this: Expand the number of designated groups to include religious minorities. Do an intersectional analysis to see where Muslim women are currently situated in the federal public service or federally regulated employers, and when employers are conducting their employment systems reviews, they need to look at what the barriers are that are being identified specifically for Canadian Muslim women.

Beyond that, all employers — just like right now, most employers, whether it’s in provincially regulated or federally regulated sectors, are receiving some kind of diversity training. They should be receiving anti-Islamophobia training, anti-Semitism, anti-racism and anti-Black racism education and training. But it has to go beyond that, where managers and leaders are held accountable, not only for the representation of diversity in their workforce but where people are situated in the hierarchies within their organizations.

We start to do some of that, then it falls by the wayside. People are really not held accountable to those results.

There are many other solutions I know we could propose, but I know we’re running out of time. Thank you for asking that question.

Senator Omidvar: This question is for Professor Lakhani. Professor Lakhani, I don’t think anyone can argue with your recommendations or solutions that knowledge, humility and empathy will close this wicked gap. I can’t disagree with you that a harmonizing position versus taking a more particular position is likely better in the long run.

However, we are legislators here, and I don’t believe we can legislate humility and empathy, even though those must be generated. Can you give shape to that particular solution of yours? How do you think the federal government, in particular, should generate humility and empathy?

Mr. Lakhani: It is by being leaders and advocating that, first. Second, do so by allowing greater Muslim representation in curriculum building. Third, seek Muslim representation on solutions, as you have done today. Those are just some of the things that come to my mind immediately.

There is a natural tension between identity and a sense of belonging — identity in the sense of one’s need to express oneself as an individual and belonging in the sense of needing to be a part of the group. There can be a natural tension between those two. One way to bridge that is through civilizational education and cultural activities that naturally bring people together. That is a solution.

There are many solutions that legislators can be a part of, but the first one that I mentioned is by being advocates and leaders by speaking out. That is probably the most important one.

The Chair: Thank you.

I want to take the opportunity to thank all the witnesses for being here. Your presentations were excellent, and your assistance with our study is greatly appreciated. If there is anything you feel that you missed that you would have liked to have said, you can make a written submission to us.

Ms. Jafri, if you don’t mind sharing some of those studies you have done, we would really appreciate that.

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 witnesses and then turn to questions from the senators.

We have Dr. Javeed Sukhera, Chief of Psychiatry, Hartford Hospital, in Hartford, Connecticut. We have Fatimah Jackson-Best, Assistant Professor, Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, McMaster University in Hamilton. From the Saskatoon Open Door Society, we have Ali Abukar, Chief Executive Officer.

Now I will turn to Dr. Javeed Sukhera to make his presentation. It’s very nice to see you, and I’m glad to see you looking well.

Dr. Javeed Sukhera, Chief of Psychiatry, Hartford Hospital, as an individual: Thank you, Honourable Senator Ataullahjan and other members of the committee. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak this evening to the issue of anti-Muslim prejudice. I’m a practising child and adolescent psychiatrist in the United States and Canada. I’m also a PhD scientist, and my research has explored how to address forms of bias and prejudice within health care.

I’m on the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and I have been involved in cross-sectoral advocacy in education, policing and social services for many years in Canada before moving to the U.S.

Most recently, I served as the chair of the London Police Services Board. In this role, I worked extensively in training and building capacity for trauma-informed services in multiple sectors. I was serving as board chair on the evening of June 6, 2021, when our family friends, the Afzaal family, were murdered in a hate crime a few minutes from my home in London.

I’m here with you today because this issue is both personal and professional for me. It is about the simple question of whether or not I can look at my children, or any other Canadian Muslim, and tell them with confidence that they can safely go for a walk.

In the early days of my research career, we held up the mirror to health professionals to explore how they processed and integrated feedback about having harmful biases that can impact patient care and cost lives. They responded in ways that suggested that we are all caught up in a counterproductive cycle of blame and projection. We burn so much energy pointing our fingers at other people, other nations, other societies as being part of prejudice and discrimination, but rarely do we Canadians hold up the mirror to ourselves.

I have lived in multiple countries, and I will always call Canada home. Being a Canadian is a central part of my identity. However, I can share with you today that we have a serious problem with denialism and avoidance in Canada.

We must ask ourselves if our national ignorance and complacency make us complicit in perpetuating hateful violence.

Research on the mental health impacts of Islamophobia is clear. When children or youth experience anti-Muslim prejudice, they experience physical and psychological effects of toxic stress that adversely affect their ability to learn and thrive. Yet, most significantly, research shows that Canada and many in our mental health system deny the existence of such prejudice, which compounds and worsens the adverse effect of such prejudice on the well-being of Canadian Muslims.

Responding to Islamophobia requires moving forward with a whole-of-government approach across systems and structures. We cannot simply raise awareness; we must take action to address the structural ways in which we perpetuate state-sponsored discrimination. From Bill 21 in Quebec to the way we approach hate crime laws and regulate law enforcement, we are all part of the problem and we must take responsibility and be part of the solution.

But before we can do anything, we must begin with the simple understanding that we cannot address what we cannot name. We must look at ourselves in the mirror and ask whether our ongoing denialism bolsters the forces of white supremacy and anti-Muslim hatred or weakens it. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Sukhera. I will now turn to Fatimah Jackson-Best.

Fatimah Jackson-Best, Assistant Professor, Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, McMaster University, as an individual: Good evening, everyone. My name is Fatimah Jackson-Best. I’m very honoured to be here today.

In 2019, the Black Muslim Initiative and the Tessellate Institute launched the findings from a systematic review of published and unpublished literature about Black Muslims in Canada. The project was prompted by a growing recognition that in spite of the visibility of Black Muslims in Canada, there was no consolidation and analysis of existing research that has been done by and with these communities. Cognizant of this context, I suggested a systematic review because it can be leveraged to produce high-quality research evidence on topics that have diverse information sources. Systematic reviews are also useful for gauging research landscapes and gaps in knowledge which are important to ascertain before embarking upon a larger research study on the subject of interest.

As a Black Muslim woman who was born in Canada, I also had a vested interest in this topic and in utilizing an approach that would be both accessible and beneficial to the communities that I am a part of and would share this work with. Over the last 10 years, I have engaged in research that centres groups that I share an identity with, and Black women and Black communities in the Caribbean and Canada have been my primary focus.

However, a project about Black Muslims in Canada was perhaps one of the most personal studies that I have worked on, to date. My parents were among the first waves of Black people who converted to Islam in the 1960s and 1970s in North America and the Caribbean respectively. As a result, I was raised in a tight-knit black Muslim community and also among non-Black Muslims from nearly every corner of the world. Immersed in both realities, I knew that Muslims are diverse and that Black Muslims are no exception. Conducting a systematic review of work about Black Muslims in Canada not only fulfilled my research interests, but it also addressed a personal investment in exploring Black Muslim trajectories in the country.

In her work entitled On Rocks and Hard Places: A Reflection on Antiblackness in Organizing Against Islamophobia, Délice Mugabo unpacks one of the most significant findings from the systematic review: the term anti-Black Islamophobia. This term amplifies the specific types of racism and discrimination experienced by Black Muslims and individuals who are perceived to be Black and Muslim. It also describes how Black Muslims become erased from dominant narratives about Muslim identity by non-Black Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Although they do not use the same term, other works captured in the systematic review also described similar realities. Several studies included gender alongside race and religion through focusing on Black Muslim women in activist and religio-cultural spaces, which facilitated a greater understanding of how they become marginalized within Muslim communities.

Across most of the work retrieved in the systematic review, authors discussed the nuances of being both Black and Muslim. Rarely were these identities separated from one another, which highlights their overlap and the power dynamics involved, which lends to an engaging intersectional analysis.

The ways that anti-Black Islamophobia manifests in the Canadian context is multilayered, and it typically exploits sexist and racist beliefs about Black Muslims and Black Muslim women. A poignant example can be found in the physical assaults of hijab-wearing Black Muslim women which took place in December 2020 in Alberta. Both of these incidents happened in public places, a mall and a train station, and they are just two that we know of. In fact, I can confidently wager that most Muslims know someone, likely a Muslim woman, who has been verbally or physically abused in public in this country. For many of us, that Muslim woman is our own self.

What always stands out to me about these assaults committed against Black Muslim women in Alberta is that some of the newspaper headlines failed to tell the complete story of whom the women were. One headline identified that the victim was a Muslim woman but made no mention of her being Black. The second headline mentioned she is a Black woman but no mention of her being a Muslim. To know who they are, you had to dig deeper, and thankfully social media and activists in Alberta quickly filled in the blanks.

This is one of the many ways that anti-Black Islamophobia functions. It erases parts of our identities, which disallows the development of a deeper understanding that oppression often work in collaboration with one another. These victims being Black and Muslim and women is important to highlight because all of their realities and identities make them seem as being a threat, as being less than and as being vulnerable.

These examples are a reminder that anti-Black Islamophobia and Islamophobia can be abusive and even deadly. The 2017 Quebec City mosque murders are also part of a history of violence directed toward Muslims, which is linked directly to White supremacist ideology and is deeply ingrained in Canada and growing every single day. Importantly, Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon. Black Muslims have been experiencing such violence for decades.

We must be vocal and take immediate action against all forms of Islamophobia, which includes anti-Black Islamophobia, gendered Islamophobia and all of the intersections of power where Islamophobia functions.

Thank you so much for your time and your attention.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I will now turn to Ali Abukar.

Ali Abukar, Chief Executive Officer, Saskatoon Open Door Society: Thank you, Madam Chair. Greetings from the Saskatoon Open Door Society, an organization that was founded in the early 1980s to respond to the Vietnamese refugees arriving at the time.

I’m joining you today from Treaty 6 territory and the traditional homeland of the Métis. I recognize that our lives and livelihoods that sustain us flourish because of the welcoming and generosity of the original people of this land. I appreciate and feel honoured by the patience of our Indigenous neighbours and friends as we learn to take the right steps toward reconciliation.

I thank the committee for allowing me this opportunity to appear before you today and share with you my testimony on behalf of Saskatoon Open Door Society.

A little bit about me: I was born in Somalia, where I spent my early years and fled to Cairo, Egypt, as a young man, where I spent 10 years of my life before arriving in Canada as a privately sponsored refugee 11 years ago. I identify as a Black Canadian Muslim, and I lead a large immigrant-serving organization here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Living in Egypt for 10 years as a refugee, with limited to no rights, I have not feared for my life the way that I do in Canada, and that is due to Islamophobia. For Canadian Muslims the fear is real. As a racialized new Canadian Muslim, there is intersectionality to my being a Muslim.

I wanted to connect this to the people we serve as an organization. A large number of the people our organization serves identify as Muslims, and they share that intersectionality with me. We have seen increasing numbers of incidents of microaggressions, hate speech, attacks and violence against Muslims in our communities. As an organization, we have been targeted by anti-immigrant and hateful poster campaigns, featuring language about “the great replacement of European Canadians,” a few years back. These hateful anti-immigrant behaviours lead to hateful, violent attacks against racialized new Canadians, including Muslims, and we have seen that in Saskatoon.

For example, there were attacks against two men in Saskatoon. Abu Sheikh, a Black Muslim man, was walking back from prayer in the local mosque in his traditional Muslim dress. He was near his house.

Another example was Muhammad Kashif, a Muslim man of colour, who was attacked with a knife. His body and beard were cut, and he was told to go back to where he came from, that there was no place for him in Canada.

The fear is real for our communities. Our communities are traumatized every time there’s an attack on a Muslim at their home, in their neighbourhood or at their place of worship. There are times that I have to decide whether I should go to prayer at the masjid due to fear that there might be an attack. That shouldn’t be the case in Canada, and I believe that more concrete actions should be taken by the whole of government and the whole of society to ensure that no Canadian fears to be who they are, worship whom they want or to pray freely.

Thank you again for allowing me to appear before you today and share my testimony.

The Chair: Thank you very much to all the witnesses for your presentations. We will proceed to questions, but before that, I would like to ask members and witnesses to please refrain from moving too close to the microphone or removing your earpiece when doing so. This will reduce feedback that would negatively impact the committee staff in the room.

Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

I want to start with you, Dr. Sukhera. You brought up the issue of children. As a Muslim woman and now a grandmother, what often happens — for example, when the London incident happened — murder actually — the first thing my grandchildren said was, “I hope it’s not a Muslim.” Any time there is something that happens in the country, there is this fear that if it’s us; again we will be blamed. It is not just that; there will be consequences.

In our report, how do we address this issue of Muslim children who deal with Islamophobia on a daily basis in school, and then they are blamed for somebody’s act?

Dr. Sukhera: Thank you for the opportunity to respond. I appreciate the question. It brings to mind my own young children, who played with both Yumnah Afzaal and her younger brother and had to contend with the awareness that someone like them was murdered in a hate crime.

For me, as a child psychiatrist, this is something that came home in conversations we had as a family. Reminders were consistent to my children that they are loved and they should never for a moment be afraid to be who they are.

There are ways that we could address this kind of internalized discrimination. It’s certainly compounded when it comes to issues like anti-Black racism, as my colleague discussed, but I think it’s addressed by the antidote of cultural authenticity. It’s addressed by being explicit to Canadian Muslim children and all those from diverse communities who identify as Muslim that who they are is something they should be proud of, and that Canada is better because of them.

Sadly, even though we profess this as a virtue in our country, the tacit message that many immigrants, Muslims or racialized Canadians receive is that they should be grateful to Canada; that somehow they should have some gratitude. They are seen for their labour but not for their humanness. That happens in schools, in workplaces and it happens to people whose parents immigrated.

I believe the effects on children of internalized discrimination are well documented. It holds them back from participation, it leads to self-censorship and it leads to potential Canadians fulfilling themselves and making our country better by shrinking themselves before entering into our spaces. I believe we should create communities where people bring their full selves and breathe deeply as they step into the presence of the affirmation that they belong, just like any other Canadian.

Senator Jaffer: Dr. Sukhera, I don’t think we have touched on the issue of young girls who wear the hijab and go to school, and how they get treated and sometimes assaulted.

Have you had that happen? What advice do you give?

You might want to think about this, but what recommendation could the committee make to the federal government of reaching out to young Muslim children, especially girls?

Dr. Sukhera: Part of why I love working with young people is that they challenge me to bring my most authentic self to everything I do and help me not take myself too seriously.

I would centre the voice of my colleague Dr. Jackson-Best on the issue of hijab, but, specifically, we can name what’s happening. We can be explicit in ensuring that in our schools and communities, this isn’t an issue that’s labelled, glossed over or politicized. We can’t politicize compassion. Sadly, that’s what’s taking place in municipal elections across Ontario today.

I have worked with young people who have experienced hateful crimes, but I have most often worked with young people who have lived in fear. The community in London, Ontario, lived and continues to live in fear. When you’re in fear, that sensitizes you to perceive everything that happens — it still sensitizes me to perceive something like a black pickup truck or a revved engine — as something that’s harmful.

Again, through schools, communities and supports, it’s about reaffirming that identity but also inviting young people to the table. I can’t pretend to know the solutions, but centring the voices of young people by having them participate in policy development through consultation is the best way to go.

Senator Jaffer: I will go on a second round.

Senator Ravalia: Thank you to our witnesses. My question is for Dr. Sukhera as well.

With respect to the Islamophobia question, I’d appreciate your impressions on the fear or perception that Muslim physicians and trainees face from the admissions, clinical and training perspectives. What have your own experiences been in those regards?

I’d like to preface that with my own experience as a rural family physician in Newfoundland and Labrador where, in fact, Islamophobia was never an issue that came up in my practice. At times, I felt guilty, because, if anything, as a practising doctor in a small community where the needs were great, I was often placed on a pedestal of respect.

So I’d just be curious to know what your impressions have been in this regard.

Dr. Sukhera: Thank you for the opportunity. As a Muslim psychiatrist, both open and vocal, I would say I’ve worked and practised in many different places, including Israel, the United States and Canada. Nowhere did I experience the amount of racism and discrimination more than Canada. I believe that there are myths around meritocracy that lead people to believe that working hard makes them immune. In the Canadian academic spaces I inhabited, both as an MD and PhD, there were consistent experiences of macro- and microaggressions, particularly toward racialized Muslims, especially visible Muslims. Both I and many of my colleagues experienced comments about us being potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

In Ontario, someone who is a current minister raised the suggestion that foreign physicians should be potentially surveilled because they pose a threat to Canadian society. That has been my personal experience, but I’ve also worked with many Muslim physicians in southwestern Ontario who have experienced similar dynamics of exclusion in the workplace and similar concerns or questions about their loyalty to Canada versus their ability to be freely who they are.

Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much for those comments. They are quite disconcerting.

To follow up with your own experiences as a Muslim MD in the U.S. currently, have you been met with any overt or microaggressive Islamophobia?

Dr. Sukhera: I have not. I think the biggest distinction is that in the organization in which I work in the United States, there is a willingness to name the problem — for example, things like anti-Black racism — whereas in the Canadian academic and medicine contexts, the word “racism” wasn’t a word that could be comfortably uttered before 2020. In fact, those who spoke up and spoke out about racism tended to be marginalized or labelled as disruptive or rocking the boat or not being polite enough.

In the specific geographic jurisdiction in which I practise right now in the United States, I think there is more of a willingness to name the problem and speak up about these issues.

Senator Ravalia: Thank you.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

My first question is to Dr. Sukhera. I want to dig a little deeper on bullying in schools that Muslim boys and girls experience. I wonder if you can comment on the role that social media plays in this context, especially given the fact that the Senate, sometime in the next year, will receive a bill from the House of Commons around social media and hate. I wonder if you can help us in that context.

Dr. Sukhera: Certainly we have seen the unfettered proliferation of hate due to a lack of accountability for many social media platforms. That is an issue that legislators in the United States are also contending with. There are common sense, evidence-based ways to hold such companies better accountable.

In terms of what happens at the ground level for young people, again, I have to speak with humility because I live and exist in a different digital sphere than, for example, many of the young people I work with, my own children included.

What we do know from the evidence and from literature is that messages are transmitted now in ways that proliferate beyond anything we’ve ever seen or experienced. The way that has changed the dynamics is that a generation ago, if a child experienced identity-based bullying — which happened and continues to happen — they could go to another school and find a fresh start. However, that’s simply not the case anymore, where kids find that such bullying and messages, the permanence of it, follows them wherever they go. It leads to a profound amount of mental distress and it compounds the effect of existing mental health difficulties, challenges and trauma — particularly racial and identity-based trauma — that young people experience.

Work is going on to better educate young people about the toxic effects of online spaces — bullying, lobbying and other such forces — but certainly that doesn’t get to the root of the problem, which is that hateful messages are permitted and allowed to continue to proliferate and foment violence. The other aspect of this is that there is an intentional narrative that demonizes Muslim Canadians, which continues to proliferate through social media without accountability.

Senator Omidvar: My question is for Ms. Jackson-Best. I am intrigued, Ms. Jackson-Best, to find out from you whether our federal government collects data on Muslims who are Black. If no, then how do you get your data and what pointers can you give to the federal government in looking for this type of disaggregated data?

Ms. Jackson-Best: It’s a great question. Based on what I understand and know, our census collects information about religion and obviously collects information about race. That information can be collected and aggregated to indicate how many people may be Black and Muslim. However, it takes statisticians — and, more specifically, people who know how to analyze census data — to get that information. When we were doing the research project about Black Muslims in Canada, we had to contract out to a statistician who had specific experience with census data to indicate how much of the Muslim population was actually Black and Muslim.

It would be a great opportunity and idea for our federal government to be collecting this data so that it’s more accessible and we can put our hands on it more easily. At the same time, we also know that the census itself is not always taken up by communities of colour, for fear of surveillance and safety. It won’t always capture the accurate numbers.

It will be important for our federal and provincial governments to work with scholars, researchers, professors, et cetera, like Jasmin Zine at Wilfrid Laurier University, who has The Canadia Islamophobia Industry Research Project to guide our governments toward better data collection. Better collection of race-based data collection is incredibly important. We don’t see enough of that. This has been an area of contention since I was a grad student and it has followed me throughout my career in terms of trying to fill those gaps.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Thank you to all our witnesses. Dr. Sukhera, you said that Canadians and Canadian society are responsible for the scope of this phenomenon. Can you explain what you mean by “responsible for this phenomenon”?

The testimony we have heard thus far indicates that Islamophobia is a type of oppression that affects mental health. In your opinion, are medical and health personnel currently equipped to deal with this problem?

[English]

Dr. Sukhera: Thank you for the question. I would say that we — and I would include myself in that — as Canadians have perpetuated a sense of denialism and projection when it comes to issues such as anti-Muslim prejudice and anti-Black racism. That denialism is founded on the idea that because we have neighbours to the south where we see this as a problem, that somehow that isn’t us. What I found in my research is that it leads to a kind of defensiveness, fragility and difficulty in accepting how we are all part of the problem. It leads to a sense that accepting that we may unintentionally perpetuate discrimination makes us have to question our very identity as Canadians. I think that makes it deeper, more challenging and more intractable to address.

To the second part of your question in terms of the health care system, when I treat people who have experienced trauma, you can’t advance that healing when the trauma is still being perpetuated or when we don’t call it out or name the harm that someone is experiencing.

I think that’s a problem in our health care system as well. We know that there are people dying of discrimination in Canadian hospitals every single day. We also know that our systems are stretched beyond belief in terms of capacity. There’s literature that shows that a higher degree of burnout leads to higher degrees of bias and discrimination. We also know that speaking up and calling out discriminatory behaviour of all kinds in our health care system is difficult to do for certain communities where there are already experiences of mistrust, fear and medical trauma — leading many of those voices to feel they don’t have a place to go. We can do something by making sure that we in health care have better ways to report and protect people who report incidents or experiences of discrimination.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Do you have any recommendations to make to us as lawmakers? What specifically can we do to address this problem?

[English]

Dr. Sukhera: I have a lot of respect for all of you, and you are bringing so much to public service. I can’t tell you how important it is for you to not just enact this kind of awareness and structural change through legislation and policy but also through your platforms and your voices. I do think that specific attention to issues of medical mistrust and also mistrust of law enforcement, which is also something I was directly exposed to, is important. There are ways at both the federal and provincial levels to support and foster safe, trauma-informed training and reporting mechanisms that allow communities who experience disenfranchisement, harm or mistrust to feel safe and protected by their government when they are reporting and speaking up about issues.

The Chair: Dr. Jackson-Best, would you like to respond to that too?

Ms. Jackson-Best: I think that Dr. Sukhera gives a really wonderful and fulsome analysis. I really appreciate that. I would say that this was a question that brought me to this event today.

I’ve been privy to and invited to numerous events, roundtables, ministerial tables, provincial tables and now federal tables to discuss Islamophobia, and I consistently leave the room with the same question I enter the room with, unfortunately: What will be done? There are so many recommendations from Muslim communities, so many shouts and yells and pleas to repeal at the provincial level, for example, Bill 21 in Quebec. This is a completely Islamophobic bill. It negatively impacts predominantly Muslim women who wear the hijab. To provide recommendations to people who have power when the answers about what needs to be done to criminalize Islamophobia further and to ensure that hate speech is expanded to include Islamophobia is coming from our communities so loudly — a lot of the answers are being screamed from our communities. I would just continue to tap into the recommendations that already exist from the National Council of Canadian Muslims, or NCCM, the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, or CCMW, the Black Muslim Initiative, researchers and academics who are doing this important work. The answers are there, and the community is very clear about what we need. We need action. Of course, I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you all and to engage with my colleagues who are on this Zoom call and with all of the people in the room.

We desperately need action because we’re seeing Islamophobia grow to be more and more deadly. The time, really, is now. I went a little bit off topic there, but I want to amplify and agree with Dr. Sukhera and also ensure that we are using these opportunities to tap back into the communities and see what recommendations and solutions have been put on the table.

The Chair: Thank you. You didn’t go off topic. We’re learning too. This study was started in June, and I was driven to suggest this study when I was heard that the greatest number of Muslims killed in a G7 country was in Canada. A lot of people are shocked when we talk about that. We are learning.

The way the Senate works is we take our time with our studies, and at the end of the study, we will make recommendations to the government, and the government will have to respond. So if there is anything you feel should be in the recommendations, you’re free to write to us even after the testimony is over. We will look at everything.

Mr. Abukar, I will turn to you. What do you hope from the politicians who sit in these corridors where legislation is enacted?

Mr. Abukar: Thank you, Madam Chair. I will add to what my colleagues said, and I would say — and I do have respect for the committee and for the Senate to do this study — that enough has already been done about this, and it has been clearly raised. This is an issue, and we need to see some actions. I think the recommendations that were already put forward are the things we would like to see happen.

I’m not an academic, so I was bringing things as a practitioner and as someone who works in the field and sees people there. One of the things we always hear — and I can also relate to it as a Black, Muslim person here in Saskatchewan — is that a lot of awareness-raising needs to happen in the community at a grassroots level. I think the government can play a role in terms of putting funding forward for organizations to do the work of addressing the issues within our communities starting with the schools and workplaces and creating a welcoming and inclusive society where all of us can thrive as people — as Canadians.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Senator Arnot: Thank you, witnesses. I usually talk about education as a solution, and I feel it is. In this case, however, I’m directing my question to Mr. Abukar and the other witnesses. I have two questions, principally. I think Canadians might be shocked to know that, Mr. Abukar, you were a refugee from Somalia, went to Egypt for 11 years, have come to Canada and been here for a decade or so and you feel the most unsafe in Canada. I have no doubt that is an accurate assessment of your situation.

We talk about Canada being a multicultural, multitheist and multiethnic country, yet in my opinion, we have failed to invest in sustaining, growing and creating an understanding of those principles. Your evidence corroborates that. You must have a lot of experience, Mr. Abukar, with newcomers coming to Canada and believing that with our constitution this would be a place of harmony and safety. But sadly, it seems that the reality in the communities is quite the opposite. I’m wondering if you have any further comments to amplify some of that.

My second question is to all the witnesses, but particularly to Mr. Abukar. We talk about reporting these incidents to authorities — the police. Do you have confidence that police services will actually take these incidents seriously enough and bring them to prosecution in the courts? I’m especially thinking of the incident that you mentioned, Mr. Abukar, about attempted murder in Saskatoon, in which no charges have been laid.

Mr. Abukar: Thank you, Senator Arnot. Thank you for those important questions. Yes, I do like to amplify the feeling of individuals like me who come to Canada and who see it as a place of multiculturalism, inclusion and welcome, and then when they get here, they see the experiences of minority groups, including Muslims, and what they face. This is the second time I’m hearing that Canada leads the way in terms of the number of murders due to Islamophobia in the G7, and that is quite surprising and shocking, unfortunately. It is something that people who come to Canada can compare to where they come from. Before people move here, they think that when they move to Canada they will enjoy those rights, but then the reality is different. I hope as a country we can make a difference and change that perspective for the Canadian residents and citizens who are represented in these communities.

About the second question. No, there is no trust in law enforcement, whether in the reporting or the prosecution. We haven’t seen anything. What happens most of the time is that there are no resources. A lot of these law enforcement bodies don’t have the capacity to respond to or take those reports, and people don’t feel confident that something will be done to respond. There is also a lack of trust within law enforcement, and more work needs to be done to improve the trust for racialized and Muslim communities in law enforcement.

The work that education can do is one thing that is happening in Saskatchewan, especially in the schools, but there is more that needs to be done, because we see the actions of people targeting people who are visibly Muslim or racialized and who have the intersectionalities of being Muslim, immigrant and racialized. We need to do better to work on that.

I would like to see the actions taken as the whole government, from all government levels, including municipalities and provincial governments as well as the federal government. Thank you for the questions.

Ms. Jackson-Best: I think Mr. Abukar definitely mirrors a lot of the sentiments, at least for Black Muslim communities. There is a very tense relationship that exists, not just between Black Muslim communities but Black communities and the police system — the entire judicial system. We know that carding exists and has existed, and we know that disproportionate sentencing has existed and exists for Black communities, which sees us further criminalized and surveilled.

I don’t think the solution is necessarily to pump more money into the police. I live in Toronto, and the police services board is quite well funded. There needs to be a further shift toward community-based policing. There needs to be a further shift toward accountability among police officers, because we also know that, within policing and the judicial system, Islamophobia exists. The very people we believe are going to serve, protect and properly sentence people in the community may hold Islamophobic beliefs themselves.

So there’s a deep lack of trust that exists within Black communities and Black Muslim communities, and that needs to be addressed first before any kind of further funding or next steps happen. We need to get to the root of the issue, and that’s the systemic anti-Blackness that exists inside of police forces.

It really cannot be one without the other; we really need full transformational change.

Dr. Sukhera: I agree with both of my colleagues. In my experience, having worked directly with law enforcement in London, in that jurisdiction, I was gaining some constructive ways to be better. I agree with both my colleagues that there are deeply rooted systemic challenges.

I also agree that I’m hopeful that things can be better. There are a lot of communities that are ready and willing to be part of constructive change. Sadly, there is a lot of vitriol and back-and-forth that takes place because policing is an institution that traditionally is quite threatened when communities raise their voices. I experienced that backlash directly as a racialized Muslim who was involved as a police leader. I know that every time I walked into the headquarters, even though I signed the cheques, I experienced fear because of my identity. I experienced fear that someone would tell me that I’m not where I should be.

I also know there are many communities where that trust is shattered and broken, particularly when it comes to racialized individuals who struggle and experience mental illness. We know that people with mental illness are much more likely to experience violence at the hands of police because of deep systemic issues.

Finally, I also want to say that, in Canada, both in law enforcement and with border officers, we have a serious endemic White supremacy problem that needs to be called out, addressed and get the attention of law-makers.

The Chair: Thank you.

Before I go to second round, I have a statement. I’m asking for advice. When I proposed this study, it was a study on Islamophobia in Canada. Since then, we have heard from various witnesses who have suggested that Islamophobia doesn’t fully capture what is happening with Canadian Muslims. A phobia is a fear of something, but we need to look at what that fear is doing to Canadian Muslims.

We’re looking at different names for it. We are looking at “anti-Muslim hate” or “anti-Muslim racism.” Do you have any suggestions as to how we define this? As a committee, we are struggling right now.

Dr. Sukhera: If I may, terms and words matter. There is also a movement within Canada that does not prefer the term Islamophobia and often plays a little bit of semantics around it — again, anti-Muslim prejudice in terms of even how things are defined.

I would say there are two elements to discrimination. There is the prejudicial attitudes, and there is the discriminatory behaviour. It can be described as Islamophobia, anti-Muslim prejudice or anti-Muslim hate. At the end of the day, it’s rooted in a very deeply and explicitly biased way of viewing people who look, seem or are racialized to be different from the norm, which, again, is a European Canadian racial identity.

You can get caught up in all sorts of terms, but at the end of the day, the root of the problem remains the same.

Ms. Jackson-Best: To chime in, I’m comfortable with any term, because as a Muslim, I know what they all mean. I can use them interchangeably, but I typically stick with “Islamophobia” because it’s become more mainstream, more adopted and people understand it, I believe.

The one that I would say is not as helpful is “anti-Muslim racism,” because we know there are Muslims who are not part of marginalized groups. So the term “anti-Muslim racism” presumes that Muslims are a race — a cohesive group — when we know that Muslims and Islam are made up of multiple races and multiple experiences.

So I would say that I agree with Dr. Sukhera and that it is less about getting caught up in the semantics but using one term, being forceful with it and being uniform with it throughout the work.

Mr. Abukar: I would also agree with my colleagues. Words matter, and I myself had the belief that the word “Islamophobia” has assumptions, namely that Muslims have to be feared; that is already there.

So I would agree. It is a word that has been used to describe what the actions, the discriminations and the biases that Muslims face, and those are because people are of the Islamic faith.

A lot of the problems are faced by people who look different. My Muslim friends who are White don’t normally face that because nobody actually knows they are Muslim. But anyone who actually “looks” Muslim but is not necessarily Muslim is also targeted because they look Muslim. That identity matters. If we could, when legislating or recommending, maybe those words could also be described in a way that makes sense to the general public so that there is clarity in how the words are used.

The Chair: Thank you.

There was a conference on Islamophobia, and one of the recommendations was to appoint someone who would specifically deal with Islamophobia. A year and a half later, we are still waiting for that appointment. What are your views about that? Why is it taking so long? There are 1.5 million Muslims — maybe even more now. Why can’t we find someone who would be a good role model and do justice to that portfolio?

I know that’s putting you on the spot, but I keep asking this because I’m asked it. Why hasn’t someone been appointed?

Mr. Abukar: If I may, since I didn’t hear a direct question to one of us, I will go.

I do have the same question, I guess. We’re just waiting for the government to take action because the Muslim community has shared their concerns and the recommendations came through. Now it is with the government. That is sometimes the challenge that communities face with anything to do with government — things move very slowly. I do hope this is an opportunity for us to amplify that because when you dedicate resources you dedicate designated specific actions and resources, people from these communities who would play a role in the trust that the Muslim community would have in the process.

If this is taking too long, anything that the government says would be seen in the same way as this conference and what came out of the conference as a recommendation and next steps to take.

The Chair: I think it was the same with Motion 103, if you remember. It made a whole lot of recommendations and there was just one they adopted. Yes, Dr. Sukhera?

Dr. Sukhera: I think as Canadians we’re really good at addressing issues but not so good on the follow-through. I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

The only angle I want to share with the committee is — this is something I really hesitated to speak to because I often try to decentre my own experiences in my work. I can tell you that being a visibly Muslim public leader in southwestern Ontario comes with a dark side. It’s important for the committee to know that many Muslims who are public servants, particularly racialized, particularly women, experience a very toxic backlash when they are who they are.

I personally experienced a very hateful toxic rhetoric, people contacting my employers, people sending me hate mail. At times, I was concerned for my family’s and my own safety. I think it’s important that anybody who is put into this type of very important position also know that all services in Canada have their back and will protect them and their families because of such hateful backlash.

The Chair: Dr. Jackson-Best?

Ms. Jackson-Best: I think that this kind of position is incredibly necessary. To be quite honest, I know several people in my personal and professional life that I think could be wonderful for the job. I think there might be some fear of making one person, the not official, but almost unofficial, spokesperson for Muslims on behalf of Muslims. Maybe there’s some hesitance to get it right. We’re a multiethnic, multilinguistic, multiracial community with multiple backgrounds and experiences. Just look at the three of us in this room right now. I think there might be some hesitance to take one person and put them in that position.

I also think that the delay is a result of government bureaucracy as well. But I do think that it’s an important symbolic and material step that could be made — and the sooner the better. I remember when that conference took place, and it’s unbelievable that it has been so long and no one has been appointed yet. I would absolutely say we should hop to it.

The Chair: Any time something happens — and I’m specifically talking about the terrorist attack on the Quebec mosque, which this committee did go and visit. We went there, and I can tell you it was a very emotional evening. We all came back with very heavy hearts. And the attack on the Afzaal family in London, Ontario. We have a rush of politicians who come there, thoughts and prayers, and then they’re forgotten.

How do we get them to move beyond thoughts and prayers? I’ve been told, we don’t want your thoughts and prayers anymore; we need action. I know there’s not a question there, but these are things we’re all grappling with, but the urgency is not there. While we keep hearing, and some of the statistics we are hearing — Dr. Sukhera, you referred to that, about how bad Islamophobia is in Canada. I was shocked to hear the numbers, when you look at the numbers, the incidents were far greater in Canada than they have been in the United States, because that’s not the public perception.

I really don’t know. The study is a starting point for us. Any suggestions? Anything you feel you should have said — if you haven’t said, please make a recommendation. If you feel like we should have something, send us something in writing.

Dr. Sukhera: Just one small comment because this is an opportunity I don’t want to not take advantage of. It speaks to the tokenization of Muslim communities, which I think is a huge problem in terms of civic engagement and involvement in Canadian politics. It’s an important thing to note that ethnic Muslim communities, in particular, are often pitted in ways that are tokenizing in order to gain and secure nominations of federal parties at the riding level. I think that perpetuates further tokenization of Muslim voices and Muslim engagement, in many ways turning young Muslims off or away from engaging further in Canadian politics.

I think, at the end of the day, the thoughts and prayers are part of that performative theatre that we see so often, the kind of virtue signalling that isn’t about making structural change.

Like both of my colleagues have shared, there are plenty of recommendations that have been made for structural change. We have yet to see those in government actually adopt those and invest resources in them. I do think that tokenization needs to be called out.

The Chair: You raise an interesting point, Dr. Sukhera, about tokenization. How much of that responsibility is on us? Here I speak from experience that I find that as a practising Muslim when I go into the Muslim community, they are brutally honest with me. They will come and point out everything that is wrong from what I’m wearing or not wearing. Yet, I don’t see them being brutally honest when a non-Muslim or a Caucasian is in the room. I often tell them, you need to be honest. If you’re feeling something or feeling insecure or feel they’re not doing their job, you need to be scrupulously honest with them. Yet, I find that’s lacking within the community.

Dr. Sukhera: I agree. I think the phenomenon of lateral violence, where we see within our own communities that have experienced marginalization, re-enactment of oppressive dynamics, is also a huge problem. It creates a dynamic where there is a double-edged sword. There is a minority tax of people of certain identities who fulfill public roles. I think there’s a need for ownership and accountability all around. It isn’t one group or the other.

Like I said earlier, our tendency neurophysiologically is to point the finger and say, no, it’s not me. But myself included, I’m part of the problem, so part of the responsibility I have is to live every day to hold myself to a higher standard. I think that’s what we all as Canadians can aspire toward.

The Chair: Thank you. Would anybody else like to add anything?

Ms. Jackson-Best: I would. Just to bring it back to the question about our politicians and representation, thoughts and prayers. In 2018, in the provincial election in Ontario, it was the first time an election rolled around, and I saw a candidate in my neighbourhood, which is an historically Black neighbourhood, Caribbean specifically. It was the first time I saw a Black Caribbean woman running. When I saw her and I looked her up, I immediately wanted to volunteer for her; I immediately wanted to canvass for her and donate to her campaign. As a result, we built a rapport. Her name is Dr. Jill Andrew, a wonderful politician.

Through that, first of all, representation I saw of a Black Caribbean woman — not a Muslim, but a Black Caribbean descent woman, I felt an instant relationship with her, a connection to her. I think the reverse was also true on her behalf — that she could see her electorate in me.

So when Jill Andrew, who was re-elected in the provincial election this year, when she says thoughts and prayers to the Muslim communities when terror happens and Islamophobia hits our communities, I believe her because she has built trust, camaraderie and rapport with our communities. She can acknowledge that as a woman of Black Caribbean descent who comes from immigrant parentage, even though she doesn’t come from a Muslim background, she gets that immigrant experience and understands and empathizes with our communities.

I think that speaks to the need for transformation from the bottom up in our municipal elections. How many Black Muslim women and Black Muslims are running in the municipal elections right now in Toronto? I can’t put my hand on one. How many have been empowered and mentored to believe that they can take up that kind of space? The same thing goes for our municipal and federal elections.

We’re seeing more racialized Muslim communities. But there’s a disconnect when it comes to specific racialized communities. I don’t see it enough. We don’t feel empowered in that way. We’re not mentored in that way to pursue politics or to pursue a political office.

That creates a disconnect between communities and those who are elected officials, so that we don’t feel that they mean it when they say “thoughts and prayers” when we talk about police brutally or surveillance of our communities.

We need to see ourselves reflected at all levels. To get there, we need to have people like Jill Andrew who will mean what they say when they reach out to our communities and do that type of grassroots organizing and outreach to our communities. We have to see it mirrored at every single level. We have to feel like we have that way in and that hand-holding through the very difficult political process. Until we see that, we’re going to continue seeing the same people in positions of power, the same people who are in political office. We are going to keep feeling that same tokenization.

There’s a responsibility that exists on our part. But there’s also a very complex system that exists with regard to political and electoral politics that many people feel mystified about, or disenfranchised from or locked out of. We can meet each other in the middle and work toward change.

The Chair: Thank you. Dr. Jackson-Best, I have to share my own experience with you about the role sometimes that our religious institutions play.

When I ran in 2008, if I went to a mosque, it was a certain mosque — and I haven’t been back to that mosque since I became a senator — they refused to take my papers or, as a Muslim woman, I would be told go sit at the back with the women and we will speak on your behalf. I found that when my Caucasian colleagues came, they were taken to the front of the mosque and were allowed to speak for themselves. There’s an issue there in some of our religious institutions also. I’m hoping it’s changed. But from my personal experience, the community sometimes doesn’t know who their champions are.

Even now, when I go to a mosque, I’m put in — as I tell them — that dark hole at the back. That’s my issue with a lot of the mosques. I tell them quite frankly. Anyway, it’s different experiences. I’m hoping we’re learning. There’s some responsibility that rests on our religious leadership also.

Ms. Jackson-Best: I absolutely, unequivocally agree with you. I’ve seen colleagues and friends who have run, who don’t wear a hijab, who say that they had to put on a hijab to be in certain spaces and gain the Muslim vote, or present in a very particular way that wasn’t authentic to them in order to appeal to certain Muslim voters.

We know, you and I both know, and everyone on this Zoom that I can see — I can’t see the rest of the room — but Muslim women come in all different representations of the faith: Hijab, non-hijab, turban. It really runs the gamut.

I agree with you. There is a crisis of women’s leadership that exists in our communities; it is generations, not even generations, centuries old, to be honest. It’s not authentic to the true Muslim tradition.

As we know, women have taken leadership positions in our faith at various times, for various reasons. This is just another way that gender-based sexism contributes to the erasure and the minimization of Muslim women, and the rightful place that we have at the forefront of our movements and of our communities.

I thank you for the work that you’re doing. I thank you for that personal story. I think it needs to be heard as well.

The Chair: Thank you. Dr. Sukhera, would you like to comment?

Dr. Sukhera: No. I completely agree that there are many gendered ways in which this kind of oppression gets perpetuated within and outside of communities. I think drawing attention to it and speaking to the many ways in which there are gendered and racialized aspects of Islamic prejudice is essential.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Abukar, would you like to say something to the issue that we have within our own religious institutions where women’s issues are concerned?

Mr. Abukar: Yes. I agree that gender-based sexism that exists within our structures as well.

I wanted to go back to where you started earlier, Madam Chair, about when people like you go to the community, then people are honest with you. I kind of see maybe because they can relate to you. They know who you are. You’re one of the community.

Our communities also feel that the systems that our governments represent are still colonized. We need to see some decolonization happening within government systems and having that acknowledgement. Part of the reason things don’t move as quick as they should is because of the decolonization that needs to happen within our government levels.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: I would like to go back to what Ms. Jackson-Best said about the appointment of the human rights ombudsman.

She referred to the wide diversity of Muslim communities and, earlier, you commented on your personal experience as a Muslim. So there is discrimination even within our Muslim communities, and that discrimination means that it might be difficult to select someone to represent all the varieties of Islam in Canada.

That being the case—and it is important to appoint someone to represent Muslims and to receive complaints related to Islamophobia—, could we create an observatory that would take into consideration all the different variants of Islam and receive all complaints related to Islamophobia? What do you think?

This question is for everyone.

[English]

Ms. Jackson-Best: I think that’s a really interesting intervention. I don’t know if the question is leading to this. Immediately I’m hearing that one ombudsperson is not enough.

The Muslim community is so diverse. We have multiple sects: Sunni, Shia, Ismailis, Ahmadiyya. We have multiple racial categorizations: Black Muslims, Southeast Asian Muslims, Middle Eastern Muslims, Muslims who are born here, ethnicities, languages, et cetera. It’s not going to be possible for one ombudsperson to represent the entire community in an equitable way. At some point, someone is going to overlook something.

Personal prejudices also exist among Muslims and between us. I don’t know if you were hinting toward an observatory that would involve more than one person, but I like that idea. I don’t think that we need to place all of the onus of this work on an individual. I do think a group of people who can speak among themselves and discuss and debate these Islamophobic examples or incidences and make interventions would be helpful. What one person may be ignorant to, another person, it might be amplified for them due to their placement in the world.

Also, I think about this position, this one person taking on all of this work. My research and my work is in mental health. I recently drafted an upcoming chapter in a book about Islamophobia in Canada. It specifically speaks to the mental health impacts and consequences of Islamophobia, which was a very difficult chapter to write because I had to compile multiple data sources into one, which was helpful for people who wanted to address this topic in an earnest way. But they were so fragmented. They were all over the place.

When I think about the material impacts that could have on one individual who is absorbing and taking on this work on a day-to-day basis, I can imagine that the burnout is going to be astronomical. I can imagine that their mental health may be challenged as well.

If we have a team of people, perhaps that can alleviate some of the mental health consequences of this kind of role. It can also diversify the actual role so that it’s not just one person who becomes a spokesperson for Muslims. Of course people will have a problem and critique if there is one or two or three or four, but at least something that would capture the fullness of our communities. Perhaps someone would be a better solution on multiple levels. I don’t know if that’s where you were going, but that’s where my mind immediately went.

The Chair: Dr. Sukhera, would you like to respond to that?

Dr. Sukhera: I agree completely. I don’t think it’s in any way possible to have one person do it alone. We’ve set up systems, where people from minority groups often carry on the work of dismantling the issues on top of dealing with them, so we have to keep their mental health in mind. I completely agree.

I think the idea here is one of an office. It would be more than simply an envoy or an ombuds but an office where it’s understood that there are nuances to anti-Muslim hate and prejudice that need to be understood, foregrounded and connected to different sectors in Canada.

I would also like to say that, in terms of a lot of the interfaith work that I’ve done, it’s important that we work closely with the office and the envoy for anti-Semitism, because the roots of this kind of hateful behaviour and violence are the same. The perpetrators of anti-Muslim hate crimes are also people who harbour extremely anti-Semitic attitudes.

In addition to resourcing, supporting and funding an office that allows for studying experts in social sciences of all backgrounds that have data and frameworks to address this, I think it’s about working across different types of discrimination together throughout government to root out White supremacist hatred and support and resource ways to reduce violent crimes.

The Chair: Mr. Abukar, would you like to respond to that?

Mr. Abukar: I would agree with my colleagues. I also understood that it’s not going to be one person but more likely an office where — because oftentimes what happens is whenever you task one person to address something as huge and major as Islamophobia, then nothing is going to happen because that person is going to burn out and not be able to do anything.

I think the idea is to have a way, a system or an office to address these issues and that can have access to government offices and the right places. I agree with Dr. Sukhera about having that interfaith connection so the issues that face these communities are addressed in a systematic way and our country has a system to address these anti-hate issues and also promote inclusion and equity across the board.

The Chair: Thank you. We did hear from previous witnesses also that maybe this office would be too much of a burden for one person and we should be looking at two or three even.

Senator Jaffer: Professor Jackson-Best, there are many Muslim senators, but there is one Black minister from Toronto, Minister Ahmed Hussen, who is a Black Muslim Member of Parliament.

I have a question for all three of you. It occurred to me today, especially when we were listening to the previous panel. Before the previous panel too, but I’ve never pursued it. One of the biggest challenges about coming to Canada is people say that here you are treated equally, there’s pluralism and no discrimination. Then the hardest thing that happens is when you experience discrimination, whether it’s your colour or your faith or both, which is even more difficult. I want you to comment on that.

Also, I’ll start with you, Professor Jackson-Best. When we went to Edmonton — and I still haven’t forgotten that experience — it was really hard to hear from Black Muslim women about the assaults that they suffered and how at times the police charged them when they were trying to defend themselves rather than the person who assaulted them. Have you had that experience? I’ll start with you, professor.

Ms. Jackson-Best: To be quite honest, I’ve never experienced a physical assault at all, and I think that has a lot —

Senator Jaffer: Sorry to interrupt you. I don’t mean to. I mean have you heard of that happening?

Ms. Jackson-Best: Of course. Without a doubt. While I personally have not experienced Islamophobic assaults, I have absolutely been the recipient of Islamophobic verbal abuse and microaggressions. I have too many friends who have been accosted or physically assaulted for being Muslim.

Really and truly, I went to an Islamic elementary school in Mississauga, and I heard about it then, and this was in the 1990s. I don’t want to date myself. Young girls in our school would talk about going to the mall or on the bus and someone pulled off their hijab. Or I was talking to a couple of friends who went to the same school, and every single Halloween, around this time of the year, our school would be egged at night and graphic and disparaging comments and pictures about Muslims would be graffitied on the building. That happened every single Halloween in that community because it was once a public school and the Islamic school bought it.

So this is absolutely nothing new. When I hear about young women in Alberta, the first thing I thought when I read that was, “This is still happening.” I didn’t question it. I stated, “This is still happening.” It’s been happening since I was a girl, and it is only intensifying.

I’m sorry, I don’t recall the first question that you asked.

Senator Jaffer: It was that all of us who come to Canada, we have this belief that this is a pluralistic community where everybody is treated equally and you are allowed to practise your faith. But when you come here, you find you’re not treated equally and it’s not a pluralistic society, and because of your faith, there is even more discrimination.

I’m sure you have all experienced that, but I’m asking, how do we deal with that? How do we get across to our politicians that this is not as equal of a country as it is portrayed to be around the world?

Ms. Jackson-Best: Thank you so much for that. I don’t have an immigrant experience. I was born here. Both of my parents immigrated, my father from Barbados and my mom from the United States, so their experiences are quite different in terms of barriers and facilitators toward coming here and being here. They are both Black, so they have experienced anti-Blackness, of course.

I think this will continue to come down to our communities being vocal and organized and organizing among ourselves. We can have as many federal summits and provincial roundtables on Islamophobia, but the real work is being done in our communities every single day. We need to empower that work and ensure that it’s diversified and reflective of our multiple overlapping identities and experiences and that those who are most marginalized among us are oftentimes put in the front, not as tokens but in concrete and sustainable ways and supported.

I don’t want to put the entire onus on the community, but the community has been doing this work, and will continue to do so, whether or not our governments take an interest in it or decide to divest from it. We will continue to do that work. We need to have our politicians from the federal down to the municipal at every single level.

Like I said, we need to create real relationships within our communities and mentor people through these communities so they can take on these leadership roles and challenge the existing structures. We can’t stop in our communities. We can’t halt. We need to keep pushing forward.

The Chair: Before the other witnesses respond, I do have Senator Omidvar who has a question, so if you can be brief in your answers to Senator Jaffer’s question.

Dr. Sukhera: I can jump in briefly to Senator Jaffer’s question. I think that we have neglected this for far too long. Just two to three years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, there were public health officials wondering why we would measure outcomes based on racism. That doesn’t exist. If we look at the mental health literature and try to pull out disproportionality through data when it comes to religious ethnic identity, the data doesn’t exist because we haven’t really done a good job in Canada of actually collecting data to demonstrate the disproportionality which leads to this spiral of people having to prove what they experience every day. The stark difference to my experiences living and working in the U.S. is that data on disproportionate outcomes on socio-economic outcomes being different is more freely available. I do think that is one tangible thing we can do better in Canada.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Abukar, would you like to add to that briefly?

Mr. Abukar: I would say the same thing. Making funding available to community organizations, including the Muslim and racialized communities doing the work in our community helping people to understand. But I would also like to add what Dr. Sukhera said about collecting race-based data that helps and can, in fact, inform policies, so we have enough information about disproportionality.

Senator Omidvar: I wonder if you can comment on the relevancy and appropriateness of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Given everything we heard today, does it still meet the needs of the day or should it be reviewed?

Ms. Jackson-Best: Thank you so much for that question. I think it’s a really good and timely one, especially because I was reviewing the NCCM recommendations that they put out in 2021. They recommended a legislative review of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

As legislation is now being introduced to provide a civil remedy within the CHRA, there must be a comprehensive legislative review of the CHRA as part of an overall renewal of how Canada deals with modern forms of Islamophobia and hate, particularly in the digital space, while ensuring and protecting Canadians’ freedoms to legitimately criticize various ideologies, state actions, and religious praxis.

That’s directly from NCCM. Again, the community thinks this is not sufficient anymore. It’s not robust and it’s not as robust as it could be. It’s not as all-encompassing as it could be. It needs to be reviewed. We need to ensure that Islamophobia is front and centre and that it is included in that definition and in the CHRA.

Dr. Sukhera: I echo the comments of my colleague.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Abukar, you agree? Thank you so much.

I want to sincerely thank all our witnesses. This has been a great panel. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this study. Your assistance with our study is appreciated and will help us greatly.

(The committee adjourned.)