Evidence of meeting #74 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was islamophobia.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
Do I still have a minute?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
No, you've ended your time, but we cut into 30 seconds of it, so I'll give you the 30 seconds. I'm sorry.
September 27th, 2017 / 4:35 p.m.
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
That's wonderful.
I'll say this. There's a difference between trash and hate. I could say that the testimony of the witness from CSIS was trash, and that would basically say it was garbage, I disagreed with all of it, and there was nothing of value in it. That's what he's saying about these radio stations. The question is whether or not they have a right to raise concerns about certain aspects of public governance. They have.
The second thing is that there are limits to what can be legislated. That's why you have a charter. The charter places a check on the exercise of government power. I don't like racism. I think it's an ugly thing, but that's my opinion. I can't compel somebody with the power of government to form different opinions. You have to educate, you have to have programs for multiculturalism, and you have to entreat. You cannot do it with legislation.
You asked me where in the motion it calls for a legislative response.
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
Oh....
The answer is in my paper, sir.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Good. Thank you very much.
We do not have time for a second round of questioning. I will thank Father de Souza, Mr. Bhatti, and Mr. Cameron for coming and for putting up with a fair amount of—
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Chair, just before we shift, although I know there was an agreement, can we get quick agreement that Mr. Cameron can at least submit his answers in writing afterwards?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Submit it to the clerk and we will send it out to people in two official languages. We couldn't give the members of the committee your submission, because it was only in English, and that is one of the rules. I'm sorry. Everybody, however, will be able to get your submission.
Send us whatever you need. We're always ready to read it.
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Mr. Sweet, for that suggestion.
We will suspend for about a minute to go to the next round.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I will call the meeting to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee on heritage is studying systemic racism and religious discrimination.
We have one witness, because our second witness, for the information of the committee, at the last minute couldn't make it. I think the person was ill. We thus only have one person on this panel. Ms. Raza will speak for 10 minutes, and then we will probably, if we do it well, have the ability to take two rounds.
We begin with Ms. Raza, please, for 10 minutes. I will give you a two-minute warning.
Thank you.
Raheel Raza President, Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow
Madam Chair, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity to address this committee.
My name, as you know, is Raheel Raza. I am president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow.
My family and I will have been in Canada for 30 years next year. Like most immigrants, we came here to embrace democracy, gender equality, and freedom of speech. I can say with conviction that Canada is the best country in the world, with a role to play in terms of leadership. I thank God for being a Canadian citizen to share in its values.
Today we are here to discuss motion 103. Let me make it abundantly clear that bigotry, hate, and racism have to be condemned in the strongest terms. Sadly, they have always been an integral part of human civilization. However, human dignity depends on our unequivocal condemnation of these ugly values and we must speak out against them.
Having said this, we are entrapped by the use of the term “Islamophobia”, which is not clearly defined. As I read and reread the text of motion 103, I can agree with the overall intent but without use of this term, because Islamophobia can and has been used to confuse the masses and stifle free speech.
I've just returned from attending the 36th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, and I have seen how the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has for years been working towards stemming any critique of religion. Critique of religion, by the way, is not critique of people. If there are aspects of any faith that are veering towards human rights infractions, they must be discussed and debated. Religion is an idea, and ideas don't have rights; people do. Canada should therefore be concerned about the rights of all its peoples and not allow itself to fall into the traps laid out by vested agendas.
Right now the world is screaming for an Islamic reform to welcome Muslims into the 21st century with a fresh wave of ideas through the lens of modernity and free thinking, keeping human rights in the forefront.
This is not entirely a new phenomenon. In the ninth century there was a large community of Muslims, known as free thinkers, who would debate and discuss all aspects of the faith to come to a logical conclusion. The ruling elite found this to be a threat, and over a period of time one by one they were eliminated. This silencing of all debate and discussion in Islam has put us Muslims in a ridiculous position. It also puts a target on the backs on those who want change.
Reform has taken place in other faiths, as well. Christians will celebrate 500 years of their reform this year. How does reform happen? It takes place through reflection using reason and logic—and yes, a healthy critique. Without constructive criticism, no faith can grow and develop.
As a practising, observant Muslim, I don't believe I have to be the caretaker or defender of my faith. However, the word most synonymous with Muslims these days is “terrorism”. Do I want to leave this as a legacy for my children and grandchildren? Absolutely not. As such, Muslim communities have to do most of the heavy lifting in shunning or abandoning negative practices that have crept into our faith and culture, such as—as you have heard—female genital mutilation, forced and underage marriage, slavery, polygamy, armed violence against civilians disguised as jihad, forceful imposition of sharia laws, and the preaching of hate and intolerance towards minorities.
It's through this reform that major changes have already taken place in Muslim communities. We just heard yesterday that Saudi Arabia has allowed its women to drive. In India, the Supreme Court has banned a centuries-old Islamic tradition of a man saying, “I divorce you” thrice and divorce was automatically granted.
Women in Morocco have helped change the polygamy laws. In Tunisia, a landmark decision was made allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, which according to sharia laws is not acceptable. Bangladesh has altered its constitution from Islamic to secular, and the House of Lords in the United Kingdom is debating and challenging certain practices of the sharia courts.
My point is that Canada, with its thriving Muslim population, should be a leading voice in encouraging such reforms rather than encouraging them to hide behind a motion to curtail free speech. As well, in a secular country, which we hope to strive for, the state should have no business in religious matters.
M-103, as it stands, with usage of the term “Islamophobia” has divided Canadians into us and them. By singling out one faith community in this motion, it seems that Islam and Muslims are exclusive and demand special attention when in fact, statistics show us that hate crimes against the Jews, the black community, and the LGBTQ communities are the highest. Polls also show that more than 70% of Canadians don't agree with motion-103.
As for Muslims, let's see how badly they're really treated. There are over 100 mosques and 50 Islamic organizations just in the greater Toronto area, where I live. There are 11 Muslim MPs in our government and Muslim prayers are taking place in some public schools. This doesn't look like systemic racism to me. However, there are cases of bigotry and racism so I encourage this committee to strengthen the laws to curb hatred and discrimination against all Canadians, not just one section of Canadians.
Thank you.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
We're going to begin our seven-minute round with Julie Dabrusin for the Liberals.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you, and I would like to thank you for your presentation. It was interesting, and I appreciated hearing your thoughts.
Reflecting on what we heard with the first panel and then again now, however, had me asking what we are doing. What are we doing with this study? What's the purpose? It got me thinking of looking back at Motion 103 and at the wording, in a kind of flipping back and forth.
As everyone here knows, it started as a private member's motion. It was brought by MP Iqra Khalid, who's the MP for Mississauga—Erin Mills. It was read and was debated in the House of Commons, and then it was agreed to on March 23 this year.
In fact, then, that motion has already been agreed to in the House of Commons, and no law was created as a result of it. The reason I'm picking on that piece is that you mentioned concerns about laws and free speech, which came up in the last panel. I want it to be clear that this motion was adopted and there was no legislation created at that point, because it was a motion. The result was, I believe, if I look at the wording, a recognition of “the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear”, a condemnation of “Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination”, and an admonition that the government “take note of House of Commons' petition e-411 and the issues raised by it”.
That's what happened there. Then there was a request for this committee to do a study, which wasn't a requirement; it was a request.
I wanted, however, to flag the part, just because I've heard these concerns, about free speech and the impact of a condemnation of Islamophobia. In fact, though, the House of Commons had already passed a motion doing that in October of 2016 as well, which again led to no legislation, no curbing of free speech.
That had me taking a bit of a closer look at what we're doing today. Today we're sitting here in an independent parliamentary committee. It's made up of members of all of the recognized parties. You have here Liberal members, Conservative members, members from the NDP. We've all come together to do this study. We came together to agree to terms for the study. We came to talk together about how we would go about it—the process, the witnesses who would be called. Now we're working together, all members from all three parties, to gather evidence for the study that we're doing.
When the study is complete, we're going to be drafting a report, and that report can have recommendations. What we cannot do, however—and I want to make it clear, because there seems to be a misunderstanding that has come out—is legislate. This is an area in which we're not going to create any laws out of this committee. What we can do is create recommendations in a report, and once a majority of the committee has agreed to a final version of the report, we're going to table it in the House of Commons through the chair.
The tabling of that report will still not create any legislation. It's just going to be the tabling of a report showing what the findings were from our study. At that point, there may be a response from the government.
That brings me to here, today. I was interested in what you talked about—about laws preventing racism against all groups. That was one of your recommendations, and I'm going to pick up on it. As we examine witnesses and gather evidence for this study, I'm thankful for it.
I want to make sure that it's clear that the terms are that we:
...undertake a study on how the government could...develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making.
Then there's a second part about hate crimes data. That does involve eliminating systemic racism—there's no halt on that—and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia, but it isn't focused on one group.
This is just a preamble, to give a sense of what I came to when I was looking at this.
One of the really important pieces that we were presented with last week, and I thought it was really helpful to undergird where we're going to be going with the study, was the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination findings from the United Nations. They made a series of recommendations. I was going to put them to you as an idea of what we could adopt as as committee, because that's what we're looking for.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Okay.
Some of the recommendations were that we collect disaggregated data in all the relevant ministries and departments to improve monitoring and evaluation of the implementation and impact of policies to eliminate racial discrimination and inequality. They welcomed Ontario's first provincial anti-racism strategy, and then they recommended that we develop and launch a new national action plan against racism.
Then, they recommended that we take steps to prevent racist hate crimes against all ethnic and minority groups and indigenous peoples, facilitate reporting by victims, systematically track and maintain data on the number of reported racist hate crimes, investigate and address the reasons for the 61% increase in racist hate crimes reported against Muslims and the rise of Islamophobia.
I'm wondering, when I'm listing through these recommendations—and there were many more—whether there are any in there that you think would be useful for us to adopt, taking into context everything we are doing as a committee here.
President, Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow
Thank you so much for the clarification.
I believe it's important to focus on the word “all”, and I would appreciate it if, included in all the recommendations, we had “all ethnic communities,” “all minorities,” and “all sorts of racism”. It is the focus on the word “Islamophobia” that has me concerned, because many of you may not be aware that Islamophobia is a word that was created after 9/11 to stem any kind of critique, discussion, or debate about Islam and Muslims.
My organization is at the forefront of fighting radical Jihadist ideology, so we have to talk about these issues. If Islamophobia comes into the terminology, already people are afraid to speak out. You said there have been no curbs on freedom of speech since the motion was passed. I'm afraid to tell you that there have been curbs on freedom of speech, because people are afraid to use the terms “Muslim” or “Islam”, even when asking a question like whether it was the radicals who did the bombing in London, England. They're afraid to speak out, because this motion has got them worried that they'll be called racist—