Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for this invitation to appear before the committee to share the perspective of the NCCM on this committee's study of the issue of systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia. Due to the shortened nature, we will be submitting a written brief as well to supplement our oral testimony today.
Briefly, the NCCM is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit grassroots organization whose mission is to protect human rights and civil liberties, challenge discrimination and Islamophobia, build mutual understanding, and advance the public concerns of Canadian Muslim communities. The task set before you, according to the wording contained in the motion, is to:
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.
This is an important task that is timely and essential to the ongoing well-being of Canadians and newcomers. Systemic discrimination and religious discrimination have a long and sad history in Canada, with many current expressions including anti-indigenous racism, anti-black racism, and anti-Semitism. All of these require attention and the concern of this committee.
As we know and have heard, Islamophobia is specifically mentioned in the motion while other specific examples are not. Some have made and continue to make an issue of this. From our perspective, as an agency working on the front lines of this issue and receiving regular and increasing numbers of complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination and harassment, the specific reference to Islamophobia is absolutely appropriate. This is in line with other actions that the government has taken including unanimously adopting a motion in 2015, M-630, which specifically condemned anti-Semitism.
This committee's study is also important because of the devastating attack on January 29 at the Islamic cultural centre in Quebec, which left six worshippers dead, many injured, and families shattered. This was the single most horrific mass killing at a place of worship in Canadian history, and it occurred in the context of well-documented growing expressions of hate and discrimination against Muslims. You have heard the statistics from my colleagues.
The singling out of Islamophobia does not diminish the importance of all forms of systemic discrimination but, rather, is a recognition of the current ground realities and an important signal that the government recognizes the urgency of the situation.
There has also been significant and unfounded fearmongering regarding the usage of the term Islamophobia in the motion and in the work of this committee. Islamophobia has been defined in a clear manner by leading human rights institutions in the western world and in Canada for decades. Islamophobia is hate, hostility, prejudice, and discrimination directed towards Muslims. The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines it as follows, which the NCCM subscribes to:
Islamophobia includes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear or acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling...Islamophobia can lead to viewing and treating Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level.
Of course, all terms have limits and “Islamophobia” is no different. From various viewpoints its limitations could be identified, but it would be unacceptable to expect that the term Islamophobia should be held to a higher standard of clarity than are other equivalent terms such as anti-Semitism. It has a clear meaning and it has gained wide usage both inside the Canadian Muslim communities and in wider society for many years.
Hate expression in Canada is only limited by Criminal Code provisions, which establish a very high bar for conviction, and by human rights legislation, which prohibits discrimination and harassment in limited domains of life, such as employment, housing, and services. Outside of these fairly narrow contexts, hate expression is perfectly legal in Canada.
However, hate expression and racism are not harmless. Many studies have demonstrated that such expression undermines the mental health and well-being of the groups affected and contributes to the alienation of members of these groups. Hate expression and racism are major contributors to the experiences of discrimination and harassment. It is also important to recognize the issue of intersectionality, in which individuals who bear a number of different markers can face a number of different forms of discrimination. For example, black Muslim women face gender-based discrimination, race-based discrimination, and religious discrimination. Although hate expression outside of its identified legal limits is legal and a necessary consequence of the protection of free speech, it must be understood that it is toxic to the social cohesion of Canadian society and it places tremendous burdens on the targeted minority groups.