Thank you, Madam Chair.
Honourable members, thank you for the invitation to contribute to this important discussion on behalf of the Manitoba Islamic Association, or MIA.
My name is Idris Elbakri. I am the past president of the MIA. My colleague is Mr. Osaed Khan, the current president of the MIA. We are honoured to be here to present a perspective based on our experience and work as a grassroots community organization. We thank the committee for listening to the many community voices throughout the country, as it is a very important part of this process.
There are approximately 20,000 Muslims in Manitoba. The majority live in Winnipeg. We have communities in Brandon, Thompson, Winkler, and Altona.
Our organization, the MIA, was formally founded in 1969. The MIA is a grassroots organization that serves Manitobans, including Muslims, through three mosques and a community centre that is a cultural, recreational, and educational hub in Winnipeg.
In our presentation today, we would like to share with you why we are concerned about racism, discrimination, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of discrimination. We will share with you how, as a community, we have responded, how we have collaborated with diverse communities, and what more can be done to combat the disturbing trend of increased bigotry.
While I will speak from the perspective of a Canadian Muslim, I do so with the knowledge that indigenous Canadians suffer most from racism, and that racism affects us and hurts us all.
According to Statistics Canada, hate crimes against Muslims have increased by 253% between 2012 and 2015. In 2015, the most targeted racial group was the black community. That same year, the most targeted group was the Jewish community. From 2014 to 2015, there was an 86% increase in hate crimes targeting gay and lesbian Canadians.
We will share with you a few incidents that have occurred in our communities.
Imagine coming home on New Year's Eve to find a gift box at your doorstep. In it is a rock painted with the words “Die, Jew”.
Imagine being a newcomer family just starting the long path towards settlement and integration, still learning the language, only to find graffiti on your fence telling you, “Go back to your country”.
Imagine taking a leisurely stroll in a public park and finding graffiti proclaiming “White Power” or lamenting “The lost white civilization”.
Imagine your mosque employee going through the day's mail only to find that someone mailed you a strip of bacon to express their disdain for your faith and your community.
When we as a community sought a minor rezoning permit, we were met with virulent comments online, such as “We need to put our foot down and stop appeasing to this Islam”.
In the spring of this year, the photo of a Muslim family from Manitoba was featured as part of a promotional campaign for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Online trolls posted comments like these, and I quote: “This is an oxymoron as the people pictured in this ad do not believe in equal human rights”; “Muslims funded this place through the UN, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas. Canada is lost. Canada needs to boot Islam out before it is too late”; and “They are illegally invading our country and that is who you put as your cover”.
We are concerned. We know that there will always be racism; however, what I have just shared with you is a sampling of incidents that have occurred in the past two years only. We are experiencing a palpable increase in incidents that raise serious concerns in our communities, whether they be Muslim, Jewish, people of colour, or others.
We are also concerned about those fringe racists who mostly spread their message online or spray graffiti under the cover of night. We are worried that they are going to attempt to claim public space and normalize their message as part of our nation's discourse. Recent attempts by the so-called Worldwide Coalition Against Islam to hold several rallies are an example of that.
Recent polls indicate that Canadians far and wide are also concerned. In March 2017, an Angus Reid poll showed that 66% of Canadians believed that the Quebec City shooting was a sign of deeper problems. In the same poll, 61% of Canadians believed that Canadian Muslims face a lot of discrimination in their daily lives. Roughly 40% of Canadians said, “Lots of people I know are distrustful of Canadian Muslims.” A provincial breakdown of these results is also available.
Earlier last month, a poll by Think for Actions found that 72% of Canadians believe there is an increasing climate of hatred and fear towards Muslims in Canada and that it will get worse.