Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 30th, 2017

[Azim Dahya]

Just one thought that I would like to share also for the national plan is that if there is a policy in place.... The statistics have come out from, I think, 2011 to 2016 showing that the not-for-profit boards are not diverse enough. In fact, there's very low diversity, so that's a place where, if we have more representation of the minorities on a national level, it will make a huge difference. Again, most of the boards are run.... If they're non-representational, then their programming and such is not culturally based.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Welcome back, Mr. Singh.

We can go back to where Ms. Kwan left off. We've given you back that time.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

All right.

Mr. Singh, sorry, we got cut off somehow. Could you continue?

[Balpreet Singh]

Yes. Statistics are important—I was saying that—as is enabling community organizations to reach out and connect amongst each other, but also with the general public.

As I said, I have a lot of anecdotal stories in which people have said they have lived with a Sikh for so many years but have never actually asked, “Why do you wear a turban?” or “So what's with the beard?” because they were afraid of offending. The whole project that was Turban Eh!, which happened all across Canada, allowed people to ask those questions and experience what it's like to have a turban tied, if they wanted.

We've seen the government—and it was a past government—support through the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, an interfaith initiative that brought together faith leaders from across Canada. Bringing everyone from across Canada to one table and letting them communicate was definitely valuable. We were able to connect with people from across Canada, and those networks have continued even though that project ended several years ago. Just allowing communities to connect amongst themselves and with the general public is important.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

This would be something for the government to facilitate and to engage with so that we would actually have a nationwide approach to it. It's great that there's some work being done in the Peel region, but really what needs to be done is for this to be duplicated across the country, engaging with all the different NGOs who are out there doing this important work.

I would actually like to turn the questioning—

Have I run out of time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You're out of time now. We went back to where you were, and now you've run out of time.

We will move to Julie Dzerowicz, for the Liberals, for seven minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I'm going to start off with Mr. Singh, just in case you disappear again.

If you look at Canadian history, you'll see that as different cultural groups come into Canada, there seems to be racism and discrimination through time. That's why I'm so delighted that finally we have gotten to the point where we're ready to develop a whole-of-government approach.

As a way for me to think about what programs exist, I wanted to ask whether there's any program within your own organization that you use to combat religious discrimination towards other groups. Within all of our groups, we have to constantly be working on our own biases. I come from two different cultures. I can unequivocally tell you my Ukrainian side has biases with certain groups, and my Latin side has biases against other groups.

Are there any programs or any steps you take within your own group?

[Balpreet Singh]

It's a good question. We really advocate on behalf of religious freedoms for anyone. The niqab is an example. The Sikh faith forbids the wearing of face coverings, but since 2010 we've been very vocal in our support of Muslim women who want to wear the niqab. It's a clear right. We can agree with it or disagree with it, but based on freedom of religion, it's really not in dispute that women can wear it, barring any actual harm that can be established.

We spoke out against that, and as a result we were invited to the Quebec National Assembly in 2011 to make representations. It was actually our group that was excluded from the Quebec National Assembly because of our kirpans. It was really a natural progression that we saw in Quebec, which then ended up at the charter of values, where turbans were targeted, along with kippahs. It may start out at the margins, which is probably where the niqab lies, but it works itself in.

We've made ourselves available to all communities. We've done stuff on behalf of a Scottish kid who was told he couldn't wear a kilt to his grad. We'll be at the Supreme Court later this week, on Thursday, in a case involving the Jehovah's Witnesses community. It's just a part of our legal work to work with other communities and support them where there's a question of religious freedoms.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, I appreciate that.

My other question is something I'm personally grappling with. As we're coming up with this whole-of-government approach, we've been talking a lot about a national strategy that we want to put in place, and we talk about priorities and education. One of the questions I'm struggling with, and you mentioned this at the beginning, is that of a definition.

You felt we needed to define “Islamophobia” moving forward. I'm not convinced that's true, so I wanted to ask why you felt that was the case. We have had Christian groups, and we've had Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, and aboriginal groups, so we've had a number of different religious groups and a number of different faiths represented here. I'm not quite sure whether I feel we need to define it. If you could address that, that would be great.

[Balpreet Singh]

Concerns have been raised. I'll be honest. A lot of the opposition to motion 103 was based on anti-Muslim animus. It was not based on any sort of logical or principled reason. I also admit that the question of what Islamophobia is and how you define it has been used as a shield by some individuals. I'll admit that.

That still needs to be addressed, though. People have asked, “Is criticizing Islam, or criticizing some political interpretation of Islam, a part of Islamophobia?” It has to be clear that criticizing an ideology or a faith is not part of this. It's actual discrimination. It's actual stereotypes about Muslims. We can all agree that any sort of discrimination against individuals following a faith is wrong, so a definition would be helpful and would not take away from our end, which is combatting Islamophobia.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay, I appreciate that.

Then I will turn to our Muslim food bank group. Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation as well.

You advocated for more dollars to community and local groups. You felt that was something that was very important around the dialogue. I'm trying to get you to be a bit more specific. Governments are always asking, “What is the actual ask? We'll give money to do exactly what?” Then they'll ask, “What is it that we receive back?”, because governments are always looking for a way to justify the expense. I want you to dig down a bit deeper into that.

[Muainudin Ahmed]

One of the things that can be replicated across a number of different communities is some of the stuff we're doing around cultural awareness. For example, we have cultural competency courses that we run with local government, with local partners, explaining what the culture is and how people are expected to act, from both ends. It's bilateral, both from the newcomers and also from those people interacting with them.

If we could have more funding to have more formalized programs like that, I think it would go a long way towards helping systemic racism.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

What would success look like?

If I said we're giving you lots of money, and you said here's how you know this would be successful, what would that look like?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

For us, success would very much be like.... Barring the national statistics of less hate crimes, etc., being reported, I think that the caseworkers who work with these individuals would definitely see a turnaround in people's mental health and being more ready to participate in Canadian life.

[Azim Dahya]

In the context of tax dollars, once you progress a community to becoming self-reliant and to again becoming a voluntary body, the number of hours they'll put in to help the community—

[Muainudin Ahmed]

It just multiplies.

[Azim Dahya]

You can multiply that, and when they get employment or they get into business, they're producing. They're increasing GDP, increasing the tax revenue. They're giving back to the community.

With the kids who follow in the footsteps of the parents and the mentors, again if you talk about generations of stability and growth and progression of the country as a whole, there is a lot of impact that community organizations can give to the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Julie.

Given that we have this break, I was hoping we could have a three-minute round.

Why don't we move to having one member of each party ask a three-minute question? That will take us to 10 minutes.

I will ask David Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us today.

I want to talk a little about your food bank. I have an article from about a year ago. It said that you were open two days a month providing food, and that you were funded by the community. How has it grown in the last year?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

Exponentially. What we have found for that, post-Syria.... We always talk about pre-Syria and post-Syria in our world.

Pre-Syria, we obviously saw a lot of refugees coming in and a big need for the services. What we found post-Syria was that I would say almost 95% of all people who came through the government-assisted refugees—forget the refugee claimants—ended up having to use the food banks. At one point, we could be registering 200 new clients in one morning.

It has grown exponentially.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

It was funded by the community.

We were talking about funding a bit earlier. Who funds it now?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

Absolutely, it is still the community.

The organization as a whole is 100% community funded, except for certain programs where we have, for example, summer school or something like that. We get specific funding for that from places like the Red Cross, etc. The rest of our programs are 100% funded by the—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You're working on addiction and mental health. Is that dependent on grants as well, or is that people within your community providing services?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

No, it's our community.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Good, I'm happy to hear that.

Tell me a little about the addiction programming. You talked a bit about the mental health program, a symposium, but what have you done in those areas?