Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 30th, 2017

[Muainudin Ahmed]

We've done a couple of things.

One of the big things that we did was around the symposiums that we've run. We bring together service providers, so people like Fraser Health, people from the community, practitioners in terms of counsellors. We give people the opportunity to look at mental health through a Muslim cultural lens.

It's very much about education. We get people from the community to speak up and to talk about their own experiences.

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

Tell me, have you been able to bring the diverse communities together?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

Absolutely.

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

There are often some tensions within the Muslim community.

[Azim Dahya]

One very important program we did, and I think this can be replicated across the country, was for the imams. We created a seminar in partnership with Fraser Health to educate them in mental health challenges, so that the religious leaders have the capacity, when they deal with the members of the communities, to deal with those issues. This is very important.

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

What percentage of your members, then, would be, say, part of the folks who worship in mosques, and what percentage would be outside the mosques? When you're talking to imams, do they cover the majority of the community or—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We're going over three minutes, David.

[Azim Dahya]

Ours is non-sectarian, so we go right across the board, whether Shias, Sunnis, Ahmadis, or Ismailis.

[Muainudin Ahmed]

Whether in mosque or out of mosque, it doesn't make a difference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'll go to Julie Dabrusin for three-ish minutes.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you to all of you.

I'd like to begin with Mr. Singh, please.

Because you talked about your involvement in legal cases on issues relating to people's rights, my question is this. What's the role of the court challenges program in all of this now that it's been brought back? Is that something that can help?

[Balpreet Singh]

Yes. We're definitely supportive of the court challenges program. It was something that was used by a lot of community organizations to take forward cases that are really of great importance but often don't get the attention or the funding they need. Succinctly, yes, we would support the court challenges program. I don't think it's been something that we've accessed. It may be something that we do in the future.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

You guessed where I was going with my next question, so that's good.

The next piece I think both of you have mentioned was representation on boards and the need for data.

Again, I'll start with you, Mr. Singh, but I'd like to hear from both of you.

Bill C-25 requires a comply-and-explain structure as far as reporting on diversity, and a lot of discussion has been on reporting gender diversity for senior management and board members. Do you think that's one way we can collect better data on representation? Do you have any other suggestions as to how we can better collect data on representation on boards of directors and senior management?

[Balpreet Singh]

I think important work has been done with respect to gender equality. I think similar initiatives have to be directed towards racialized communities as well as people of faith. It's obviously self-reporting, so you can't force people to do it, but I think having the opportunity to report and then having that data available is really indispensable in terms of finding solutions.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Would you have any suggestions about any other or better means for collecting that data?

[Balpreet Singh]

I don't have anything I can tell you right now off the top of my head, but overall the data is very important.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I agree with you. If you have any ideas that you would like to submit, if something comes to mind after, I would really appreciate that.

I'll ask the two of you if you have any thoughts about that as well.

[Azim Dahya]

The charities directorate, for example, collects data on all the charities' and the boards' composition. If they can be motivated to analyze their data, or even communities themselves to provide who the board members are, the minority communities they belong to.... If we can get them to collect that data and be able to give that data to internal statistical numbers, that would be excellent.

Besides data collection, if there are policies that organizations like the CRA can recommend to the charities in terms of, if we want equity and justice, having a better representation of people as part of one of the policies that can be established in the system, then the impact is much more in there. Because we are now using charitable dollars, tax dollars in essence, the impact will be much more if they have better representation on the boards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We move to Ms. Kwan for the New Democrats.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask a question about the economic impact for the ethnic community.

Recently StatsCan came out with some information around that. It was revealed by the media that there was a study done of second-generation children of immigrants, and they were discriminated against in that, when they submitted their resumes, and it was identical to a person with a non-ethnic community name, more of those resumes attached to a non-ethnic community name were selected for interviews than those associated with an ethic community name.

In this context, Mr. Singh—I don't know if you're familiar with that latest information—what can we do about that, and how do we address that?

[Balpreet Singh]

That's really the insidious part of discrimination. The discrimination we used to see before was blatant. You're wearing a turban, you have beard, this isn't going to work. What we are seeing now, like I said, is “You're not the right fit” or “Your interview didn't go as well as it should have”.

I've had anecdotal evidence of individuals who say they didn't get any success until they tied their beard, until they brought their beard together and looked a little bit more Western, as it were. We do hear these sorts of stories, but without data, it's very hard to get the whole extent of the problem. I think it's very clear that, for the Sikh community, anyway, whether you're first generation, second generation, or third, you're going to have the articles of faith if you're a practising Sikh. With time, your accent goes away, but you do look different and sometimes that's a problem.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'd like to ask this question to both of you.

You mentioned we have victims. Women who wear the hijab actually had incidents of discrimination. Turning to the question around the victims and how to support the victims, do you have any recommendations for the government on that?

[Muainudin Ahmed]

Tax dollars on mental health, because mental health is a very big component of this issue. Newcomers, especially from refugee backgrounds, already have trauma in their lives. To then be exposed in Canada to even further trauma, they will experience a very long healing process. Culturally specific or culturally sensitive psychological assessments and support are going to be pretty core for us going forward.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Have you anything to add, Mr. Dahya?

[Azim Dahya]

Yes. It's having policies of multiculturalism expanded and emphasized. Mental health treatments can be one of the solutions, and creating a safe social space. There should be more engagement in the community to allow communities to thrive, and that would help in the mental health area.

You could actually reverse the process of mental health by creating a safe space, a community environment or a social environment where people can progress.