Justice Committee on June 6th, 2024

[Imran Ahmed]

It's taking the lives of Jews, Muslims and others.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to MP Zahid for five minutes, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I would like to note that today is the third anniversary of the act of Islamophobic terrorism in London that took the lives of the Afzaal family and shook the Muslim community across Canada. Our London family is in our prayers today and all days.

I would like to ask Mr. Brown to comment on how acts of Islamophobia like this impact the sense of safety and security that members of the community feel in Canada and whether there is a specific example of the increase of the Islamophobic incidents in the past few months.

[Stephen Brown]

Thank you very much, MP Zahid.

Yes, as I said before, over the past eight months there's been an enormous rise in Islamophobia across the country. We've seen a 1,300% increase in cases reported to our legal clinic at the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

One of the most egregious examples that came across our desk was that of a young boy whose name is Hamza. He's a Muslim student in a special needs program at a York Region District School Board high school. Hamza was violently attacked by a group of students who were calling him “Hamas” instead of Hamza, among other racist and Islamophobic slurs.

That vicious attack left Hamza bloodied with a fractured nose. He was having difficulty breathing, among other health issues, but the school failed to call an ambulance or respond to Hamza's medical and other needs.

It was after immense frustration with the school's response that Hamza's parents were forced to move him to another school, and this is while the bullies themselves remained in the school. This is just one of many examples of the most vulnerable members of our community paying the price for Islamophobia in our society.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

I'm a woman who wears a hijab. Bill 21 in Quebec is of great concern. Could you please explain to us how Bill 21 creates systemic discrimination?

[Stephen Brown]

Yes, absolutely. Bill 21 is a law that was passed with the explicit objective of taking away the rights of minorities. Leading up to Bill 21, there were long discussions in society about basically the discomfort many people faced with Muslim women in particular. Many governments prior to the CAQ had made recommendations to remove people's rights, but it was in 2019 that the Quebec government moved to enact a law that would take away the rights of citizens to practise certain professions.

This is, for me, as a Quebecer and as a Black Canadian, extremely disturbing. I come from a family that has been here for seven generations. When my father was born in 1949, Black people still didn't have the right to go to university and study what they wanted to or work where they wanted to. My grandfather couldn't work at the steel factory in Hamilton because the unions didn't want Blacks.

I am the first male born in the history of my family with the right to work and study where I want to, and I am the last generation of my family to be able to do so, because, once again, the Quebec government passed a law that means that people who look like me and my family are now barred from certain professions because of what we look like.

The Government of Quebec has returned my family to the 1940s. This is happening in Canada. The law was passed using the notwithstanding clause under a gag so that there was no debate at the National Assembly. This was done because the premier of Quebec said in an interview, after he passed this law, that sometimes you have to give a little bit to the majority, because there are racist people in society who are anxious about the way that religious minorities look in the streets.

This is something that our country cannot tolerate. Canada cannot be a liberal democracy if we have one set of rules for one type of people and another set of rules for another type of people based on their identity. There is a term used to describe citizens who have fewer rights than others based on their identity. This technical term is “second-class citizens”. That is what Bill 21 has created in our country.

It is this government's responsibility to ensure that a Canadian passport for my family means the same as a Canadian passport for any other Canadian family.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you very much.

MP Fortin and MP Garrison, you have two and a half minutes each.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Brown, I'm going to come back to you, if I may.

We have differing opinions on Bill 21, but that debate is for another time, since we only have two minutes.

Over the past few weeks, members of the Jewish community have appeared before the committee. They told us that Jews in Canada were being discriminated against, including by hate groups. Now people from the Muslim community have told us essentially the same thing. In both cases, I find it deplorable. In my opinion, it should not be happening.

We're looking for solutions. I gather from your remarks that you don't see Bill 21, the state secularism law, as a solution. I'm not sure I understand your position. We believe the religious exemptions in the Criminal Code should be eliminated. We are looking for solutions, in any event, and the ones we've proposed are not perfect. They're certainly not the only ones.

We do need to recognize Islamophobia, but I think we've already done that. Beyond that, do you see a reasonable, effective solution for combatting all forms of discrimination in Quebec and Canada, against the Muslim community, the Jewish community or any other community?

I'd like to hear your comments on that.

[Stephen Brown]

First and foremost, I never said that secularism or the separation of religion and state wasn't integral to our society.

I want to make it clear that, in any liberal democracy, it is fundamental that there be a separation between religion and the state, to ensure that all people, whatever their creed, are able to express differences of opinion. That is just basic. That is why we need open secularism, to ensure that secularism doesn't essentially become an anti-religious tool.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I'm watching the time, and we have 30 seconds left. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.

[Stephen Brown]

Of course. That is part of our recommendations. First and foremost, we have to focus on education.

As I said, I come from a family where my father and grandfather faced far more discrimination than I do. The important thing is to have shared goals, become educated, come together and obey the laws of the land so that no one is a victim of hate. Those who utter hate speech must be held accountable for their actions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to return to Mr. Ahmed.

A feeling that's often expressed is that the Internet is a marketplace of ideas and those kinds of things. In the research of your organization, which I know is quite extensive, did you find that there are certain groups that are exploiting the weakness of companies in responding to online hate? Are there organized groups out there using the weakness of the response to promote hate?

[Imran Ahmed]

In short, yes.

There are people who do it for ideological reasons, because they want to encourage hate. There is now a growing cadre of people who do it just for profit.

You see, this has never been about freedom of speech. This has been about social media platforms choosing certain kinds of speech to promote and other kinds of speech to not make as visible. We know that they promote hate speech, so we actually have a cadre of people who realize that they can make money out of this by spreading hateful content. It drives not just positive but negative reactions too, and that's crucial. Quite often, the people saying “How dare you?” are actually bringing in dollars to the people who are spreading the hate in the first instance.

I think it's a combination of both of those. This isn't really about a marketplace of ideas; this is about the choices made about who to promote and who not to promote and about the monetization of hatred.

Mark Zuckerberg is younger than I am. He's worth $100 billion. He's not in the free-speech game; he's in the paid-speech game, in the advertising game.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Can you make some comment on the use of the Internet by white supremacist organizations to promote hatred against both Muslims and Jews?

[Imran Ahmed]

Yes. Look, white supremacists absolutely crucially understand that this is an opportunity for them to spread hatred against Muslims and Jews and to play them off against each other. I think what's been so dispiriting about the last nine months since October 7 has been seeing the way that platforms, algorithms and sometimes groups themselves have played the tune of white supremacists, who hate all of us, frankly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you very much.

As the chair, I want to thank you for appearing in person and virtually this morning, and again I offer my condolences to the families who have their memorial today for the loss they've suffered. Thank you very much.

Please give me a minute to ensure that the three witnesses who are coming to us for the second panel, who are all appearing virtually, are all online.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

We will now start virtually.

Welcome to Dr. Anver Emon, professor of law and history, Canada research chair in Islamic law and history and director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto.

We also welcome Dr. Jasmin Zine, professor of sociology and Muslim studies option, Wilfrid Laurier University. Thank you.

I believe we have a third witness, who is having difficulties connecting because of the headset, but I will acknowledge her presence, although she may not be able to speak at the moment. If we are able to arrange it for Monday, we will. If not, I apologize. She is Dr. Julie Macfarlane, distinguished professor (emerita) of law.

Let's start, for the first five minutes, with Dr. Emon.

Go ahead, please.

[Dr. Anver M. Emon, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Islamic Legal History and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, and I wish to thank the standing committee for inviting me today. The clerk has my written submission, to which I added materials that I refer to herein.

My oral remarks will briefly summarize what I have written, and I welcome the discussion thereafter.

I offer two substantive points for this committee's consideration. The first concerns what I consider a category error in this committee's terms of reference. The second is meant to focus on how structural Islamophobia persists in our public and private institutions and should be a point of concern for this committee.

First, I am mindful that this committee's mandate is influenced by the war in Israel and Palestine, and specifically in Gaza. With that in mind, I believe the committee's terms of reference suffer from a fundamental category error. It erases the hatred of Palestine and Palestinians and instead collapses it into the category of Islamophobia. As a historian, I can assure you that Palestinians and Palestine cannot be simplistically reduced to the category of Muslim or Islam.

Nonetheless, as my colleagues and I explain in a primer included with my written submission, Canadians across various professions and educational levels make this category error. I believe this category error creates more room for hate and bias and for stereotypes to proliferate unchecked. The category error mistakes Islamophobia for what the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association calls anti-Palestinian racism, or APR. I fear that this committee's dual focus on Islamophobia and anti-Semitism perpetuates this erasure and exclusion.

If the committee's work perpetuates the category error of mistaking APR for Islamophobia, you run the risk of developing misguided policies, for three reasons. One is that you will overestimate the scope and scale of Islamophobia in Canada and thereby create false positives. Second, you will underestimate and thereby fail to address anti-Palestinian racism in Canada. Third, you will reduce a geopolitical, historical and colonial conflict to a simplistic religious one. This reduction, ironically, will implicate this body in perpetuating retrograde stereotypes of the religious backwardness and unmodernity of Jews and Muslims.

Hence, I recommend this committee to advise the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat to undertake sustained analysis of anti-Palestinian racism, acknowledge its pervasiveness, and develop and promote resources to combat it.

My second focus is on structural Islamophobia in Canada's public and private institutions.

One limitation in debates on Islamophobia is a limited analysis of how our public and private institutions enable Islamophobia as a respectable policy and bureaucratic practice. I have four examples to illuminate how this takes shape in federal government practices.

As the first one, some of you may know my 2021 co-authored study of CRA audits of Muslim charities. Therein we outline the ways in which Islamophobic bureaucratic analysis is purveyed as respectable governance practice in tax audits.

Second, included in my written submission is a table of contents of the 2023 book Systemic Islamophobia in Canada, a Research Agenda, featuring 19 essays by me and my colleagues. Each essay examines aspects of how public and private institutions in Canada purvey and enable Islamophobia.

Third, I'm currently a member of the advisory committee on the charitable sector under the ministry of national revenue. In that capacity, I chaired a working group examining the implication of the Department of Finance's national inherent risk assessment of 2023, or NIRA 2023, on Canada's charitable sector. We found that NIRA 2023 creates the conditions for Islamophobic bureaucratic practice reasoning in its selection of what it calls “high-risk jurisdictions”, in its analysis of threat actors and in its assessment of which threat actors use charities as funding channels.

Fundamentally, we raise concerns about the absence of robust charter section 15 considerations in our national security landscape. The report currently sits with the ministry of national revenue. I hope this committee might draw upon that report as you continue deliberations.

In the interests of time, I will skip my fourth example on the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act and FINTRAC.

In conclusion, there is no quick fix for structural Islamophobia. My recommendation to the committee is to outline in your final report that structural Islamophobia in Canada's public and private institutions exists, runs deep and must be addressed through the commitment of substantial and sustained public resources.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Dr. Zine, please.

[Dr. Jasmin Zine, Professor, Sociology and Muslim Studies Option, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual]

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee today.

I'm a Muslim scholar of racism and Islamophobia studies. I am the co-founder and vice-president of the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association, IISRA, which is a global hub for the field of anti-Muslim racism.

I have jet lag this morning since I got back late last night from IISRA's third international conference on Islamophobia, which was held in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We brought together 70 scholars from around the world to address Islamophobia as a global condition.

We held a special session with genocide scholars to consider the deadly parallels between the Bosnian genocide and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, after which we visited the genocide memorial in Srebrenica as a reminder of the deadly consequences of Islamophobia. That is something we know all too well here in Canada, as we are gathered here today on the anniversary of the London terror attack on June 6.

I've been studying Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism in Canada for the past two decades. Strikingly, over the past several months, I have felt a profound sense of post-9/11 déjà vu, as the massive scale of Israel's deadly violence in Gaza continues to unfold and the legacy of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism as a global project continues.

I wrote a book called Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation, about how Canadian Muslim communities, especially youth, navigated that fraught context when they were cast as radicals, jihadists and potential global security threats. Muslim youth became the new folk devil around which moral panics were manufactured.

However, as I shift from studying anti-Muslim racism in the experiences of the 9/11 generation to examining what the current 10/7 generation of Canadian Muslim youth, especially Palestinians, have faced over the last several months, I can say that the present circumstances are far worse. Over the past two decades since 9/11, Islamophobia has laid the groundwork that makes it easier to collectively label and punish Muslim populations.

The global war on terror has been underpinned by racist ideologies, casting nearly two billion people around the world as violent, fanatical terrorists who threaten democracy, the stability of white nations and western civilization.

For example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used racist colonial tropes to strategically dehumanize Palestinians by referring to Israel's deadly onslaught as “a war between the forces of light and forces of darkness, between humanity and animalism.”

History has shown how vilifying stereotypes pave the way for disproportionate violence. The continual association of Muslims with terrorist groups breeds hate, division and violence. The tragic murder of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, in his home in Illinois on October 14, 2023, and the shooting of three Palestinian-American students in November 2023, who were targeted because they were wearing their keffiyehs, are prime examples of how Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are deadly, even far away from war zones.

Despite these tragic consequences, Palestinian and other Muslim youth in Canada continue to be labelled as “terrorist sympathizers”. They are confronted with police in riot gear using tear gas and tasers for attending peaceful Palestine solidarity demonstrations, arm in arm with Jewish students on their university campuses.

It's been heartening to see the Shabbat dinners alongside jummah prayers at these encampments, yet the Jewish faculty network and independent Jewish voices were shut out of the anti-Semitism hearings. Surely silencing diverse Jewish voices is anti-Semitic; it is definitely anti-democratic.

As I documented in my book that looked at campus culture in an age of empire, when the 9/11 generation challenged the war on terror, they faced surveillance by CSIS, the RCMP and counterterrorism units on and off campuses. Now that the 10/7 generation is protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza, they face armed police endangering their physical safety on campus, yet the political safety of pro-Israel students on campus is portrayed as more dire than the physical safety of Palestinians, Muslims and their allies, both in Canada and in Gaza.

I want to be clear that we will not allow these hearings to be a distraction from the grave and internationally recognized context of genocide in Gaza. The last several months have been especially traumatizing for racialized Palestinian and Muslim youth. Nevertheless, across Canada and around the world, students have bravely upheld the right to protest injustice and demand that their universities divest from Israeli military interests, despite the violent reprisals they face.

There is a lot of targeting of free speech under the Palestine exception to free speech and the neo-McCarthyist censorship tactics that undermine free expression and political dissent, weaponizing the IHRA's definition of Islamophobia.

I want to talk, though, about what is unique about Islamophobia. Not enough is said about this.

Islamophobia is organized, networked, monetized and orchestrated. There are many examples of this, which I talk about in my book-length report on “The Canadian Islamophobia Industry: Mapping Islamophobia's Ecosystem in the Great White North”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Dr. Zine, just to interrupt you, we'll get back to that during questioning. Thank you very much.