Canadian Heritage committee  Those who answer the calls on our hotline are professional individuals. They are psychologists, lawyers, and whatnot. These calls are strictly confidential, for privacy reasons. Even I don't get the full context of it, because I am not supposed to know what it is. Arrangements ar

Canadian Heritage committee  We've definitely seen a rise in awareness, and that is one of our biggest goals. There is a rise in the educational sessions that we hold to eliminate and eradicate any misunderstandings they've come to. We understand the fact that we are talking about a phobia—not to take away,

Canadian Heritage committee  That's what it is. We are not going too much into the terminology of what it really is, or whether they are crazy folk or not. It's just a fear of spiders, and you help them understand that these are just spiders. We are trying to help people understand the fact that we are just

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. As I said, it's always going to be a collaborative effort. It's the way it can be. Again, in Alberta we collaborate with other organizations. On the national side of it, we do that as well.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right. We've done it with the Jewish community, the Christian faith communities. That's what we are doing, absolutely, to break down the barriers.

Canadian Heritage committee  I second that. I want to bring to your attention an incident in Bashaw, Alberta. A Sikh owned a motel. It was burned down, and a death occurred, just because there was ignorance and no understanding of whether this person was a Muslim or not. He was a Sikh, a turban-wearing Sikh.

Canadian Heritage committee  Again, it comes down to education and awareness. It comes down to understanding who we are as people. We are opening up our doors or mosques and welcoming our neighbourhood members to let them understand who we are and what we do. We are just your everyday people who pay their ta

Canadian Heritage committee  There have been about 60 incidents that were reported to law enforcement agencies, with the Edmonton Police Service hate crime unit. Each and every one of them that could be perceived as a hate crime has been looked into. This is where, in our recommendations, we allude to sectio

Canadian Heritage committee  I believe about five of them have been.

Canadian Heritage committee  Our goal was always to make sure that we solidify a proper foundational process internally, a consistent process, and then roll that out. We are in the midst of creating some synergies and collaborating with other organizations to make this a national plan. As Mr. Virani alluded

Canadian Heritage committee  Right. The hotline was just a start. Again, we need to create more and more mechanisms where we can eradicate this misunderstanding of the term “Islamophobia” and help educate people.

Canadian Heritage committee  —a lot of the cases go to law enforcement agencies in that sense. Does that answer your question?

Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of our community outreach through our external affairs division of AMPAC, we've held many interfaith group meetings. For the Jewish community we have a group by the name of Salaam Shalom, where Muslim women and Jewish women come together and share stories and lifestyles.

Canadian Heritage committee  For sure. The hotline itself, as Abe said in his recommendations, was a mechanism to provide support to Muslims if they felt uncomfortable telling their parents, their friends, or their brothers or sisters, or depending on what cultural background they came from. We know there a