Stephen Brown, CEO, National Council of Canadian Muslims, addressed to the Commons justice committee about the rise of Islamophobia in Canada. Brown speaks during a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 19, 2023.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
MPs on a committee investigating Islamophobia and antisemitism heard Thursday that more Muslims have been killed in targeted attacks in Canada in the past seven years than in any other G7 country, and that Islamophobia has increased exponentially since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war last October.
Giving evidence before the Commons justice committee, Stephen Brown, chief executive of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), added that Islamophobia is a “dangerous form of hate” which has spiked in recent years.
The committee also heard that social-media algorithms are promoting vile anti-Muslim content, which is translating into hate in the real world.
Mr. Brown said Muslim communities are experiencing unprecedented hate and violence “from every level of society.”
Mr. Brown was speaking on the third anniversary of the terror attack on June 6, 2021 in London, Ont., when a white nationalist drove his pickup truck into a Muslim family, killing four of them and leaving a young boy orphaned.
“In our sacred places of worship, and in public spaces, Muslims in Canada are not safe from violent Islamophobia,” he said, giving as an example the Quebec City mosque attack in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at the Islamic Cultural Centre, killing six worshippers and seriously injuring five others after evening prayers.
Mr. Brown told the Commons committee investigating Islamophobia and antisemitism that before the shooting, the Quebec city mosque had been targeted repeatedly, yet the authorities “did nothing.”
A dead pig head was placed in front of the mosque, and far-right-wing marches were organized in the neighbourhood, he said.
He accused the Quebec government of “legislating discrimination” through a provincial law that prohibits many civil servants from wearing religious symbols, including hijabs, at work.
“In the last few months, there has been a drastic rise of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism across Canada,” he said. “In quarter four of last year, the number of such hate incidents across Canada reported to us increased by 1,300 per cent,” the head of the NCCM said.
He said professionals have lost their jobs or been disciplined after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, while Muslim women wearing hijabs have been attacked and harassed in public spaces.
A few days ago, a woman wearing a hijab in Ottawa who was peacefully protesting was struck to the ground and taken to hospital for her injuries, he told MPs.
He called for recommendations made last year by a Senate committee, which held a year-long inquiry into Islamophobia, to be adopted in full. Among them was the establishment of a hate-crime hotline to allow victims of Islamophobic attacks to report abuse.
Earlier in the week, the committee heard from Ali Islam, uncle of Madiha Salman who with her husband, Salman Afzaal, mother-in-law Talat Afzaal, 15-year-old daughter, Yumnah Afzaal, and nine-year-old son, Fayez Afzaal, who survived, were the targets of the deadly attack three years ago in London.
“Three generations erased with the aim of scaring Muslim Canadians into leaving Canada. The crime my family committed? Being visibly Muslim in public,” he said.
Mr. Islam told MPs that Muslim Canadians are being actively and intentionally “portrayed as outsiders and foreigners“ and for decades “have been deliberately portrayed as a fifth column,” which eventually “has real, brutal and deadly consequences.”
“Which of you will say that the conditions that led up to June 6 no longer exist today?” he asked.
Imran Ahmed, chief executive and founder of the Britain-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, told the committee on Thursday that online platforms were not taking down enough Islamophobic and antisemitic online content. Some algorithms are configured in such a way that disturbing content, including hateful caricatures of Muslims, is promoted, he said.
He said accounts posting Islamophobic and antisemitic content can attract huge attention, while white supremacists spread hatred against both Muslims and Jews and “play them off against each other.”
Online hate is having “offline consequences.” He explained that the psychological “illusory truth effect,” which persuades people who see a message frequently that it is likely to be true, means that people bombarded with hateful content “end up concluding there is no smoke without fire and we start to normalize hateful attitudes and conspiracy theories and lies.”