How Canada’s Muslims face ‘perfect storm’ amid rising xenophobia

Toronto, Canada – Ahmed* has made the journey to and from his native mosque within the coronary heart of Canada’s largest metropolis a whole lot of occasions. That’s partly why what occurred to him and his household throughout this yr’s Muslim holy month of Ramadan was so surprising.

It was shortly after midnight in mid-March when the 14-year-old, his dad and mom and his siblings had been strolling down the road after evening prayers on the Toronto Islamic Centre.

Out of the blue, with out warning or provocation, a person started hurling racist insults at them earlier than grabbing Ahmed by the collar and pushing him violently.

Ahmed – who requested to make use of a pseudonym – says his two-year-old sister started to cry. “They had been actually traumatised,” he informed Al Jazeera in mid-April, referring to his youthful siblings. It was the primary time he had spoken publicly concerning the incident.

Ahmed grappled with what had occurred. “It was actually scary. I wasn’t capable of sleep,” he says.

Whereas the assault outdoors the Toronto Islamic Centre drew some native headlines and mosque leaders stated an arrest was made, neighborhood members and consultants have questioned whether or not this incident and others prefer it are being handled significantly sufficient.

Additionally they warn {that a} rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is mixing with anti-Muslim racism in Canada, leaving Muslim neighborhood members susceptible and at heightened threat of violence.

“It’s a good storm proper now,” stated Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s former particular consultant on combatting Islamophobia.

‘Harmful, false narratives’

Canada has skilled a number of incidents of lethal, anti-Muslim violence over the previous decade, making it the Group of Seven (G7) nation with probably the most focused killings of Muslims (PDF).

A 2017 taking pictures at a Quebec Metropolis mosque killed six congregants in what stays the deadliest assault on a home of worship in Canadian historical past.

4 years later, in 2021, 4 members of a Muslim household had been killed when a person rammed his automotive into them as they had been out for a stroll in London, Ontario.

Since then, an reasonably priced housing disaster and hovering grocery costs – working in parallel with a dramatic rise in momentary migration – have prompted a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment throughout the nation.

And in 2024, pollsters reported (PDF) that, for the primary time in additional than twenty years, a majority of Canadians imagine there may be “an excessive amount of immigration”.

Elghawaby, the previous Islamophobia envoy, famous {that a} confluence of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric has contributed to violence in Canada and overseas.

That features in Quebec Metropolis, the place the 2017 mosque attacker was stated to have been motivated, partially, by a social media submit by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau had written that refugees searching for to flee the US after President Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” would at all times be welcome in Canada.

In Norway, Anders Breivik was spurred by a mix of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant, far-right rhetoric when he killed dozens of individuals in a bombing and taking pictures spree in 2011.

And again in Canada, the identical mixture of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant prejudice got here up within the March incident outdoors the Toronto mosque.

In accordance with the Toronto Islamic Centre, the suspect shouted, “Did the Liberals deliver you right here?” at Ahmed and his household through the assault, referring to Canada’s longstanding Liberal Social gathering authorities.

The Liberals have been accused for years by right-wing politicians and activists of encouraging mass immigration for political beneficial properties.

That harks again to the Nice Substitute Concept, a white supremacist conspiracy idea that posits that liberal, Western governments are searching for to exchange white folks with non-white newcomers.

“This rhetoric round it being a Liberal plot; these are all harmful, false narratives,” Elghawaby informed Al Jazeera, describing the remark made in Toronto as “extraordinarily worrying”.

“The truth that it occurs within the centre of one of the crucial multicultural, various cities of our nation actually places to relaxation the concept it’s sufficient for folks to be uncovered to variety,” she added.

Creating ‘the Different’

Shaffni Nalir, the Toronto Islamic Centre’s normal supervisor, stated the attacker asking, “Did the Liberals deliver you right here?” is “very undoubtedly xenophobic in nature”.

However Nalir stated the concept Muslims particularly “don’t belong” in Canada was a key factor of the assault, as properly.

The message, he informed Al Jazeera, is that “you’re not from right here, that you’re right here as a hand-out, that you simply don’t contribute”.

In accordance with consultants, that “Different-ing” of Canadian Muslims is a vital think about Islamophobic violence, in addition to in how the authorities reply to such instances.

“Muslims are ascribed to be inherently violent. Muslims are ascribed to be barbaric, uncivilised, sitting outdoors the polity of Canada, which is a white, Western nation,” defined Fahad Ahmad, an assistant professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan College (TMU).

“And due to that, I feel interpersonal violence doesn’t even register on the stage it might if, say, for instance, any person attacked a Jewish particular person for them carrying a kippah or getting into a synagogue.”

Ahmad stated a overview of Canadian media protection since late 2023 – as tensions have soared amid Israel’s genocidal struggle on Gaza – confirmed a a lot increased variety of tales targeted on anti-Jewish threats and violence, in contrast with anti-Muslim ones.

“Islamophobia is seen as a lower-order drawback,” Ahmad informed Al Jazeera. “And if it’s seen as a lower-order drawback, then in fact the sources which can be going to be mobilised in response to that drawback are going to be decrease order.”

Advisory council

The Canadian authorities has repeatedly said that it takes all types of hate-motivated violence significantly, together with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

In 2024, Ottawa launched a so-called Motion Plan on Combatting Hate, earmarking greater than 270 million Canadian {dollars} ($191m) over six years for initiatives aimed toward serving to communities deal with the issue.

The plan explicitly denounces “hate-motivated crimes and terrorist assaults”, together with the lethal, anti-Muslim violence seen in Quebec Metropolis and London, Ontario, over the previous decade.

However earlier this yr, the Carney authorities stated it was shuttering the places of work of Canada’s envoys to fight Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, respectively, to launch an advisory council on rights, equality and inclusion.

The transfer drew criticism from the Nationwide Council of Canadian Muslims, which stated it was “deeply upset” that Elghawaby’s workplace was being closed amid a continued “rise of Islamophobia in Canada”.

“The Canadian Muslim neighborhood deserves sustained and devoted management,” the advocacy group stated.

In an e mail to Al Jazeera, a spokesperson for the Division of Canadian Heritage, which oversees the nation’s antiracism technique, stated the brand new advisory council will construct on the work of the previous anti-Semitism and Islamophobia envoys.

“We recognise the prevalence of antisemitism and Islamophobia throughout the nation, and we’ll proceed to handle these vital points by Canada’s Anti-Racism Technique and Canada’s Motion Plan on Combatting Hate,” the assertion stated.

It added that the brand new council will work to “foster social cohesion and produce communities collectively, to rally Canadians round shared id, fight racism and hate in all their kinds, and assist information the efforts of the Authorities of Canada”.

On June 1, Carney unveiled the make-up of the council, which is able to embody former Senator Marc Gold, the previous chair of the Canada-Israel Committee, a pro-Israel foyer group.

In the meantime, again on the Toronto Islamic Centre, Nalir stated the neighborhood had mobilised to guard itself amid a wave of latest threats.

After Ahmed and his household had been assaulted, one other congregant was attacked close by, prompting the mosque to implement a buddy system to make sure nobody has to return to or depart the constructing alone. The incidents got here after the mosque additionally obtained a threatening cellphone name.

“We weren’t going to attend round for extra of our worshippers to be attacked. So, we had been going to take our safety into our personal arms, and that’s the best way we knew how,” Nalir stated.

He added that, regardless of the incidents, members of the mosque “don’t need to be seen as victims … We need to be seen as members of the neighborhood,” he informed Al Jazeera.

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed stated the identical, stressing the significance of training in dispelling false stereotypes about Muslim Canadians. “Muslims aren’t what you hear within the media,” he stated. “Muslims aren’t totally different.”

*Some names have been modified for functions of anonymity.