The Company They Keep ....

"At Crime Prevention Ottawa, we work closely with local residents, government, police, school boards, businesses, community services, child protection and other partners to reduce crime and build safer communities. So join us! After all, there is strength in numbers."

"It's a disappointing and puzzling decision for Ottawa to partner with NCCM [formerly named CAIR-Canada] on this event, given that their Crime Prevention Ottawa colleagues in other law-enforcement agencies such as the RCMP and Durham police have distanced themselves from the group in the past...."
"There are certainly less controversial organizations that the Ottawa police can choose to partner with at these sorts of events [public education programs]."
Michael Mostyn, CEO, B'nai Brith

"We find [NCCM/CAIR.CAN's] activities at best shady and misleading for the Muslim population of Canada."
Syed Raza, Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow

The purpose of Crime Prevention Ottawa's existence is to develop strategies to help ensure community safety, in the process addressing social problems such as violence directed against women, abuse of the disabled, hate crimes and neighbourhood gangs. In the hopes of reducing their incidence and helping the community to forge closer ties with disparate groups within society, fostering understanding and cohesion, committing to a social shield where crime and discord will fail to set down permanent roots.


In the past year there have been 64 commissions of hate crimes reported that have targeted blacks, LGBT, Jews and Muslims, according to Staff Sgt. Dave Zackrias representing the Diversity and Race Relations Unit of the Ottawa Police Service, who described the majority of those reports as representative of "mischief" such as graffiti of symbols and offensive labels, Internet hate speech, or harassment. Two of the incidents were genuinely seen to be physical assaults.

The Crime Prevention Ottawa group would like to reduce those social-assaultive incidents even further, to approach zero. To that end, they have mounted public events dedicated to discussions and educational forays into the commission of hate crimes. One, "Why Faith-Based Crime Prevention Matters", had a panel of two Christians and one Muslim; organizers had evidently failed to identify a need for a Jewish representative.

Rather surprisingly, under the circumstances wherein Jews, far less numerous as a demographic, are eight times likelier than Muslims, indeed any other group, to be targets of faith-related hate statistics. Interestingly enough, the Muslim panelist was Imam Zijad Delic whose appearance in 2010 at the Department of National Defence for an event revolving around Islam was cancelled, reflecting the discovery of his Islamist affiliations.

This man was involved in an invitation extended to a Taliban apologist proud of her collaboration with Hezbollah, at a Montreal speaking event. Imam Delic was front and centre as a leader in the Canadian Islamic Congress Shariah lobby for the province to officially adopt Sharia law. He supports the Organization of Islamic Conference's stridently entitled "blasphemy" initiative to make it a criminal offence to criticize Islam.

In the scheduling of the public event by the CPO, called "Addressing Hate Crimes: Creating a Safe City for All", once again no Jewish representation was involved, whereas black, LGBT and Muslim representatives were present. The Muslim representative being Amira Elghawaby, communications director of NCCM/CAIR.CAN. The National Council of Canadian Muslims was previously called CAIR.CAN., the Canadian chapter of the Islamist American organization, CAIR.

CAIR was identified as being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and its junior affiliate, Hamas, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI feels CAIR is spectacularly unsuited as "an appropriate liaison partner" in any government outreach programs. NCCM now claims there is "no strong and/or continuing link to CAIR". 

Interestingly enough, the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow is a Muslim group but not an Islamist group, which regularly denounces political Islam, promoting instead Islamic reform more in keeping with contemporary standards of moral justice and values. One might think that MFT would represent a far more useful and suitable partner for Crime Prevention Ottawa purposes, but one would be wrong, evidently.

Of the three people whose board makeup represents the CPO, one is a man, Sharmaarke Abdullahi, whose curriculum vitae on the Canadian Arab Institute site identifies him as having worked previously with the NCCM. What makes NCCM/CAIR.CAN's selection to work with Crime Prevention Ottawa even odder is the fact that the group remains involved in a libel suit it brought against the former prime minister's communications director who implied NCCM/CAIR.CAN has ties to Hamas.

Crime Prevention Ottawa Initiatives
CPO contributes to crime reduction and enhanced community safety in Ottawa through collaborative, evidence-based crime prevention.  Building on our Strategic Plan, CPO develops strategic initiatives to address key issues. 
 Our role is to: 

• Build community capacity
• Foster community action
• Nurture partnerships
• Engage in policy dialogue

 Our priorities are:

• Reducing violence against women
• Reducing crime in high risk neighbourhoods
• Working with youth in high risk environments