Hate Crimes in Canada
"It's obviously disturbing and alarming [increase in racist attacks]. But we have to remember the vast majority of Canadians are exceptionally tolerant and welcoming and accepting to minorities of all kinds."
"It's tricky [establishing a national strategy on hate crimes, particularly online]." But when people are engaged in really vociferous rhetoric online, that can also fuel and foreshadow violence off line, so we have to curb it."
Andrea Freedman, president of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa
"We were obviously surprised by the data, and not really surprised."
"It [the Muslim society's own tracking mechanism for racist attacks] doesn't track crimes based on their perceived identities."
"Islamophobia doesn't just target Muslims. It targets people perceived to be Muslim, like Sikhs, Christian Arabs and those from Southeast Asian communities."
Ihsaan Gardee, executive director, National Council of Canadian Muslims
A doubling of incidents directed at Muslims was seen between 2016 and 2017. There were 139 incidents of hate crimes in 2015 and that number had soared to 349 the following year after an initial decline for that population group. The overall percentage of such crimes directed against Muslims in Canada represent 17 percent of the total, as opposed to 16 percent for Blacks. And then there is the perennial, most-favoured-by-racists target, the Jewish population accounting for 18 percent of all nationwide hate crimes; the second consecutive year of increases identifying Jews as the most targeted victims of hate crimes.
Jews, and undoubtedly Muslims and Blacks as well, must take steps to ensure security in high-profile gathering places such as synagogues and community centres where attacks are most common by employing electronic security measures along with hiring security guards. In a country like Canada, one which was built on immigration and where a general consensus exists that people of various backgrounds have traditionally integrated and accepted one another it is all the more shocking that the pernicious persistence of such incidents occur, grow in numbers and continue to threaten.
Nowhere in the report is there the merest hint of a suggestion that while Muslims speak constantly of "Islamophobia", inclusive of any kind of criticism of Islam, or reference to terrorism and Islam in one breath, many among them have indulged in slanderous campaigns against the state of Israel, bringing Middle East politics to Canada, and by extension impacting deleteriously on the lives of Jews in Canada through their all-inclusive campaigns. And if those campaigns don't qualify as hate campaigns, what would?
From establishing "Palestinian" friendship clubs on university campuses, to staging anti-Israel protests and campaigning against Jewish students who are Zionists as enabling a purported "Apartheid" regime, the vicious slanders fomenting hatred sweep Jewish students and their families into the wide-ranging anti-Semitism launched by Muslim-Canadian groups influencing non-Muslim leftists to swell the numbers of "anti-Zionist" anti-Semites clamouring against Zionism and isolating Canadian Jews.
One of the most active chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, organizing anti-Israel campaigns and events throughout the year (SJP at UOIT/DC Facebook page) |
It's hardly surprising under those conditions that fear and resentment at the presence of Muslims who ghettoize themselves in Islamic communities, inspire in the surrounding population. A search of any daily newspaper where Muslims have congregated rewards by the appearance of Arab or Muslims names attached to crime reports of gangs and violence, disproportionate to their numbers in society. Little wonder that distrust and fear is the result, among the general population.
As for Jews, law-abiding, proud of their Canadian citizenship, leaders of industry, valuing higher education, reaching out to the wider population base to build bridges, nothing seems enough to convince some bigots that their suspicion, fear and hatred has no rational basis. The result of which is that despite making an effort to be model citizens, reflecting a cultural, social proclivity to just that, there seems to be no successful way to convince detractors that in detesting the presence of Jews they expose their innate racist malice.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, BDS, Blacks, Canada, Hate Crimes, Jews, Muslims, Statistics Canada
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