Canada: The Serpent in Our Midst

"It is disturbing that the Muslim Association of Canada would host speakers who hold and express such noxious views. The announced speakers have spoken out against women, the LGBT community, and Jews."

"I believe that people should be allowed to express even abhorrent ideas. But our government should not fund those bad ideas. ... And [it] should bother all other Canadians, Muslims and non-Muslims alike [that they do]."

Human rights activist Kaveh Shahrooz, former policy adviser to Global Affairs

 

"[The Muslim Association of Canada's lineup of speakers is problematic, given several of those speakers' proselytizing] misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ+, antisemitic, and often violent beliefs that stand in stark contrast to cherished Canadian values."

"We believe that most Muslim Canadians reject these ideologies, but considering some of the speakers the organizers have invited to speak to our neighbours in Canada's Muslim community, we are concerned that this is something the leadership at the MAC might be trying to change."

Gail Adelson-Marcovitz, national chair, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs 

"This is not a surprise that they are also using their convention as a platform to bring in people to preach these kinds of hate lectures and providing a platform for them to spread these kinds of things in Canada."

"But what are they going to add to Canadian values? By bringing these questionable people, what is their main intention here?"

Reza Banal, Human-rights activist for justice for victims of Khomeinist regime

Anti-Semitism on full display Sunday in Toronto during a pro-Palestinian protest on Yonge St. Photo by Brian Lilley /Toronto Sun

On June 2nd, the day after Canada Day, a group of people assembled with 'Palestinian' flags in Thornhill just north of Toronto, along a strip mall whose proprietors were mostly Jewish, in a suburb of Canada's largest, most populous city where a large contingent of Jews live. Just north of Thornhill, lies another suburb, Richmond Hill, which has become a stronghold of Muslim-Canadians, mostly immigrants from abroad. It's a short drive from one to the other, about 15 minutes. The assembled crowd of Muslims began shouting about liberating 'Palestine' and calling out slanderous imprecations against Jews until the York Regional Police arrived to take charge of the situation.

 

This is a reflection of today's Canada, where Jews have lived for generations and where now that the country has taken in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees along with others from the world of Islam escaping obscene intolerance from their own governments along with threats to their lives, have joined other Muslims who emigrated from their home countries over the years to become Canadian citizens. Among them are those whose message the Muslim Association of Canada associated with the Muslim Brotherhood conveys, are taken seriously.

 

A national three-day conference was mounted in Toronto from the first to the third of July hosted by the Muslim Association of Canada. This is a faith group for whom the government of Justin Trudeau has seen fit to fund in federal 'anti-hate'  youth engagement and security programs for the past three years, with millions of dollars. Both Jewish advocacy groups and Muslim human rights activists feel outraged with the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to fund the Muslim Association of Canada.

 

This is a group that has charitable status in Canada. Yet it has always been and lately more so, a reactionary politicized Islamist group. One that claims outrage that the Canada Revenue Agency has singled it out for an audit. It claims bias in the CRA bureaucracy of systemic Islamophobia. Despite the Revenue Agency investigation, the federal government still continues funding the operation of the CRA. Prime Minister Trudeau in fact spoke at an Islamophobia summit a year ago, criticizing the CRA, saying that "Institutions should support people, not target them".

 

The ongoing Canada Revenue Agency's audit has revealed a link between the association and foreign entities, leading the association to launch a Charter of Rights complaint against the CRA, hoping to succeed in having the audit closed. Links between it and the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, have been amply revealed. Of the speakers for the three-day conference, one, Syrian Mohammed Rateb Al Nabulsi, defends the death penalty as punishment for homosexuality; being gay "involves a filthy place, and does not generate offspring". He approves Muslim states that stipulate the death penalty for gays.

 

Another featured speaker, Muhammad al-Shinqiti, speaking of the death of Arab-Israeli police officer Amir Khoury who was defending the Jewish community of Bnei Brak in Northern Israel from a terrorist attack and who was mourned by that community at his funeral, spoke of Khoury as a Christian Arab as a "traitor". Shinqiti wrote: "Nothing destroys nations more than treason from within", and this man is meant to address Canadian Muslims, the implication being that they cannot be Canadians and faithful to Islam at the same time.

 

A co-founder of the Muslim Association of Canada, another featured speaker, Jamal Badawi, billed as an activist, author and preacher, expounds on defence of suicide bombings as acts of heroism. He also speaks of the permissiveness of Islam in wife-beating. All of which speaks revealingly not of human-rights-defence on the part of the Muslim Assocation of Canada, but deliberate divisiveness between members of the Islamic faith and other citizens of Canada. 

 

And to have the federal government funding this group and their odious messaging is beyond belief. 

The lineup of speakers for an upcoming convention of the Muslim Association of Canada is disturbing owing to several speakers’ habits of proselytizing “misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ+, antisemitic, and often violent beliefs that stand in stark contrast to cherished Canadian values," says Gail Adelson-Marcovitz, national chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Photo by Getty Images/iStock

"[The Muslim Association of Canada describes itself as a] wholly Canadian organization that operates only in Canada [with ] no organizational link or affiliation with other organizations [but it also explicitly identifies with the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide."

"[The Muslim Association of Canada claims it] strives to practise Islam as embodied in the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet and as understood in its contemporary comprehensive and balanced context by the late Imam Hassan Albanna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood." 

Terry Glavin, journalist, author