Is Quebec Racist? Is Canada?

And what if Quebecers are less racist than other Canadians?

Controversy over Quebec’s relationship to secularism and religion obscures that views on race are more moderate than elsewhere in Canada.

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  Jean-François Lisée February 23, 2023

The number is nine. That’s the percentage of Quebecers who believe some races are superior to others. They, along with other Canadians, were asked this straightforward question by the Angus Reid Institute and the University of British Columbia in 2021: “In all honesty, do you think that all races are equal in terms of their natural characteristics, or do you think that some races are naturally superior to others?”

Nine per cent may seem high, but compare it to Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with a rate of 14 per cent. There is a spike of 19 per cent in PEI (this may be a sampling error) and lows of 11 per cent in Alberta and eight per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Interestingly, one finds that 13 per cent of Indigenous people believe in the inequality of races and 18 per cent of non-Caucasian/non-Indigenous – double the Quebec number.

How can we possibly square this result with the mere existence of Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21, and the apparent consensus outside Quebec that citizens there are closed-minded? The answer, as Justin Trudeau explained the other day, is Quebecers relation to religion, especially with the misogynistic aspects of the Catholic religion of yesteryear and, these days, Islam.

That is why this same Angus Reid Institute poll found what every other poll will tell you: a much bigger slice of Quebec opinion has negative views of religions as a whole and of Islam in particular. Angus Reid reports that whereas 25 per cent of all Canadians feel “cold” towards Muslims, the chill reaches 37 per cent in Quebec. Still in minority territory (63 per cent feel warm towards them) but a significant difference.

Since support for the secularism bill, which bans the wearing of all religious signs for civil servants in authority, hovers around 65 per cent, there are simply not enough Quebecers who dislike Muslims to account for that great a number. Clearly, other variables are at play and racism is not one of them.

In fact, Canadian pollsters regularly find Quebecers more tolerant on a range of issues than other Canadians. Ekos found in 2019 that 30 per cent of Quebecers believed there were too many members of visible minorities among immigrants. That is awful. But this level rose to 46 per cent in Ontario and 56 per cent in Alberta. And among visible minorities, 43 per cent felt there were too many visible minorities among immigrants. In short, Quebecers were less intolerant of immigrants of colour than Canadians as a whole and citizens of color themselves.

Demonstrators in Montreal hold signs in April 2019 protesting Bill 21, legislation to ban some public workers from wearing religious items. (Graham Hughes/AP)

Polling from the Angus Reid Institute on Canadian perceptions of religions has produced some interesting results. Canadians don't think of themselves as racist. After all, Canada welcomes immigrants. The current government, like previous ones, welcomes an average of 350,000 and more immigrants to Canada annually. That's a staggering population growth over the course of decades. Not to mention the intake of tens of thousands of refugees. And they come from all corners of the world. 

Canada's cities can hardly be recognized from the mono-white that was common fifty years ago. The most populous city in the country is now a rainbow of colours and a cornucopia of languages, cultures, ethnicities, heritage. Most Canadians accept the presence of neighbours who don't resemble themselves. Discrimination exists everywhere, but in the social mileau of Canada where generations ago it was prevalent, it has receded as people understand with the presence of others that they're pretty much alike.

The polling results have not been kind to Quebec, showing that they seem to be less tolerant of differences in religions. However, it is all religions; Quebec became secular and irreligious in the Silent Revolution when it threw off the restraints and shackles of the Catholic Church that at one time dominated Quebec life. Quebec in fact, models itself after France. So religious symbols of meaning to many faiths fail to make an impressive impact in Quebec.

The polling demonstrated Quebecers' deep skepticism of Islam with 52 percent feeling unfavourably disposed toward the religion; a majority matched in no other province, although 41 percent of Albertans and 44 pereant of Saskatchewanians have similar perceptions. If we were to look deeply into those perceptions they likely have their root in the impression that political Islamism with its jihadist agenda and terrorism wrought.

Quebec is also home to skepticism about Judaism where 32 percent of Quebecers hold unfavourable views compared to 16 percent in the rest of Canada. Only British Columbia, Atlantic Canada and Manitoba tend to be 18 percent unfavourable to Judaism. But it is Quebec that stands out as the only province that has taken to passing a law that bans the wearing of religious symbols among public servants in emphasis of its secularism of the state in separation of church and state.

Other religions do not fare quite as badly as Islam and Judaism; Quebecers holding a 19 percent unfavourable view of Buddhism in comparison to the rest of the country at 13 percent in Alberta, Ontario and Atlantic Canada, with 11 percent unfavourability in British Columbia. Outside Quebec 18 percent of Canadians hold unfavourable opinions on Hinduism compared to 25 percent of Quebecers. As for Sikhism, 32 percent of Quebecers and 22 percent of the rest of the country hold unfavourable opinions.

Christianity comes under fire in Quebec at 37 percent, with British Columbia almost as high at 35 percent, declining from Atlantic Canada, Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskathewan. Overall, Canadians, including Quebecers are most skeptical of Islam in comparison to other religions. Yet the bulk of hate crimes in Canada -- according to Statistics Canada -- are directed toward Jewish people with police reporting 320 hate crimes against Jewish people in 2020, followed by a total of 80 against Muslims and 40 against other groups combined.

When a co-worker wears a Star of David, 81 percent of Quebecers are comfortable, compared to 93 percent elsewhere in Canada; 75 percent of Quebecers are fine with the wearing of a kippa (skullcap) in comparison to 92 percent of the rest of the country. Polling notes that Quebec shows "a unique aversion to the Jewish kippa not noted elsewhere in the country". 

Judaism and Hinduism reflect 55 percent of Quebecers comfortable with their child marrying into that religion, compared to 73 percent and 63 percent respectively for the rest of the country. Just 65 percent of Quebecers feel comfortable with a colleague wearing a hijab in comparison to 84 percent of the rest of Canada. Still, religious marriages see 38 percent of Quebecers feel all right for their child to marry a Muslim whereas in the rest of the country it averages 52 percent.

President of QNW Marjolaine Etienne speaks at a news conference after a petition calling on the Quebec government to recognize the existence of systemic racism and discrimination was tabled, at the legislature in Quebec City, Thursday, March 16, 2023. Quebec Solidaire co-spokesperson Manon Masse, far left, and Chief of the AFNQL, Ghislain Picard, far right, look on. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Karoline Boucher.

Dangerously Cloistered Religion-Obsessed Minds

"[In order to] prevent future generations from having to suffer what they suffered [Yohanan and Shifra Lowen await a judgement against the Province of Quebec and Boisbriand Hasidic schools]."
"These illegal schools still exist and several hundred students attend them, in full view of government authorities."
"The plaintiffs finished their high school education without knowing about the St. Lawrence River of the theory of evolution."
Court motion

"When he left the community, he [Yohanan Lowen] could not speak French and could not speak English very well."
"They [the former Hasidic couple are not seeking damages but a declaratory judgement; they] don’t want this to be the case for children in Hasidic schools today, even in Montreal."
Lawyer Bruce Johnston

Clara Wasserstein and Yochonon Lowen arrive at the Montreal courthouse Monday. The former Hasidic Jews claim they completed their secondary education without knowing what the St. Lawrence River is or ever hearing about the theory of evolution. Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Like any other people who leave a cult, finding its strictures and aversion to the greater society around them stifling and incompatible with a larger social contract, diminishing their pride in their ethnic and religious roots as a result of the severity of the constraints, and ultimately finding themselves unable to fit into the larger community in which they live and work; finding above all that the education they received as children ill-prepared them for life anywhere outside the community, a couple in Montreal who decided to leave an Orthodox Hasidic community has launched a court case.

Clearly the education they describe and which had undergone examination by provincial education authorities for its results in adequately preparing children to embark into the world as adults found the curriculum beyond wanting; inadequate and painfully close-minded. The children who graduated alongside the now-adult married couple were barely functional in either English or French, were almost, on graduation, illiterate and innumerate. They knew nothing about their immediate geography, much less world history past and present.

The couple appeared in Quebec Superior Court to seek a judgement against the Province of Quebec, accusing it of failing to ensure they and other Hasidic children taught in private parochial schools entirely in Yiddish, with no secular subjects on the curriculum whatever, were adequately prepared for responsible independence. The schools, moreover, had no license to recognition as educational institutes. The children attending them had no exposure to subjects in history, geography, science or art, much less the official languages of the country.

The couple was unprepared on graduation to integrate into Quebec society, despite being born in the province. Since leaving the Hasidic community in 2010 they have found it a struggle without possessing recognized high school diplomas, and equipped with the utterly lacking education they received at one of the Hasidic community's Boisbriand Hasidic schools in Montreal to qualify for employment anywhere. The kind of parochial school they attended should have been an after-hours addition to attending a regular public school where approved curricula would have formed the basis of their education.

Perhaps a good question to be put to this pair of rightly disaffected people is where lies the responsibility of parents within the Hasidic community who obviously felt their obligations to their children had been met when they received a distinctly sub-par education through this kind of schooling? Only fundamentalist fanatics might consider that as parents they have provided their children with the opportunity through a thorough, basic education to take their place in adult society when they have in fact, failed so spectacularly.

An educational assessment of 320 boys of the community found 280 among them acutely lacking in math and reading and writing in English. A youth protection agency was called in 2014 to assess a girls' school operated by the Hasidic community, discovering the students could speak English and received secular education at a somewhat lower level of difficulty than in comparison to other schools. A subsequent assessment of the boys' school found another situation altogether.

Of the boys, many among them educated in Yiddish only, were unable to speak or understand enough English to take tests without the help of an interpreter; in addition, speaking virtually no French whatever. Many of the boys were products of educational neglect; their knowledge identified as "below the minimum of what's needed to be functional and autonomous in Quebec society".

Once the families entered into an agreement with the school board to regularize education, the situation saw a marked improvement and by 2017 fewer than 100 of the boys were considered educationally "compromised", even while their education level was still below that of other students of their age group. By shielding children of the Lowy Hasidic community from 'contamination' by the social mores and values of the greater society, the community endowed their children with academic ignorance ill-preparing them for life in the modern world of today.

In order to protect the community from what he perceived as the moral decay of the outside community, Rebbe Lowy put together a set of by-laws "to govern the behavior of all the residents" of Kiryas Tosh.^[7] To live in this community, residents need to abide by these by-laws.^[7]

1. No book, newspaper, or magazine is permitted in the buildings of the community, unless their content is in conformity to strictly Orthodox Judaism.
2. All male members of the community must attend religious services, three times per day, at the synagogue.
3. No radio, television, record, or cassette is allowed in the buildings of the community.
4. No members of the community may attend the cinema or be present at any theatrical performance under the penalty of immediate expulsion.
5. All women residing in the community must dress in accordance with the Orthodox laws of modesty, as follows:
6. All dresses must be at least four inches below the knees, no trousers or panty-hose may be worn by women and girls 3 years of age or older.
7. Married women's hair must be completely covered in public, by a scarf or by a wig.
8. It is forbidden for unrelated men and women to walk together in the street.
9. Men and women must be separated by a wall (at least 7 feet high), when attending any gathering of a social or religious nature.
10. All food consumed in the buildings of the community must conform to the dietary laws of the Code of Laws and be approved by the chief Rabbi or his second in command.
11. No car may be driven by an unmarried man.
12. The members must submit any interpersonal conflict to the arbitration of a rabbinical court.
13. The Sabbath must be observed in strict conformity to Jewish law.
14. Male members of the community must study the Torah and other religious texts for at least two hours a day.

Teachers of secular subjects who come into the community must follow guidelines of their own:

1. All textbooks and literature to be used by the students in class or at home... must first be approved by the principal.
2. No stencil or photo-copy of any other book may be used without approval.
3. Students are not permitted to go to the public library nor is the teacher permitted to bring into the school, for the students, any such books.
4. No newspaper or magazine may be read in school or hung up. Students are not permitted to read the above at home either.
5. No records or tape may be used in the classroom without approval.
6. No extra subjects, books, magazine supplement or other information which is not on the required curriculum of the school may be taught.
7. For extra credit work or for class projects, students should not be told to write away for such material. The teacher should supply them with the material with approval.
8. No discussion on boyfriends.
9. No discussions of reproduction.
10. No discussion about radio, television or movies.
11. No discussion on religion.
12. No discussion about Women's Liberation
13. No homework on Thursdays.

It's a Job, God : Feel The Love Flim-Flam

"It's going to be wonderful. We'll be out from underneath that heavy cloud. Now we'll be able to really fly [among the Angels on High]."
"There have been times of elation when I have felt the incredible support and energy of that support and love and affirmation from my congregation and across the country and around the world."
"And there have been moments of incredible despair."
Reverend Gretta Vosper, minister, West Hill United Church, Toronto

Rev. Gretta Vosper is seen at West Hill United Church in Toronto on Aug. 5, 2015.

The Canadian Press

"The dances between these core values [faith in God and 'inclusiveness'], how they interact with and inform each other, is one that we continue to explore as followers of Jesus and children of the creator."
"As a Christian church, we continue to expect that ministers in the United Church of Canada will offer their leadership in accordance with our shared and agreed-upon statements of faith."
Reverend Richard Bott, moderator, United Church of Canada

"Both parties took a long look at the cost-benefit at running a heresy trial and whether it was good for anyone [and] the results speak for themselves."
"They recognized there's a place for Gretta, and that there is no reason to separate the minister and the congregation."
Julian Falconer, Vosper lawyer

Canada's second-largest religious group in Canada has decided that it is perfectly all right for a professed atheist -- one who has openly celebrated her rejection of a belief in a divine being -- to act as minister of one of their affiliated churches in Canada's largest, most populous city. To an onlooker that might appear as gross, ungodly hypocrisy, but it must be understood that the United Church prides itself on being non-judgmental, inclusive and open.

It has certainly be open about condemning Israel for the violence it 'perpetrates' against Gazans who insist on breaching the border between Gaza and Israel the better to attack Israeli settlements. The United Church has divested itself of all 'investments' in Israel, and sanctimoniously urges all other Canadians of 'good faith' to do likewise. It professes to hold Israel and the Palestinians in equal esteem, yet castigates Israel for its 'violence' and 'occupation' victimizing Palestinians, failing to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for inciting violence and rewarding it.

The story today, however, is that of Reverend Vosper, most of whose parishioners think so highly of her that they don't mind one whit her denial of the existence of a supreme being despite that they may themselves believe in God and attend the church for the express purpose of worshiping his only begotten son, himself and whatever else the United Church believes steadfastly in, aside from its commitment to 'inclusiveness' leading them to embrace a minister who fails to embrace God.

Reverend Vosper is relieved she need no longer be concerned over an ecclesiastical court hearing condemning her atheism even as she insists she be permitted to lead a United Church of Canada congregation. Which congregation appears to be somewhat more committed to its reverend than to its God. "West Hill's non-exclusive language provides a church experience that draws participants across a wide spectrum of belief and unbelief", according to Randy Bowes, chairman of the West Hill church board. A social club, perhaps?

In any event the United Church and Reverend Vosper, 60, who has served as minister of West Hill United since 1997, commencing four years following her ordination in 1993, are relieved to have decided on terms of a (confidential) settlement which will leave the good reverend in charge of her church and the church a bit of a conundrum in religious circles one might imagine. Reverend Bott, new to his job as church leader is certainly pleased to get that one over with -- 'whew'!

gretta vosper @grettavosper

Cake and dancing this Sunday @WestHillUC as we celebrate our @UnitedChurchCda heritage and our welcome within its broad spectrum of belief. 3385 Lawrence Ave. E To. 10:30 until the cake is gone and we're tired of dancing!

12:17 PM - Nov 9, 2018

All are reconciled to being reconciled to a long-standing situation. Not that Reverend Vosper is a rarity among churches of any denomination; she is merely a trifle less discreet than are other religious leaders. Must be something about the new culture in Canada of 'progressivism' so beloved of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. As a Catholic, he is most certainly progressively understanding of a woman's right to an abortion at any stage during a pregnancy.

That some of her church's congregants are critical of her disavowal of the existence of God and her disinterest in the verities of the Bible, is of little moment to her; they can leave if they're dissatisfied and go elsewhere, but she no longer is concerned that it would be she meant to depart. Her parting with the doctrine and values of the United Church notwithstanding. Seems she likely precipitated matters when she wrote an open letter to the spiritual leadership of the church.

When the Paris massacre took place at the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo she pointed out in her communique that motivation to commit to 'bad things' could be laid at the doorstep of religion. Complaints followed and the Toronto Conference interview committee set forth to conduct a review, finding (split decision) in 2015 that she was patently unsuitable for the ordained ministry since "she does not believe in God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit". Indeed!

However, things have progressed along a different path, as it happens, leaving Reverend Vosper free to continue her ministry as she will, with no restrictions whatever. As an atheist, free to speak of her non-belief in a theistic, interventionist, supernatural being called God. She will continue to minister to the religious/irreligious needs of her flock. And so be it.

God, are you listening? Are you not appalled? Smite her!

Gretta Vosper holds a Sunday service at West Hill United Church in Scarborough in a Jan. 24, 2015,   (J.P. MOCZULSKI / The Toronto Star)

Splitting Ethical and Moral Hairs

"[Was this the most egregious example of unethical behaviour by a politician she had to deal with as ethics watchdog?]"
"No. It was the most noticeable one [because it represented the first of their kind regarding a sitting prime minister.] It was an error made, a miscalculation. It was highly noticeable because he was the prime minister."
"I’m not of the view myself that more stringent penalties are required… in my view, publicity and the test of reelection make up the appropriate form of redress. The publicity is bad enough."
Mary Dawson, retired Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner

"An organization that has the explicit purpose of restricting women's rights by removing rights to abortion and the right for women to control their own bodies is not in line with where we are as a government, and quite frankly where we are as a society."
"Of course, you're more than allowed to have whatever beliefs you like. But when those beliefs tend to actions determined to restrict a woman's right to control her own body, that's where I, and I think we, draw the line as a country. And that's where we [the Trudeau government] stand on that."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fields a question at a town hall meeting in Lower Sackville, N.S. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018.   Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press

The prime minister who celebrates himself as a 'feminist' also enjoys hob-nobbing with prestigious and wealthy elites, alternating that propensity with his attraction for dictators whose governments are able to mandate what the people will adhere to, through a social contract of their devising. The ethics commissioner was asked by the opposition parties in Parliament to look into the matter of the Trudeau family spending $100,000 of taxpayer funding to take a Christmas holiday on the private island of the Agha Khan.

The complication here is a prime minister accepting favours and gifts from those for whom decisions taken by the Government of Canada can be profitable. The Aga Khan has ongoing official business with the government in seeking funds for a number of projects. The Aga Khan Foundation itself is registered to lobby the Office of the Prime Minister; ergo the prime minister is in a position to 'help' the Aga Khan. The ethics commissioner found that gifts accepted by Justin Trudeau and his family were unethical.

The prime minister's response was to declare regret for the "mistake" made in not having "cleared" free and costly vacations he decided to take, with the ethics commissioner. He was rebuked, and faced no penalties, thanks to the generous interpretation the ethics commissioner took on the matter, that the fallout from his 'error' might convince voters that this man lacked critical judgement. She did conclude that Trudeau had violated four provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act.

She also coincidentally found that Trudeau should have chosen to recuse himself from attendance at two meetings with the Aga Khan Foundation focusing on a $15-million federal grant to benefit the endowment fund of the Aga Khan's Global Centre for Pluralism. A most inconvenient finding, but one that the prime minister appeared to have no problem with, distancing himself from the issue with the promise he would do better in future.

This is the same man who has imposed upon Canada's religious communities a pledge not to reject a woman's right to abortion should they wish to access tax funding allowing them to hire students in multifarious projects benefiting society. Orthodox religious institutions take a stance on abortions and access to abortions, regarding these procedures as offensive to god, and unsupportable by their scriptures.

A majority of Canadians, on the other hand, support a woman's right to abortion. Yet evangelical Christian groups and the Roman Catholic Church advise their members against abortion. To further complicate matters, Canada has no law either pro- or -con on abortion. It is generally accepted within society that abortion is a legal procedure where once it was seen as illegal with criminal penalties attaching to the issue. We live in a more enlightened time in society, quite obviously, but one that has no need of forcing those who are 'pro-life' and anti-abortion to accept the freedom to choose.

This is their prerogative in a liberal Democracy, with guarantees to freedom of religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This Liberal-led government of Justin Trudeau has taken it upon itself under his direction to make it mandatory for all groups wishing to qualify for grants to hire summer students, to agree that they support a woman's right to abortions. They have appended an 'attestation' of abortion rights to all registrations for such grants; without checking off the 'attestation' box their registration is nullified.

"In terms of church groups that are concerned that this may invalidate them from funding, in fact, my perspective is that it won't, as long as their core mandate agrees with those hard won rights and freedoms that Canadians expect us to stand up for."
"We think this is a fair process. [Faith groups should be fine checking the box if] their core mandate is actually, for example, administering the word of God, or administering spiritual guidance for people ... These are the kinds of things that, if you look at the core mandates of faith groups, that they talk about."
"We're working very closely, as I said, with faith groups to make sure that they understand that as long as their core mandate is not in violation of Canadian human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it's not violating a woman's ultimate right to control her own body, that they should have absolutely no problem receiving grant money, provided they, you know, fill out the application properly [by checking the attestation]."
Employment Minister Patty Hadju

"[The attestation] seriously undermines the right to religious freedom since the Government of Canada is directly limiting the right of religious traditions to hold, teach and practise their principles and values in public."
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

Zohra Surani, 21, left and Melinda Cuffy, 23, pore over job listings at the Summer Jobs Services Centre at 511 Richmond Street West in downtown Toronto.    Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Catholic, evangelical and other religious groups argue that the new attestation on the Canada Summer Jobs grant application is unprecedented, unfair, and possibly illegal. That forcing applicants to attest to their views on abortion while applying runs counter to their human rights, and their rights to equality of treatment and freedom of expression and religion guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Their concern extends to the possibility of the attestation appearing on other government grants and programs as well.

The Charter protects freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and religion, and guarantees the  freedom to be treated equally under the law. Moreover, an anti-abortion group in Toronto has filed a Federal Court case to argue their Charter rights are being violated through the application of this attestation -- and though they are the first to do so, they will not be the last. This government's coercive attitude contrasts sharply with the perceived freedom of the prime minister to believe anything he does personally is beyond criticism.

Some 70,000 placements for students are funded by the summer jobs grant program on an annual basis. A grant system that has been relied heavily upon by religious groups operating summer camps, daycares, drop-in centres and other public service programs of value to society at large. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada along with the Canadian Council for Christian charities state complaints have been pouring in from groups who feel insecure in applying, or are uncertain what agreeing with the attestation will result in.

Some have resorted to their own devices by forwarding their grant applications and substituting the government attestation with one of their own devising, guaranteed to be rejected while upholding the principle of supporting a procedure they reject, as is their right.

The Canadian Press/Fred Chartrand

Thousands gather on Parliament Hill for the March for Life rally in Ottawa on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

Victimhood Where None Exists : Islamophobia Charges and Gullible Fools

"The university has not had a case whee someone has had their headdress targeted."
"Our expectation is that they [hijab kits made available by the university's concerned student union] won't have to be used."
Janet Bryson, Spokesperson, Dalhousie University

"There is a level of identity and safety that comes with a head covering so when that is taken away, it puts someone in a vulnerable position."
"To then have to speak with security or police [as in filing a report of a purported attack] could be re-traumatizing."
Clark MacIntosh, Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group

"I've heard many Muslim women talking about their hijab being yanked, spat on, or even pulled right off."
"Sometimes you don't even notice it, like you're in class and someone will spit on you from behind and you don't realize it until you're fixing your hijab."
"It's the most demeaning behaviour."
Masuma Khan, Dalhousie student executive member

"We were hearing about safety concerns from Muslim students across campus", explained Dalhousie Student Union president Amina Abawajy and this would be the reason why the student union is offering emergency hijab kits. To restore modesty and a feeling of security to those women on campus who have experienced having their head coverings ostensibly rudely pulled away and span upon.

"Walking down the streets, I have people telling me not to bomb them and to go home," she said. On the other hand, she said some people welcome her to Canada, even though she was born in the country. "It seems innocent and welcoming, but what that says is that you don't look like you could be Canadian. I already heard a lot of positive feedback from the community, and personally I do feel safe knowing that these are in places such as security. We are excited that communities are stepping up and ensuring that Muslims are feeling safe."

Amina Abawajy, president of the Dalhousie University Student Union, which is now offering 'emergency hijab kits,' says she knows a number of women on campus who have told her they were victims of violence, but few decide to tell school officials. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

The university, on the other hand, is puzzled, totally unaware that any such anti-Muslim-garb incidents have occurred. That being the case, they are further puzzled as to the need for such kits. Aren't they listening? Muslim students are being made to feel inferior, not wanted, their visible religious symbol of modesty in attaching themselves to the culture of differentiation and exceptionalism is being blasphemed!

And because of an obviously rising attitude leaning toward Islamophobia on campus, this hijab campaign has been initiated. Self-defense. It is the Muslim student community defending itself, fighting back against bigotry and hatred. Meant to make Muslim women feel safer and at the same time raising general awareness of hate crimes committed against Muslims. Harassment and violence committed against Muslim women is a vile occurrence that must be met with defiance.

The Muslim students are not alone in their lonely battle for equality and respect. The Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group has aligned with the women in designing the kit meant to be available to Muslim women who have been attacked, who have had their hijabs violently yanked off their heads. The kit comes complete with fabric, pins, tips for bystanders, a how-to guide for wrapping the hijab along with phone numbers to report such crimes.

Instructions to Muslim women, detailing how to use the hijab? Theoretically in accessing the hijab kit they are replacing their own hijab that has been stolen from them in an attack. What need would they have for sch an instruction? Tips for bystanders? Such as do the right thing and don't just stand there when a woman is being harassed or attacked ... since when do bystanders need that advice?

Surprisingly, given the confident and condemning declaration identifying Dalhousie University with a rising climate of intimidation, harassment and violence arising out of a generalized spirit of Islamophobia, none of the kits has yet been requested. As for the Halifax police who should of course be vigilant and prepared to react to such allegations of targeted violence and religious bigotry, they appear not to be.

But, as Mr. MacIntosh explained, access to these emergency hijab kits may help women feel more confident enabling them to report hate crimes they experience or witness. Even though a Halifax Regional Police spokeswoman advised she was completely unaware of any incidents such as those being described, since none have been reported.

No reports to the university administration, no reports to police, but ample condemnation of the 18,900 students attending the university who are not Muslim.

The emergency hijab kits include a piece of fabric, pins, a small guide on how to wrap the hijab and important numbers for reporting crimes. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

Humanity's Death Toll

"Along the way, the Crusaders massacred. To take but one example, the Rhineland Massacres of 1096 are remembered to this day as some of the most horrific examples of anti-Semitic violence prior to the Holocaust. (Why go to the Holy Land to fight nonbelievers, many wondered, when they live right among us?) The Jewish communities of Cologne, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz were decimated. There were more than 5,000 victims."
"And that was only one example. Tens of thousands of people (both soldiers and civilians) were killed in the conquest of Jerusalem. The Crusaders themselves suffered; historians estimate that only one in 20 survived to even reach the Holy Land. It is estimated that 1.7 million people died in total."
Jay Michaelson, The Washington Post

"For centuries people were burned at the stake, stretched to death or otherwise tortured for failing to be Roman Catholic. But, if research released by the Vatican is right, the Inquisition was not as bad as one might think."
"According to the documents from Vatican archives relating to the trials of Jews, Muslims, Cathars, witches, scientists and other non-Catholics in Europe between the 13th and the 19th centuries, the number actually killed or tortured into confession during the Inquisition was far fewer than previously thought."
"Estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition, which Sixtus IV authorised in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Some historians are convinced that millions died.
But according to Professor Agostino Borromeo, a historian of Catholicism at the Sapienza University in Rome and curator of the 783-page volume released yesterday, only 1% of the 125,000 people tried by church tribunals as suspected heretics in Spain were executed."
Sophie Arie, The Guardian 

"In August, 1947, when, after three hundred years in India, the British finally left, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history, as millions of Muslims trekked to West and East Pakistan (the latter now known as Bangladesh) while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. Many hundreds of thousands never made it.Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other—a mutual genocide as unexpected as it was unprecedented. In Punjab and Bengal—provinces abutting India’s borders with West and East Pakistan, respectively—the carnage was especially intense, with massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions, and savage sexual violence. Some seventy-five thousand women were raped, and many of them were then disfigured or dismembered."
William Dalrymple, The New Yorker

Partition displaced fifteen million people and killed more than a million.

Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty

"What follow are the current best estimates of civilians and disarmed soldiers killed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators."
"These estimates are calculated from wartime reports generated by those who implemented Nazi population policy, and postwar demographic studies on population loss during World War II."
Jews: up to 6 million
Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews)
Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)
Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites)
Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000
People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000
Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000
Jehovah's Witnesses: around 1,900
Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000
German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined
Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above) 
Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

People of conscience and of good will as the saying has it, are always hopeful that a better way can be found in a social order, a political will, to bind diverse peoples together in one great heap of good-natured humanity, content to live together in peace and maintain friendly relations. At the same time the issue of parts of humanity living in dire poverty while others live in luxurious ease is another part of the parcel of inequity meant to be addressed by those who see themselves responding to a higher calling of rescuing humanity from itself.

There are so many ways in which humanity has veered into social, religious, political persecution bordering on lunacy, with countless victims to account for. Ideologies, secular and religious, have taken their toll down through the ages as one segment of the world preys on the other, determined that it is they who are privileged and have the status that allows them to command how they will, leaving the 'other' whatever remains. What could seem more promising to society than a way of life called socialism? Where goods are apportioned equally to all, irrespective of their attributes?

Of course, that this premise of equal rights in a socialist ideal deftly sidesteps what nature has wrought in devising the psyche and character of mankind is treated as irrelevant. In whose mind she invested various traits, the most compelling of which was the instinct of survival; not just a primal urge of supreme necessity for humankind, but of all that exists, but it is uniquely humankind that was gifted with the mental and physical dexterity to achieve that survival at all costs, beyond what any other creature or living thing could muster.

So how have we done? Well, basically, territorial imperative, tribal entitlements, religious conviction and other forms of formal, institutionalized interventions have caused more grievous harm than what nature herself could ever devise on her own initiative, though truth is, the blueprint for those living things in which she invested the instinct for survival was her initiative. In the West, we look back on the era of Communism and sneer at the pathetic failure it was as a mechanism to even the playing field for the common man.

And wonder how it was that the most creative, enterprising and intelligent minds of the West viewed the Russian experiment with favour, seeing much in Marxist theory that impressed and motivated them to support it though rarely to the extent that they were prepared to surrender their own liberal democratic, capitalistic lifestyles. And it's truly strange how people even now who should know better, excoriate the Soviets for the horrible toll their determined manipulation of humanity into subjugated vassals of 'equality' causing the deaths of millions in the process, forget how other ideologies had similar escapades to their credit.

"The Soviets had imperial ambitions. It began with the subjugated nations of the internal empire -- Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic nations, the central Asian republics -- and expanded to the enslaved nations of Europe, imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain. Further afield, communists in Africa, Asia and Latin America had ready support from Moscow. Today, people will die in Venezuela because of what Lenin wrought."
"The death toll [of the Communist era under Stalin] was staggering, measured in the tens of millions, to which a vast catalogue of torture, imprisonment, displacement and exile must be added."
Father Raymond de Souza, National Post

Since then there has been Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia, the Sudanese government's victimization of Darfurians, the Rwandan genocide, and the Syrian Shiite cleansing of Syrian Sunnis, while before those were Ottoman Turkey's genocidal slaughter of the Armenians. We needn't even get into the viral ideology of racism, and the victimization of African Blacks by Arab slave traders as Black Africans were rounded up, shipped out of Africa and those that survived enslaved so that Europe and North America could commercially thrive on the backs of their labour.

Wars there have been aplenty in the history of humankind. Wars that took place in antiquity as one empire after another -- the Mongols, the Romans --  had their moment in time sweeping through the globe, along with two wars to end all wars, The First and the Second World Wars. When humankind went out of its way to prove that it was incapable of existing without conflict because of irritations national leaders wouldn't ignore and couldn't ignore when the compelling psychopathy of conquest overwhelmed some of them.

As a race, we think about what we've done. And in remembering we pause. To recall the events and those who were sacrificed to the all-too-human drive to secure for oneself advantages denied the other. Securing our honour by refusing to become a victim. And honouring those who were victims. We play solemn music, recite pledges, hear dignitaries gravely speak on our behalf in those chastening hours of remembrance. We lay wreaths, and remember those who died on distant battlefields.

Refugee Sponsorship in Canada : Mutual Obligations

"Unlike any other refugee populations, social media and mobile applications are very commonly used by the Syrian refugees and the population who are actively connected to each other via mobile devices, specifically WhatsApp."
"Refugees were comparing what Syrian friends received in terms of services in other cities and provinces and requested equivalent services and support."
"Many partners and stakeholders were concerned about the [Syrian] youth group [which had experienced a lapse in their education and might find it a future challenge to both fit in to Canadian society and find employment]."
"The perception was that given the integration challenges mentioned above, this group could become disenfranchised and have a harder time developing a sense of belonging to their communities."
Government of Canada report

Syrian refugees line up at the processing centre in Amman, Jordan, where they will meet with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) employees on Dec. 13, 2015.  MCpl Bernie Kuhn / Canadian Forces

"If instances of sponsors asking refugees to pay for their own sponsorship come to our attention, we will investigate."
"However, we will not comment on any investigations which may be underway."
Remi Lariviere, Immigration Department spokesman

"Large-scale refugee movements place pressure on health-care systems, both in their immediate response and as part of long-term resettlement efforts."
"As Syrians integrate into Canada, meeting their longer-term, health-care needs will call for a seamless network of health-care providers, supported by community partners."
"[Some children arrived with illnesses including cancers, seizures and developmental disorders. Malnutrition and children with intellectual disabilities were also observed at a rate higher than in the general Canadian population]."
"[In Toronto, more than 500 dental emergencies were addressed. Patients of all ages had severe mouth diseases, unable to sleep or eat because of pain.]"  
Canadian Communicable Disease Report study

A recently published government study began with an evaluation by the Immigration Department of the refugee program to settle Syrians through privately sponsored programs which saw 8,918 refugees arriving in Canada between November 2014 and March of 2017, of whom 581 wee interviewed. Twenty-three of those surveyed stated they had paid for the completion of their sponsorship application or for the provision of their personal support in Canada; in some instances being asked to give payment.

This is an illegal situation since private sponsorship groups are not meant to accept or to require that any funds be supplied by a refugee for submitting a sponsorship. It is not just Syrians, according to the report, who have ended up paying sponsors. Privately sponsored refugees arriving from elsewhere in the world surveyed for a previously-undertaken study had divulged that 19 of 451 refugees that paid for their sponsorship, as well. On the other hand, on a private note, it seems entirely reasonable if the refugees have the financial wherewithal, that they be expected to help support themselves.

In the evaluation of the first wave of Syrians documentation comparable with other refugee groups, it was divulged that some Syrians are less educated and are possessed of a more meagre proficiency of one of the two Canadian official languages, both indices which are meant to identify ideal characteristics for welcoming immigrants and refugees to Canada. Syrians, through this enquiry, were also revealed to have larger families and a lower state of awareness of Canadian rights and freedoms than refugees from other groups.

All of which might mark them as less than ideal candidates for migration to and absorption into Canadian society. These are also recognized factors that contribute to additional settlement challenges, (as, for example, a greater financial investment in supporting larger families) which, when added to the popularity among Syrian refugees of social media, has resulted in an additional complication; the expectation among Syrian refugees to Canada of certain services that they feel they are entitled to.

It was also established that only ten percent of adult government-assisted Syrian refugees had found employment, a number which government officials feel to be comparable with other refugee population groups assisted by government for settlement in Canada. September marked the 13th month of the initial group of refugees being situated in Canada, significant since refugees can expect financial support from the federal government or private sponsors for a twelve-month period before they are expected to become independent.

Those not yet self-supporting theoretically can ask for provincial social assistance, to receive welfare  benefits. The estimate is that from March 2017 approximately 1,890 to 2,005 Syrian adults would be eligible to access provincial welfare. The burden on the Canadian taxpayer, from the moment the estimated 40,000 Syrian refugees entered Canada and received financial support for housing, food, medical care, language and job training and education, straining all public welfare systems in the process, now extends to funding in some of the same spheres through provincial welfare.

But it is the future trajectory of the capacity of the Syrian refugees to accept Canadian cultural and social values, to join the mainstream of self-sufficient and law-abiding citizenry that will represent the true test of the wisdom of bringing in to a country dedicated to equality, fundamental human rights entitlements, protection of rights and freedoms, a pluralistic society and economic opportunities having succeeded or failed.

Islam

Think and consider: the Koran has created a divine narrative for the faithful that it is their obligation to Islam to evangelize, to invite by whatever means are considered necessary, those not of the faith to enter it, submitting to the divine authority of Allah, while considering all those who might leave Islam for another faith, or simply for no belief in the divine whatever, to be heinous apostates whose choice of deserting the faith is deserving of death.

Islam has bred deadly jihadist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, dedicated to sustaining and spreading the original purpose of Islam; world domination, Salafist groups like those practising Wahaabist Islam, fundamentalists who see, as the Koran instructs them to, those nations not dedicated to Islam as 'Houses of War' reflecting insulting intransigence in refusing conversion to Islam, while awarding itself the title of the 'House of Peace' with a mission to transform the unenlightened who refuse to declare 'There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger' (the Shahada declaring submission to Islam) into 'Houses of Peace', at one within the bosom of Islam, making it permissible to indulge in mass murder as an instrument of jihad for the noble purpose of enlisting non-Muslims into the greater umma.

One of the invaluable tools in the arsenal of conquest-aspiring Islam is to traduce the reputations of Infidels, Christians and Jews, as mortal enemies of Islam who will go to any lengths to prevent Islam from reaching its goal of world domination, a conquest that will bring peace and harmony to the earthly sphere and those within in.

By casting the kuffars as responsible for violence, not the jihadist-aspiring-martyrs committing atrocities throughout the world, groups like Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Iranian Ayatollahs and their Republican National Guard for Shiite domination, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant championing Sunni domination, along with the myriad of other  terrorist groups portraying themselves as defenders of Islam, Muslims whom the West considers moderate, justify the methods of jihad. And since mosque sermons so commonly emphasize and repeatedly cite prayers that villainize non-Muslims, citing their opposition to, or disinterest in Islam as 'Islamophobic', Muslims choose to believe what their faith expounds, contrary to all rational debate labelled as corrupt sophistry, and the reality of Islamist-inspired barbarities.

European nations that have been overrun by the migrant and immigration and refugee presence of Muslims are discovering that their traditions, culture, value beliefs and laws are held in contempt by the relocated Muslims in their midst, continuing to pledge every facet of their lives to Islam. As their Muslim populations grow so too does the infiltrated presence of an alienated, hostile community living among them, out of which is bred those choosing to dedicate themselves to incrementally destroying the host country, to transform it into another Islamist territory, relentlessly and consciously aware that whatever violence fails to accomplish, their soaring birthrate and population density will eventually accomplish.

The dwindling numbers of faithful among religions other than Islamic will eventually be absorbed over time, transforming cultures and religious adherence owing to the tolerance and patient belief in equality typical of Western thought, solving all social issues of disequilibrium among people. The vast preponderance among non-Muslims professing a belief in the equality of all people live under a delusion of time and patience solving all human disputes, and in a twisted way their belief renders an emphatic impetus to Islam's march of conquest.

"Keep Religion Out of Public Schools"

"It is deeply troubling to see elected officials participate in meetings where they do not challenge people advocating to deny the human rights of fellow Canadians based on irrational fear and hatred."
Ihsaan Gardee, executive director, National Council of Canadian Muslims

"This meeting was about the place of religion in public schools. That meeting was attended by a number of people from a number of different groups, including people from Rise Canada."
"Kellie does not believe that this longstanding Canadian practice [of keeping religion separate from education in public schools] should be changed to accommodate one group.”
"She is committed to building a country that promotes the shared values of hard work, generosity, freedom, tolerance, equality of opportunity and equality of the individual. That includes the freedom to practise your religion and the responsibility to be tolerant of other people's religions."
Michael Diamond, spokesperson, Conservative leadership candidate Leitch

A YouTube video shows Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch at an event with members of Rise Canada in Brampton on Sunday.  (RISE CANADA/YOUTUBE)

"We don't support or promote activities/dialogue against any religion or faith. We respect all."
"This was a free event and everyone was free to ask questions."
Concerned Parents of Canada

"This was an open public meeting where anyone could attend. We and many others heard about this meeting and attended. Other groups and individuals were present and spoke before Dr. Leitch arrived."
"And of course at the meeting anyone could raise their hand and ask questions."
Jennifer Bushmill, Rise Canada

Ihsaan Gardee speaks of irrational fear and hatred as a backlash by non-Muslims that people like him like to label "Islamophobia". There is nothing irrational about being inspired to fear terrorism, and terrorist acts that take place all over the globe as are all connected to Islam for the most part; at least the vast preponderance are, and the linkage of Islam and its sectarian and jihadist violence against other Muslims as well as non-Muslims through conflicts and blood-letting throughout the Middle East and North Africa and southwestern Asia is indisputable.

The spillovers of violently aggressive Islamist jihad into Europe and North America and elsewhere represent issues that non-Muslims deal with in obvious connections with Islam and terrorism. So it is hardly irrational to react to all these manifestations of Islam-inspired violence. And nor does that reaction or questioning of Islam denote unreasoning hatred or the label of "Islamophobic", a term which fundamentalist Islamist groups themselves favour in an effort to turn the tables on critics of Islam as biased racists to silence them for fear of earning such a label.

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch appeared at a site in Brampton, Ontario last Sunday where she interacted with other people who had decided to show up at a rally whose purpose was to decry that public schools were becoming sites where Islamic prayer sessions were being conducted to service Muslim children and youth. Canada has no such tradition of turning over public schools for multiple use as prayer sites, and nor should any such public institution of a secular government paid for through universal taxes become such a site.

Present at the gathering was a controversial organization which considers Islam "a barbaric ideology" and in a democratic society free to express opinions of this sort, it is hardly surprising that citizens, based on what can be seen and attributed to Islam, feel its practices deserve that description. The Rise Canada group has taken it upon itself to counter mosque construction in Mississauga, Ontario. It was Concerned Parents of Canada, however, that arranged for this event to discuss their opposition to religious events taking place in Canadian schools.

Ron Banerjee, director of the Canadian Hindu Advocacy group introduced himself to Kellie Leitch on this occasion. He happened also to address the gathering, speaking of "Sharia creep". Indeed, a decade or so ago, Muslim groups in Ontario were intent on persuading the province to legitimize Sharia; in the end this was averted because of public backlash, but the effort continues, with both Muslim MPPs and MPs advancing the Islamist agenda by introducing motions to their legislatures condemning "Islamophobia".

That absurd labelling and its connotations are now so well engrained in people's consciousness, making them squeamish about wearing such a label imposed should they question anything about Islam, that it has become popular to support a motion such as this in the House of Commons, despite that a majority of Canadians, put to a vote would reject it.

As for promulgating hatred, and failing in the Canadian equality and pluralism values of respecting other religions, Islam fails on both counts. It was only last month that it was revealed that a mosque in Toronto and another in Montreal preached division and hatred and violence at Friday sermons, which were also posted in videos online. And where was the protesting Mr. Gardee then, let alone other Muslims choosing to defend the rights of others?

On February 18, 2017 CIJnews exposed excerpts from supplications (originally in Arabic) recited by Aymen Elkasrawy and Shaykh Abdool Hamid at Masjid Toronto mosque in 2016:

O Allah! We ask you… [to give us] victory over the enemies. O Allah! Raise the standing of Islam and the Muslims. O Allah! Give victory (help) to your oppressed slaves all over the world, east to west. O Allah! Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah, O the Lord of the Worlds! O Allah! Destroy the criminals. O Allah! Destroy anyone who inflicts injustice on your slaves, O the Lord of the Worlds! O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them. O Allah! Do not defer [it] on them.O Allah! Seize them with the seizure of One Mighty, Omnipotent [referring to a Quranic verse that deals with the punishment Allah inflicted on Pharaoh and his people].

[O Allah!] Give us victory over the disbelieving people… O Allah! Give victory to Islam and raise the standing the Muslims. And humiliate the polytheism and polytheists. O Allah! Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah, O the Lord of the Worlds!O Allah! Give them victory over the criminal people. O Allah! Destroy anyone who killed Muslims. O Allah! Destroy anyone who displaced the sons of the Muslims. O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them. O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews! O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!

O Allah! Raise the standing of Islam and the Muslims.And humiliate the polytheism, the polytheists, the infidels and the atheists. And Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah.O Allah! Give victory to our oppressed and deprived Muslim brothers and the mujahideen (those who engage in jihad) everywhere.O Allah! Pour on them patience and steadfast their feet. And give them victory over the disbelieving people. And give them victory over the evildoersAnd give them victory over the criminals.

See also:

• Supplications at Masjid Toronto Mosque: “Slay them one by one and spare not one of them” (click HERE)

Images on social media showed protesters carrying signs with anti-Muslim slogans as worshippers were entering a Toronto mosque.  Facebook

The photograph shown above represents reaction to the hate-mongering at Canadian mosques and the selective conscience of human-rights-demanding Muslims who fail to regard that fundamental right as reflecting universal rights, not rights specific to Muslims.