The figures, however appalling, only tell part of the unsettling story.
The study failed to address two stubborn questions. What accounts for the disturbing spike in the hate-motivated crimes Muslim Canadians have had to endure? And why do the Canadian police, prosecutors and courts appear to deal with Muslim victims of hate less seriously than attacks on other religious groups?
I think the answer to the first question informs the answer to the second.
Despite the happy pretence that Canada is an accepting place, Muslim Canadians are still largely treated as the “other” by suspicious journalists and politicians who exploit and leverage their sinister “doubts” into an audience or votes. This is a subtle, almost polite, form of Islamophobia whose cynical aim is to raise spurious questions about their loyalty to the maple leaf.
Then there are, of course, the blunt, overt examples of Islamophobia that reinforce the calumny that despite calling Canada home, the country’s Muslims will always be considered fanatical outsiders.
It was not that long ago when the former prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, was the proud architect of a “snitch line” that encouraged “old-stock Canadians” to inform on Muslim Canadians engaged in what he and his odious government labelled “barbaric cultural practices”.
The province of Quebec followed predictable suit by passing Bill 21 which, in the convenient name of “secularism”, banned public servants from wearing hijabs and other religious symbols.
Doubt and suspicion of Muslim Canadians – encouraged and stoked by the careless and irresponsible – have translated into harassment and violence.
In the wake of Bill 21, Muslim women living and working in Quebec have reported being spat on, called “a dirty immigrant”, having their hijabs ripped off, and being nearly run down by a pick-up truck driven by, I gather, a tolerant Quebec secularist.
Canada is becoming a dangerous place for Muslims and the police, courts and politicians are, it seems, loath to admit either that fact or their own culpability.
Initially, the two bigots who booted Abu Marzouk’s head like a soccer ball and called him a “f**king Arab” and a “terrorist” escaped being charged with a hate crime. Eventually, police concluded that the ambush had been “hate-motivated”.
That not-so-curious hesitancy turned into stunning incredulity after a judge ruled recently that while the pair were guilty of assault, he was not convinced that they had intended to kill Abu Marzouk. So, he acquitted them of attempted murder.
This, in spite of the testimony of a police officer who told the court that the attack was “the most gruesome event” he had ever witnessed.
The officer also testified that he drew his firearm because he thought the kicking “might kill” Abu Marzouk and that the attackers had refused his repeated commands to “get on the ground”, the CBC reported.
Finally, and perhaps most outrageously, while Justice Fletcher Dawson acknowledged that the assault was likely motivated by hate, he believed it to be “anti-Arab, not anti-Muslim”.
How Justice Dawson arrived at this bizarre reasoning is – to put it charitably – unclear.
But it confirms the troubling truth that when Muslim Canadians are the casualties of hate and terror, the police, prosecutors and courts are often reluctant to regard them as casualties of hate and terror.
Unsurprisingly, the same double standard prevailed even after an avowed white supremacist assassinated six worshippers in a Quebec City mosque in 2017.
At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the premeditated massacre as a “despicable act of terror” and the provincial police investigated it “as a terrorist act”.
Not so, according to the Crown prosecutor who opted to charge the attacker with first-degree murder rather than any terrorism-related offences.
“Pursuing terrorism charges…would have sent an important reassurance that Muslims are seen as equal victims of terror,” Ihsaan Gardee, the then-executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said in a statement
That message was sent belatedly in the wake of the murder of four members of the Afzaal family who were cut down like bowling pins by a terrorist in a truck while out on an evening walk in London, Ontario in 2021.
The accused terrorist has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and associated terrorism charges.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Abu Marzouk welcomed Justice Dawson’s qualified findings of guilt. He said the pain and scars on his mind, soul and body will always linger.
