3. Current discrimination trends

[70] Statistics Canada defines police-reported hate crimes as “criminal incidents that, upon investigation by police, are determined to have been motivated by hate towards an identifiable group. The incident may target race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, language, sex, age, mental or physical disability, or other factors such as profession or political beliefs” (Statistics Canada, Police-reported hate crimes, June 7, 2011; www.statcan.gc.ca/daily quotidien/110607/dq110607a-eng.htm). Statistics Canada has collected police-reported hate crime data yearly since 2006. It has only collected comprehensive data covering and comparing all of Canada (99% of the population) since 2010.

[71] The 2012 Statistics Canada study (the first of its kind reporting on hate crimes at the provincial level in all provinces and territories in Canada) showed that the highest rate of hate crime was reported in Ontario (particularly in the Census Metropolitan Areas). The 2011 study showed a 43.2% increase in hate crimes (901 in total) reported in Ontario in 2009 compared to 2008, and a 35% increase in hate crimes reported nationally in 2008 compared to 2007. See 2011 hate crime research based on 2009 data by Dauvergne and Brennan (2011) and Dowden and Brenna (2012) for research based on 2010 data.

[72] According to Statistics Canada, “the largest share of the West Asian population, 43% in 2001, were Iranian, while 20% were Armenian, 12% were Afghan, and 12% were Turks” (Lindsay 2001:9). The majority of Canadians of West Asian origin are Muslims (ibid., p.12).

[73]“A pilot study undertaken by Statistics Canada of hate-crime reports in 12 Canadian police departments,” for instance, “indicated a sharp spike in anti-Muslim (and, oddly, antisemitic) incidents in the year after 9/11” (Seljak et al., 2007, p. 26). The study of hate crime reports of 12 Canadian police forces from major centres found 928 hate-crime incidents during 2001 and 2002, and 43% of these crimes were motivated by religion, second only to race or ethnicity (57%) (Seljak et al., 2007).

[74] See Statistics Canada (2003b) and Seljak et al. (2008) for analysis of survey findings.

[75] See Seljak et al. (2007).

[76] See Sharify-Funk (2011), Emon (2010), and Bramadat (2007).

[77] Quoting Seljak et al., 2008, pp. 13-14, who further observe:

Some argue that Canada is essentially a Christian country and newcomers who are not Christians must learn to adapt to this reality. Others argue that Canada is essentially a secular society – with a strict separation of Church and State – and so it cannot accommodate the religious needs of newcomers without compromising its neutrality.

[78] There is some evidence to suggest that Canadians are growing somewhat weary of multicultural values of inclusion and tolerance and increasingly favour assimilation approaches to dealing with ethnic and religious diversity (see Appendices 24, 25). For instance, a 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Survey found that the distribution of opinion in Canada was markedly more assimilation-oriented than most other OECD countries in the sample, and no different from the United States (see Appendix 27: 2005-2008 World Values Survey on perceived Importance of immigrants “adopting the values of my country”).

[79] The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal case of Randhawa v. Tequila Bar and Grill Ltd, 2008 AHRC 3 (CanLII) involved a turban-wearing Sikh man who was denied entry to a bar because, according to the doorman, the bar “had an image to maintain” and did not want “too many brown people in.” This is just one of many disturbing current examples of intersectional discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity and ancestry. See the OHRC’s Creed case law review for other cases involving intersecting grounds.

[80] Canadian researchers observe that overall, very little scholarly work has been conducted on the types and levels of religious discrimination in Canada (Bramadat, 2007; Seljak, 2012). The data that does exist, disproportionately from opinion surveys, has many methodological limitations, which limit the extent we can draw general conclusions from it. This lack of sophisticated research and data on religious and creed-based demographics, discrimination and intolerance in general leads to serious constraints to informed, evidence-based policy-making. Although the last decade has seen growing interest and attention to religious/creed diversity in policy and research circles, there are still major gaps in basic data.

[81] The 2003 Ethnic Diversity Survey is one of the few studies that looks directly at Canadian experiences and perceptions of religious intolerance and discrimination (Statistics Canada, 2003b). A fairly small proportion of respondents said that they had “experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly” because of their religion. Of the people who reported they experienced discrimination in the last five years, 13% cited religion as a reason (16% for women, 11% for men). Fewer visible minorities (10%) claimed discrimination based on religion, with most citing race and ethnicity as the primary basis (see Appendix N for percentages of visible minority versus non-visible minority Canadians reporting discrimination based on religion). Another recent University of Toronto study by Jeffrey Reitz, Rupa Banerjee, Mai Phan and Jordan Thompson, 2008, p. 15 found visible minority status to be a considerably stronger predictor of economic disadvantage and discrimination than religion. Their study of Statistics Canada’s 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey found that “[c]onsistent with their membership in visible minority groups, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists experience more disadvantage both objectively in terms of household income and subjectively in terms of reported discrimination and vulnerability” compared to other religious groups with fewer numbers of visible minorities. See Appendices 29 and 30 for the visible minority composition of Canadian religious groups, and objective and reported inequality and discrimination by Canadian racial and religious groups. Reitz et al. (2008) nevertheless qualify their findings by noting that the effects of 9/11 and ensuing religious polarization may not be reflected in the early 2002 census data they analyzed. In fact, the authors predict somewhat different results if the study was repeated today, given religious polarization trends.

[82] For example, Peter Beyer’s (2005) study shows that Muslim Canadians have the second highest educational attainment in Canada (after Jews), which is 10% above the Canadian average. Despite this, “Muslims quite clearly earn less for their level of education” (cited in Seljak et al., 2007). This appears to remain the case for well-educated second-generation Muslims (see also Model and Lin, 2002) study of 1991 census data, which reached similar conclusions; cited in Seljak et al. (2007). Model and Lin, 2002, p. 12 conducted a research study focusing on employment occupation and labour participation rates, and more broadly, “indicators of relative economic well-being of Canada’s religious minorities suggests that Muslims are the most handicapped, with Sikhs not far behind” (p.1083). Such findings led Seljak et al. (2007) to conclude that “[s]hould this situation continue into the second and third generations of the post-1960s surge of Muslim immigrants, we might well see in Canada the development of religious conflict that has marked Europe recently”.

[83] Noting the ways religion is often implicated in “neo-racism,” Balibar, 2007, p. 85 explains::

What we see here is that biological or genetic naturalism is not the only means of naturalizing human behaviour and social affinities…[C]ulture can also function like a nature, and it can in particular function as a way of locking individuals and groups a priori into a genealogy, into a determination that is immutable and intangible in origin.

For more on the distinctive qualities of contemporary “neo racism,” see Barker (1981) on “new racism;” Miles (2003) on “racialization;” Modood (1997) on “cultural racism” and Taguieff (2001) on “differentialist racism.”

[84] The very definition and concept of “racialization” anticipates this possibility. British sociologist Robert Miles provides a theoretical elaboration of the concept of racialization in a way that is not exclusively premised on “biological inherentism” and skin colour. For Miles, racialization involves “signifying processes” that”construct differentiated collectives as races” based on “historically shifting markers of racial otherness.” These may draw on, and intermix with, other -isms (nationalism, ethnicism, etc.) (Miles, 1982, p.170). The concept of “racial articulation” was developed by Miles to help think through such interrelations between exclusionary ideologies and “othering” processes.

[85] Scholars have traced the historical evolution from anti-Judaism or “Judenhass (hatred of Jews as evident in the Persian and Seleucid Empires, and the early Christian Church and Roman Empire denunciation of Jews as “Christ-killers”) to the antisemitic racism of the modern era that made the “Final Solution” possible, based on biologically deterministic ideas of race and nation. German intellectual Wilhelm Marr first coined the term “Antisemitismus” in 1879. Historian Martin Bunzl, 2007, p. 12-13 adds:

Both the term and its attendant ideology were the brainchild of German intellectuals who made the exclusion of Jews the cornerstone of a political and cultural movement. Hatred of Jews long preceded this movement, of course. But prior to the modern period, anti-Judaism operated on religious grounds. Persecution was often vicious, but, in theory at least, Jews could overcome their stigma through conversion. What was new about the late nineteenth century's variant of Jew-hatred was its anchoring in the notion of race. A secular concept grounded in modernity's striving toward rational classification, the idea of race gave Jews an immutable biological destiny. All this was connected to the project of nationalism, with the champions of antisemitism seeing themselves, first and foremost, as guardians of the ethnically pure nation-state. Given their racial difference, Jews could never belong to this national community, no matter their strivings for cultural assimilation

[86] This definition is taken from a 2004 report of the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism

and Xenophobia (EUMC). This was the first comprehensive study of antisemitism in the EU. In 2005, the EUMC (since renamed the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA]) adopted the following “working definition” of antisemitism, based on this earlier report:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities (cited on the website of the European Forum on Antisemitism at www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/; Retrieved May 10, 2013).

Units of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) concerned with combating antisemitism also use the definition, as does the US State Department’s report, Contemporary Global Antisemitism, released earlier this year.

[87] The Ottawa Protocol (2011) reaffirms the EUMC – now Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) –

working definition of antisemitism, which says:

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively – the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy, or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
• Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
• Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
• Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations (see Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, 2010).

[88] See supra note 42 for elaboration of the rationale for using the notation of “antisemitism” as opposed

to “anti-Semitism”.

[89] While some view antisemitism as properly only applying to its dominant race-based modern 19^th century variant, others highlight continuities and transformations over a long history extending from ancient times to the present.

[90] Ben-Moshe, 2007, p. 108 for instance argues:

The new antisemitism is not “classic” antisemitism directed at Jews because they are foreign and different, but the spilling over of the Israeli-Arab conflict to Jewish communities throughout the world...[It] is aimed at the collective Jewish state, albeit by employing classical antisemitic characteristics…”.

Though its precise characteristics and features remain contested and are evolving, included in the new antisemitism (some call it “Judeophobia”) are things like “singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium” (quoting the Ottawa Protocol), targeting the state of Israel as a “Jewish collective,” denying Jews the right to national self-determination afforded to others (for instance, by attacking the legitimacy of the state of Israel, or comparing Israel with apartheid South Africa).

[91] While acknowledging how anti-Zionism can take antisemitic forms, the (2004) Report of the European Union’s Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia suggests that only if Jews are targeted “as Jews” is it legitimate to speak of “antisemitism.” Anti-Zionist viewpoints, from this perspective, are only antisemitic if "Israel is seen as being a representative of 'the Jew,'" as opposed to "hostility towards Israel as 'Israel,' i.e. as a country that is criticized for its concrete policies"

(2004 European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia Report, cited in Bunzl, 2007).

[92] See supra note 42 for elaboration of the rationale for using the notation of “antisemitism” as opposed

to “anti-Semitism.”

[93] Partly in recognition of this, in 2009, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was established by all four major federal political parties to investigate and combat antisemitism, including new antisemitism.

[94] See bnaibrith.ca/files/audit2011/AUDIT2011.pdf.

[95] B’nai Brith (2012).

[96] Tel Aviv University (2010). Antisemitism Worldwide 2010 General Analysis. Edited by Roni Stauber. The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism and The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry. Study cited in Sutcliffe, 2007.

[97] OHRC, 2005, p. 10. The OHRC’s Policy and guidelines on racism and racial discrimination further describes Islamophobia as “[a] contemporary and emerging form of racism in Canada” that “[i]n addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling…leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level”. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation (2013b) similarly defines Islamophobia as “expressions of fear and negative stereotypes, bias or acts of hostility towards the religion of Islam and individual Muslims.”

[98] Definition taken from Netherlands national submission as part of an unpublished 2002 European

Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) study cited in Allen, 2010, p. 134. Named the RAREN 3 data collection project, the EUMC did this study in late 2001 and early 2002, to establish universally accepted definitions for “racism,” “xenophobia,” “antisemitism” and “Islamophobia.” It involved surveying EU member states for their definitions.

[99] British Runnymede Trust (1997), cited in Jamil, 2012, p. 65.

[100] The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia commissioned Allen and Jorgen S. Nielsen to co-author its Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001, 2010, p. 190. Allen continues to lead government sponsored research on Islamophobia in the UK, and internationally. He defines Islamophobia as

An ideology, similar in theory, function and purpose to racism and other similar phenomena, that sustains and perpetuates negatively evaluated meaning about Muslims and Islam in the contemporary setting in similar ways to that which it has historically, although not necessarily as a continuum, subsequently pertaining, influencing and impacting upon social action, interaction, response and so on, shaping and determining understanding, perceptions and attitudes in the social consensus - the shared languages and conceptual maps - that inform and construct thinking about Muslims and Islam as Other. .. As a consequence of this, exclusionary practices - practices that disadvantage, prejudice or discriminate against Muslims and Islam in social, economic and political spheres, including the subjection to violence – are in evidence. For such to be Islamophobia however, an acknowledged 'Muslim' or 'Islamic' element - either explicit or implicit, overtly expressed or covertly hidden, or merely even nuanced through meanings that are 'theological', 'social', 'cultural', 'racial' and so on, that at times never even necessarily name or identify 'Muslims' or 'Islam' - must be present.

Though cumbersome and unwieldy in its definition, Allen arguably advances the analytical purchase

of the concept by moving away from definitions that:

• hinge on distinguishing between “open” or “closed,” “true” or “false” representations of Islam (which tend to engender a fractious, but largely irrelevant, politics of authenticity, i.e. “real Islam says…”)
• do not distinguish between effects and causes of Islamophobia and other related phenomenon (either reducing it, or ignoring its relationship to racism, xenophobia, orientalism, etc.)
• treat Islamophobia in a social and historical vacuum, either over-generalizing or failing to see connections beyond a specific event or issue in time;
• do not elaborate the precise “ideological” and discursive mechanisms for sustaining and perpetuating it.

[101] Zine, 2004, p. 113. Zine, a professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University, argues: “to capture the complex dimensions through which Islamophobia operates, it is necessary to extend the definition from its limited conception as a ‘fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims’ and acknowledge that these attitudes are intrinsically linked to individual, ideological, and systemic forms of oppression that support the logic and rationale of specific power relations”.

[102] Questions include: to what extent are the tenets of Islam actually a focus of Islamophobes, and to

what extent are Muslims or Arabs or South Asians as a people targeted, no matter what their beliefs? How can a highly multi-ethnic religious community that does not share biological descent be the subject of racism? Meer and Modood, 2010, p. 77 argue that “while it is true that “Muslim” is not a (putative) biological category in the way that “Black” or “south Asian” (aka “Paki”), or Chinese is, neither was “Jew”:

In that instance it took a long non-linear history of racialization to turn an ethno-religious group into a race.” Similarly, “Bosnian Muslims were “ethnically cleansed” because they came to be identified as a “racial” group by people who were phenotypically, linguistically and culturally the same as themselves”. Meer and Modood, 2010, p. 82 go on to observe how “it is frequently stated that while gender, racial and sexuality based identities are ascribed or involuntary categories of birth, being a Muslim is about chosen beliefs, and that Muslims therefore need or ought to have less legal protection than these other kinds of identities. What this ignores, however… is that people do not choose to be or not to be born into a Muslim family. Similarly, no one chooses to be born into a society where to look like a Muslim or to be a Muslim invites suspicion and hostility, and this logically parallels the kinds of racial discrimination directed at other minorities…”.

[103] Most agree that while current-day Islamophobia has distinct features, it draws upon a reservoir of discourses, images and hostile stereotypes from a much longer European historical encounter with Islam.

[104] Both quantitative and qualitative studies to date show increasing levels of anti-Muslim prejudice.

Much of this research is based on opinion polls and surveys. A report by the Toronto Police Service showed a 66% increase in hate crimes in Toronto in 2001, with the largest increase being against Muslims (Zine, 2004). Incidents reported that year included: the stabbing of a Muslim man; the beating and and hospitalization of a 15-year-old boy; attempts by drivers to run down Muslim women as they crossed the street; threats to Mosques and Islamic schools; and in Hamilton, not far from Toronto, the firebombing of a Hindu temple that was mistaken for a mosque (Zine, 2004). Another Ipsos Reid poll found that 60% of people surveyed felt there was increased discrimination against Muslims compared

to 10 years ago (Chung, 2011; cited in Jamil, 2012). For more qualitative research on Islamophobia see Jamil (2012) and Perry and Poynting (2006). Further qualitative research on Islamophobia in Canada was being conducted by Dr. Barbara Perry in 2012, including an unpublished (at the time) year-long study on the rise of incidents of hate-based attacks against Muslims.

[105] Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director of CAIR-CAN, commented on three recurring myths encountered

in the Canadian context: (1) Muslims are monolithic – they all believe, practice and manifest in the same way; (2) Muslims are trying to undermine democratic institutions and pose a threat to society; (3) there

is a necessary link between hate and Islam (e.g. Islam as hateful towards women, LGBT minorities,

non-Muslims, etc.).

[106] For example, in a 2006-2007 Environics Canada survey, the most comprehensive of its kind, 28% of the general Canadian population sampled believed that “most” or “many” Canadians are hostile towards Muslims (Adams, 2009, p.23). Thirty-eight percent of the 2,000 Canadians surveyed said their impression of Islam was negative. Security concerns were evident in such assessments as most respondents viewed a terrorist attack perpetrated by Canadians with a Muslim background as either very (19%) or somewhat (40%) likely.

A diverse range of later opinion polls and surveys show growing levels of animosity towards Muslims, who were generally perceived to be the least trusted and the most disliked of all religious, ethnic or racial groups among the general Canadian population. For example, in a (2007) Léger Marketing Poll commissioned by Sun Media, only 53% of the 3,000+ Canadian adults surveyed between December 2006 and January 2007 said they held a positive view of the Arab community, lower than that for the Black (70%) or Jewish (76%) communities (Léger Marketing 2007). A (2008) poll of 1,522 Canadians conducted by Léger Marketing on behalf of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation showed similar results (Hill, 2012; see also Jedwab, 2008). An equivalent phone survey would have a margin of error of 2.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20. When asked how much they trusted Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Aboriginal people, immigrants and Muslims, the overall “total trust” scores for the five groups (using a combination of rankings for “trusted a lot” and “trusted somewhat”) were: Protestants 71%, Catholics 70%, Jews 69%, Aboriginals 64%, immigrants 64% and Muslims 48% (with mistrust levels of Muslims being highest for older Canadians). People aged 18-24 gave Muslims

the highest rating for trustworthiness, and people over 65 gave Muslims the lowest rating. A November (2010) Angus Reid Public Opinion online survey asked 1,006 randomly selected Canadian adults if Canada is tolerant or intolerant towards nine different groups (Angus-Reid, 2008). One-third of respondents (33%) thought that Canadian society was intolerant towards Muslims, the highest of all categories (followed by Aboriginal Canadians and immigrants from South Asia). See Appendix 31 for more on findings. When this same poll asked who is most disliked in Canada, Muslims came out on top

at 33%, followed by immigrants from India and Pakistan (24%), Africa (16%) and China (10%).

Another 2011 survey conducted by the Association of Canadian Studies found that 43%, or less than half of the 2,345 people polled, expressed "very positive" or "somewhat positive" perceptions of Muslims (Boswell, 2011; cited in Jamil, 2012).

[107] See Allen (2010) focusing on the UK context in this respect.

[108] The 2006-2007 Environics Focus Canada Survey survey found that 55% of Canadians thought banning Muslim headscarves (of any kind) was a bad idea, compared to 57% of Americans and 62% of Britons (Adams, 2009). Thirty-six percent called the ban a good idea. Environics surveyed 500 Canadian Muslims, as well as 2,000 members of the Canadian general public, to gain comparative insight into attitudes towards and about the integration of Muslims in Canada, inspired by a parallel study conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes project in France, Spain, Germany and Great Britain. The survey of Canadian Muslims took place from November 30, 2006 to January 5, 2007, while the general population survey occurred between December 8 and December 30, 2006 (Adams, 2009).

Interestingly, when asked whether they thought most Muslims wanted to “adopt Canadian customs and way of life” or “be distinct from the larger Canadian society,” a modest majority (55%) of Muslims said they believed most Muslims wanted to adopt Canadian customs. Among the general population, just a quarter of all Canadians (25%) believed that most Muslims are interested in adopting Canadian customs, and a majority (57%) believed that Muslims wish to remain distinct. Seven percent of the general public believed Muslim Canadians are interested in both integrating and remaining distinct (Adams 2009). Canada had the second greatest disparity between the opinions of the Muslim community and the general population of all five countries surveyed (including France, Germany, Britain and Spain). This finding may show that many Canadians associate wearing such outer religious symbols as the hijab with a failure or resistance to adapt to “Canadian customs and norms” (versus merely expressing “reasonable” security and identification concerns as often portrayed). Retaining both cultural distinctness and adapting to Canadian norms was rarely seen as an option – an either/or approach dominated the perceived realm of possibilities.

[109] Though not explicitly stated, Bill 94 takes specific aim at Muslim women who wear the niqab (full-face veil) in public, for avowed concerns around security, communication and identification.

[110] Sharify-Funk (2011). The 2010 Angus Reid poll also found 95% of Quebecers supported the Bill. Overall, men were more likely to support the Bill than women (83% vs. 77%), and people over 55 were more likely than those under 35 (86% vs. 69%). The Bill received wide public support from people like Prime Minister Harper (“the law...makes sense”) and Michael Ignatieff (who spoke of sensible compromise). Mario Conseco, vice president of public affairs for Angus Reid, noted that “it is very rare to have such a high level of public support for a government measure,” further noting that “such breadth of consensus suggests a turning point: a moment at which Canadians are reaching the limits of our vaunted self-image as tolerant and inclusive” (cited in Sharify-Funk, 2011, p.146.

[111] As was found in the 2006 Environics Canada Survey, the 2011 Focus Canada Survey by the Environics Institute found that the Canadian public is most likely to feel that Muslims experience discrimination (often or sometimes). This survey was based on telephone interviews with a representative sample of 1,500 Canadians (aged 18 and over) between November 21 and December 14, 2011. The survey sample, stratified to ensure coverage of all 10 provinces, reflects the population by age cohort, gender and community size. The results from a survey of this size drawn from the population are expected to produce results accurate to within plus or minus 2.5%, in 95 out of 100 samples.

[112] The youngest cohort of Canadian Muslims was the most likely to report an experience of discrimination in the 2006-2007 Environics Canada survey: 42% of people aged 18 to 29 reported such an experience, 11 points above the Muslim average (Adams, 2009). Women were also more likely than men to say they had been discriminated against, a trend in part linked to their greater visibility when wearing headscarves (hijab) or face veils (niqab) identifying them as Muslim (Adams, 2009; see also Jamil, 2011).

[113] A 2002 national survey by the Canadian branch of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) – entitled “Canadian Muslims One Year After 9-11” - showed that Muslims felt they were increasingly the targets of religious discrimination following 9/11. Fifty-six percent of respondents reported experiencing anti-Muslim incidents in the year after 9/11. Verbal abuse accounted for 33% of incidents, racial profiling accounted for 18% and workplace discrimination for 16% (cited in Council for American-Islamic Relations Canada, 2004, p. 6).

[114] Jamil, (2012).

[115] Husaini (1990).

[116] Unlike classical antisemitism and other modern forms of racism that questioned racialised others’ “fitness for inclusion in the national community...in the interest of national purification,” Bunzl, 2007, p. 13 comments on the contemporary European situation: “Islamophobes are not particularly worried whether Muslims can be good Germans, Italians, or Danes. Rather, they question whether Muslims can be good Europeans”, to which we could add, citizens of western secular liberal democracies more broadly.

[117] See for instance Thomas (2009).

[118] Calhoun, 2008, p. 7. The emergence and propagation of a more closed and rigid ”ideological secularism” in Canada and elsewhere, as noted in the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor Commission report among other research, has in part been a response to global religious resurgence, the “War on Terror” and increasing religious diversity and non-western immigrant presences in major western metropolitan centres.

[119] Quoting Bramadat, 2007, p. 121. From this reductive perspective, Bramadat notes, “all acts of altruism, kindness, creativity and human solidarity one sees in religion are treated as illusions oriented toward duping outsiders and insiders” (ibid.; see also Seljak et al., 2007).

[120] Noting an upsurge in anti-immigrant rhetoric positioning religion as a barrier to immigrant integration, Seljak et al. (2007) envisions:

[A]nti-immigration – and worse anti-immigrant discourse – will increasingly be constructed in terms of the need of a putatively secular, democratic, egalitarian and enlightened society needing to protect itself from religious communities identified with immigrant populations and imagined as regressive, anti-democratic, authoritarian and irrational.

Using supposedly democratic and egalitarian ideals to socially exclude ethno-racial and religious minorities is a classic example of what Henry and Tator (2009) call “democratic racism”. They describe democratic racism as “the most appropriate model for understanding how and why racism continues in Canada.” They broadly define democratic racism as an ideology that permits and sustains people’s ability in Canada to maintain and reconcile two apparently conflicting sets of values: (1) liberal democratic values and principles such as justice, equality and fairness, and (2) non-egalitarian values that reflect and sanction negative feelings, attitudes and discriminatory behaviours towards minority racial groups.

[121] This trend has been noted in recent high-profile religious minority accommodation cases in public life, in areas like congregational prayers in school, kirpans in schoolyards and courtrooms, equally funding religious schools, or faith-based family mediation (see Seljak et al., 2008). Some incidents and reservations initially involved Muslims and a perceived threat of “Islamicisation,” but eventually led to criticism of religious practice in public more generally. As a result, previously unquestioned accommodation of religious minorities across the religion spectrum are now being challenged. An example of this is the recent controversy following media reports of congregational Muslim prayers in a Toronto-area public middle school. Bromberg (2012) observes how the ensuing public debate resulted in public comments about ending rentals of facilities to Jewish and other faith groups for after-school religious activities. Bromberg, 2012, pp. 62-63 further notes how public misunderstanding about the fundamental purpose and rationale for reasonable accommodation is “creating a climate of animosity and mistrust towards new immigrants, as well as existing cultural/religious communities.” Also, “new demands that seem to threaten established ways or norms are resulting in a pull back against publicly accepted rights that the Jewish community and other groups have enjoyed”.

[122] More than one participant expressed this view at the January 2012 OHRC Policy Dialogue on Creed Human Rights at the University of Toronto’s Multi-faith Centre. A 2013 episode of CBC’s “Cross-Country Check-Up” also prominently featured the view that Christian Canadians were now viewed and treated as second-class citizens in the public sphere and dominant institutions, particularly when compared to those identified as more secular. (Sunday March 3, 2013 edition, “Does religion have a place in public life?”).

[123] In many instances, women’s bodies and comportment have become a major area for playing out social conflicts within and between minority and majority communities, with men (and some women) in both communities vying for control. An example here is the recurring political and media debate over Muslim women wearing head scarves (see, for instance, Banerjee & Coward, 2005; Sharify-Funk, 2011).

[124] See Shipley (2012).

[125] Some case law examples showing religious diversity and conflict within similar communities (either race or religion) include conflicts between:

• SIkhs of a higher (Jat) caste claiming discriminatory exclusion from a religious organization led by those of a lower (Ravidassi or Chamar) caste; Sahota and Shergill v. Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple, 2008 BCHRT 269 (CanLII)
• an Aboriginal Catholic employee alleging that the Aboriginal Executive Director was biased towards Aboriginal Catholics due to Canada’s residential school history; MacDonald v. Anishnawbe Health Toronto, 2010 HRTO 329 (CanLII)
• a Jewish kosher caterer who is not “orthodox or shomer Shabbat” alleging that a Jewish kosher certifying organization treated him differently than if he had been orthodox; Rill v. Kashruth Council of Canada, 2008 HRTO 162 (CanLII)
• a Muslim travel agent imposing different requirements for getting a hajj visa to travel to Saudi Arabia on the basis that African Muslims overstay their visas; Tulul v. King Travel Can, 2011 HRTO 438 (CanLII).

[126] See Beyer (2008), as discussed in endnote 20.

[127] See Bramadat (2007). Ethnic and racial tensions were recently shown in a demographically transforming Toronto-area church, where the leadership became divided along racial lines, with newer and more numerous visible minority congregation members claiming discrimination by the older, white church establishment.