Sure.

I think, going back to some of the recommendations that we've made, we actually submitted a list of seven recommendations to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General back in 2020, and I believe we met as well, MP Mathyssen, about those recommendations.

Again, first and foremost, the online hate legislation is paramount, and it's critical and urgent for that to be implemented. I know that Amira spoke a little bit about the victimization portion of the general social survey and having that implemented annually so that we can collect better data on what is going on around hate crimes, hate speech and hate incidents so that we can create better policies to combat them.

We had that discussion at length this morning around mandating curriculum in schools, working with the provinces—I know it is within the jurisdiction of the provinces—to ensure that we have anti-racism curricula. It's not just diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism, which are great—and it happens across the board in Canada where we celebrate different faiths and celebrate differences—but actual anti-racism, anti-oppressive approaches. Some of the witnesses this morning mentioned that it starts in the school system. I grew up in the public school system as well, and I can't count on my fingers the number of times that I had Islamophobic incidents and hate and physical violence against me as a visibly Muslim student.

Those are definitely things that we, as CASSA, have been asking for. We're also part of a larger group called the Anti-Hate Community Leaders' Group. It's a group of over 40 organizations and individuals across Canada that have been pushing for anti-hate legislation and anti-hate policies. We need to send a strong message through this summit—I know it was mentioned this morning as well—from all leaders in this country that Islamophobia will not be tolerated. We've seen on social media that there have been some individuals who have been celebrating the London terrorist attack. There needs to be strong condemnation of those individuals. We need to see that those individuals face consequences for spreading that hate, because that's where it starts. It starts online. It starts in schools.

Transcript

Discussions (0)