Good morning respected parliamentarians and staff.

Assalam alaikum. Peace be upon you all.

Thank you for having me present today to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for convening today's meeting. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to speak today on such an important topic. I'm saddened that it comes in light of the horrific tragedy against the Muslim family in London, Ontario.

May their souls find peace, and may their families and friends left behind find strength and fortitude.

My name is Faakhra Choudhry, and I belong to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at. We are a revivalist movement within Islam.

I was born and raised in Canada. I have grown up in Canada's educational system, and now teach at Canadian [Technical difficulty—Editor]. My parents emigrated here to escape religious persecution they were facing in Pakistan for being Ahmadiyya Muslims, and for the inclusive and cohesive society that Canada is.

I am extremely grateful for all of the blessings that Canada has given to my family and me, and so many other families that share a story just like my own. It is, of course, important to highlight the positive things Canada has done when mentioning this topic. Some examples of the progress include Motion No. 103, a motion condemning Islamophobia in Canada.

Although not perfect in execution, it was a step in the right direction. The current caliph of our community, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, was invited to Parliament. He was also invited to speak to major broadcasters. Both are monumental steps, seeing a major leader of a Muslim community welcomed by the government and media, a Muslim leader on the front cover, and not as an attack.

We are grateful for these positives, but there are still so many steps that we have to take to become a truly tolerant and accepting society. Systemic racism exists and flourishes in the media, TV shows and movies, in the rhetoric politicians chose to adopt, and in schools and universities.

With regard to Muslim women, we are heavily targeted for looking and dressing differently. The hijab, niqab, burka, or other clothes Muslims garner as a form of modesty, are flashing arrows for anyone who may have prejudices against Muslims, such as Bill 21 in Quebec.

I can recount personal experiences facing discrimination in Canada, unfortunately. My own mother has been honked at numerous times for wearing a niqab, and yelled at to take it off. We have been shouted at to go home while wearing hijabs while walking around downtown. My friend was denied entry to a basketball court by the referee for wearing leggings under her basketball uniform in an attempt to comply with her Islamic beliefs. Cars have been keyed, windows have been smashed, and the list goes on.

Policies need to be created to ensure that racism does not have a place to show [Technical difficulty—Editor] in Canada. Online forums, videos, and articles are a big contributor to the radicalization of youth. Those who get Islamophobic ideas and misconceptions often get it online. There is a great need to monitor the cyber world. Greater task forces and resources need to be allocated here, so that tragedies are stopped at the root.

The legislation on hate crimes in Canada also needs to be revisited. The hate crime law does not go far enough to prosecute people who spread hatred, whether online or offline. The RCMP shared, during a meeting, that oftentimes there is not enough evidence to prosecute people who have committed hate crimes, so their actions go unpunished. Systems need to be in place to verify and provide consequences, for those who commit hate crimes, in a more efficient manner.

The education system is another place that needs major reform. We need to remember that the terrorist who murdered the family in London was only 20 years old. Curricula are changed and politicized due to whichever party is in power, which is very problematic. For example, in Alberta right now there is a lot of controversy about the new curriculum, which many criticize for missing the mark on indigenous and religious issues. When that curriculum is taught in classrooms in the future, those students will be misguided and begin to have a train of thought that leads towards possible discriminatory ideologies, sometimes with tragic consequences.

School curricula need to be created keeping in mind the diversity of students in our country. They especially need to involve experts from various groups during the creation process. Textbooks need to be reviewed by diverse voices to check for instances of unconscious bias and harmful language. Teachers and professors need to be held accountable for the personal biases they spread in classrooms. Many of us have experiences of teachers speaking out against Islam in the classroom or spreading what the media has falsely written.

I have had personal experiences while sitting in classes in university with 200 to 300 other students as a heated debate is led by the professor in class as to whether the niqab ban in Quebec was right and feeling like a spotlight is directly on me since I am the only person wearing a hijab. It feels as though my rights are being debated. Teachers need to be taught to include voices in an organic manner, and curricula need to have those voices integrated right from the start.

One way to combat this issue is to increase diversity training in education programs in university. From my personal experience, in the five years I spent at university gaining my education degree, we had only one diversity-in-classrooms topic, which is definitely not enough.

I would like to end my talk today with a quote from the fifth Caliph of our community, Hazrat Mirza Masroor:

If we truly want peace in our time then we must act with justice. We must value equality and fairness. As the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) so beautifully stated, we must love for others, what we love for ourselves. We must pursue the rights of others with the same zeal and determination that we pursue our own rights. We should broaden our horizons and look at what is right for the world, rather than what is only right for us. These are the means for peace in our age.

Thank you so much for having me here today and for listening to my remarks.