Good afternoon, honourable Madam Chair and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak today.

My name is Abdullah Yousri. I'm the Imam and executive director of the Ummah Society. It's the largest Muslim charity in the Atlantic region.

As an imam, my role is unique. I am often the first stop for community members when hate crimes occur, and also the first stop for government officials in the same circumstances. I witnessed first-hand the impact of Islamophobia on individuals of our community. I have counselled children who are bullied in schools, women who are harassed for wearing hijabs and men who are profiled and discriminated against in workplaces and public spaces.

Since October 7, the situation has worsened significantly. I have observed a noticeable spike in Islamophobic attacks, physical assaults and verbal abuse and a disturbing rise in hate speech. There is fear everywhere in the community. There is also anger and frustration for lack of accountability towards the aggression taking place against members of the Muslim community here in Canada.

I feel the justice system has failed miserably to protect the constitutional rights of Muslim Canadians to express themselves and be themselves. In Canada, the country that celebrates all cultures, all of a sudden, the most iconic cultural item, the kaffiyeh, was banned, leaving many community members questioning their identity. More importantly, attempts to silence Canadian Muslims by threatening their livelihoods were the worst and most painful. Firing many Canadian Muslims and threatening many others in an attempt to silence them has been a shameful and horrible act that shocked thousands in our community, including our imams and community leaders.

Honourable members, I have even counselled Muslim lawyers who are fearful to utter a word or even express their pain to their colleagues while they mourn the loss of immediate family members in Gaza. Allow me to share two stories from our local community in Halifax that illustrate the personal toll of these injustices.

Yara Jamal was the only Muslim Arab woman working in the media in all the Atlantic, with CTV News. She was fired from her job immediately over alleged comments she made. The same woman was a victim of continuous bullying, harassment and discrimination for over a year in the same workplace. Despite these incidents being documented and reported, her case was ultimately neglected. I leave you to imagine the impact of such incidents on all the women and youth in our community .

Nargis DeMolitor was the only Muslim woman working in politics in Halifax. She worked for the Minister of Immigration and the PC government. She was fired immediately, as well, in a very humiliating way, over alleged comments she did not even make.

Furthermore, many imams and Muslim chaplains, like Imam Aarij Anwer and many others, were also fired from their jobs in hospitals and universities, with no legal consequences.

I can sit here and tell many untold stories to the committee. However, I watched the previous sessions held last week, and I heard honourable members asking about solutions. Here are a few measures I believe can make a difference.

At the Ummah Society, we have started providing training to local police officers, first responders, government officials, etc., about Islam and Muslim cultures, about Islamophobia and about religious and cultural sensitivities. We have seen the impact of providing this training, which has been attended by many every year, and we have seen this impact in our city. Mandating such training for government officials and making it a requirement for receiving government funding, I believe, would make a huge difference.

In Halifax, we successfully advocated for the establishment of the first hate crime unit in the Atlantic. Before that, we did not have one in the whole of Atlantic Canada. However, it is struggling to operate because of a lack of funding from the municipality. Federal support in the form of funding the hate crime units across the country would have a huge impact on reporting, counting, analyzing and protecting all community members.

Thank you for the invitation and for this great work you are doing.