Harun Nasrullah
The leader of Canada’s largest Muslim advocacy body cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, on January 29 for failing to do more to help Palestinians in Gaza and for his inaction to curb rising hate crimes.
“We no longer think it’s productive to speak with this prime minister,” Stephen Brown, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), said at a press conference in Ottawa. “We’ve said it all before. There’s nothing new to add,” Brown stated.
The cancellation comes hours before federal and provincial politicians, Muslim leaders, and others were to gather in Quebec City for a ceremony to mark the seventh anniversary of the murder of six Muslim men at the Islamic Cultural Centre Mosque.
The meeting was supposed to tackle anti-Muslim hatred, but Brown said he skipped it because Trudeau had not honoured his commitment from the 2015 election to support programmes to combat hate crimes, such as funding CCTV cameras at mosques and Islamic centres.
“It has become clear that we seem to only get a sliver of policy reform when our lives or our safety are destroyed,” Brown said. “Our government has failed to move on substantive hate-crime legislation.”
Toronto police said the Israel-Hamas war led to an increase in hate crimes by more than 104 per cent between October 7 and December 17, 2023.
Brown said Trudeau has not pressured Israel to step back from its bombardment in Gaza, which to date has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians.
“We’re interested in the government taking real, tangible action to reduce Islamophobia in this country and to stop the hostilities in the Middle East,” Brown said. Trudeau’s office has stated that they have no further comments to make regarding the cancellation.
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