As Quebec shooting victims mourned, Montreal mosque vandalized
By Daniel Otis
CTV News | February 2, 2017
As three of the victims of the Quebec mosque shooting were being mourned at a memorial service in Montreal on Wednesday, a mosque in the city was vandalized — part of a disturbing trend of Islamophobia shaking a country that prides itself on being a place of equality and inclusion.
Such an image of Canada was espoused by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the memorial, which was attended by thousands.
“As a community and as a country, together we will rise from this darkness, stronger and more unified than ever before,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday. “That is who we are.”
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Hate crimes, however, are not limited to Quebec.
“We have been talking about this for many years,” Amira Elghawaby, a spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, told CTV News Channel on Thursday. “We’ve noted a rise in hate crimes targeting Muslims in this country. It’s doubled over the past three years, the most significant increase against any religious group in this country… It manifests on a daily basis in people’s lives. Absolutely, there is definitely a crisis here.”
“We’re not talking about right-wing extremism,” Elghawaby said. “We’re not having those conversations when in fact, according to security agencies, right-wing extremism is growing in this country.”
There has been plenty of evidence of that this week. In addition to the Quebec City attack and the spike in hate crimes in Montreal, on Tuesday, CTV Edmonton reported the story of a Muslim man who received an Islamophobic note on his car — the first time he had ever encountered racism in his 25 years in the city.