Is Islamophobia Resurfacing in Canada?

A disconcerting politics is taking shape in Canada, and it’s being led by Pierre Poilievre. The leader of the Conservative Party called protesters who have demonstrated for a ceasefire in Gaza “lawless mobs.” He has promised, he says, “a crackdown on all terrorist networks that Trudeau has allowed on our streets.” 

Rhetoric like that puts all Muslims in danger. It doesn’t matter that protesters come from all backgrounds—the rhetoric unmistakably feeds into Islamophobic talking points. No matter their efforts at being good neighbours, workers and community members, Muslims in Canada are often forced to pick up the pieces of global conflicts. Depending on the news cycle, stereotypes and prejudices can emerge unexpectedly. 

As a newly appointed researcher on Islamophobia at the University of Manitoba, I have learned that Islamophobic attacks ebb and flow depending on foreign conflicts—wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Syria. Muslim communities in Canada are vulnerable to political events over which they have no power or involvement.  

This was, of course, most clearly in evidence in the years after 9/11, when all Muslims were viewed with suspicion. I experienced this personally. Back then, I was an undergraduate in Winnipeg. I was acquainted, through my mosque, studies and student groups, with three young men who disappeared in 2007 and became the subject of a massive international terrorism investigation. The RCMP and the FBI eventually concluded they had probably left for Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda or the Taliban. 

Tragically, in the years that followed, everyone associated with those three men became the target of surveillance, interrogation, suspicion and humiliation. I have spent the last five years researching what happened to my tight-knit Winnipeg community during this investigation, gathering the testimonies of Muslim men that CSIS targeted. 

Last month, I published a book about that chapter in Canadian history called Homegrown Radicals. In it, I describe how many of the people who were questioned during that investigation are still shaken by the experience and the accusations. CSIS often showed up unexpectedly at their workplaces or other public spaces, jeopardizing their employment and friendships. 

I remember a CSIS agent’s attitude when he contacted me with questions about the missing men. Nothing I said could allay his fears about me or Winnipeg Muslims. We all became suspect. During that period, whenever I crossed over the U.S. border, I was met with questioning, aggression and accusations. I remember the indignities and humiliation it caused my wife’s family when we were denied travel on a flight with a stopover in Minneapolis. 

Harper’s Conservatives were particularly adept at weaponizing fear in the decade following 9/11. But even after Trudeau came to power, the phenomenon of Islamophobia wasn’t well understood. In 2016, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid received death threats for introducing a motion condemning Islamophobia in Parliament. “We will burn down your mosques,” one message read. 

It wasn’t until the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 that politicians across the spectrum recognized the deadly consequences of inflammatory rhetoric. Four years later, the attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario, made it horrifically clear again. In both instances, the killers were motivated by online ideologies painting Muslims as radicals threatening Western civilization.

After that, politicians increasingly recognized Islamophobia as a national concern, incorporating it in federal and provincial anti-racism strategies. I had great optimism for Muslims in Canada back then. Islamophobia was still a problem, but at least there was a growing consensus on the need to combat it.

In recent years, CSIS has turned a new page. In 2022, it invited me to speak at a conference on the topic of Islamophobia. The conference addressed the rebuilding of trust with Muslim communities. This shift coincides with the agency’s reorientation toward other threats: white supremacists and foreign interference from states like China and India.

A lot has changed in Canada since the ugly period after 9/11, when all Muslims were the object of fear and derision. I am not alone in worrying that Poilievre will yank us back to those dark days of division and hatred through careless rhetoric. 

To his credit, Poilievre’s statement on the anniversary of the Quebec mosque shooting in January showed great solidarity with Muslims: “Religious freedom, including the right to pray in peace and security, is a core Canadian value, and one that common sense Conservatives will always defend.” I sincerely hope they do.

Youcef Soufi is an Affiliated Researcher on Islamophobia at the University of Manitoba and the author of Homegrown Radicals: A Story of State Violence, Islamophobia, and Jihad in the Post-9/11 World.