Association issues recommendations to mark National Summit on Islamophobia
The Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association (CMLA) has recommended that the Canadian Judicial Council include specific training on Islamophobia in its social context and anti-discrimination curriculum and that all judges and administrative adjudicators participate in similar forms of continuing education.
The association released a document with recommendations on how to help eliminate Islamophobia, addressed to federal minister of diversity and inclusion and youth Bardish Chagger, in response to a call for policy submissions from community groups to mark the National Summit on Islamophobia on July 22.
The association expressed approval for the recently passed Bill C-3, or An Act to amend the Judges Act and the Criminal Code, which requires federally appointed judges to take continuing education programs on social context, including on systemic racism and discrimination.
With regard to the appointment of judges and administrative adjudicators, the CMLA called for governments to adopt the steps of Ontario’s Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee to encourage diversity, developed in 2017, so that appointments can represent the communities they serve and refrain from bias regardless of the applicant’s ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
These steps include ensuring that the application form add an option to self-identify as Indigenous, as a member of a racialized community or another ethnic or cultural group, as a person with a
disability, as LGBTQ2+ or as a person of a particular gender, as well as increasing outreach and informational sessions and collecting race-based data for better reporting.
The CMLA then recommended that intelligence services, policing and prosecutorial services improve their recruitment, training and data collection, including by setting aside more resources for public safety threats posed by white supremacists, by ensuring that recruitment taps individuals from underrepresented communities, by expressly discussing Islamophobia in training materials and by adopting a zero-tolerance policy for racial discrimination.
“Agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Canada Border Service
Agency (CBSA), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and their partner prosecutorial
services (both federally and provincially) are not free from systemic bias and institutionalized Islamophobia,” the CMLA wrote in its recommendations to Chagger.
The federal government was urged to establish in its justice department a special anti-discrimination prosecutorial unit, comprising members from diverse backgrounds and individuals with a distinct understanding of Islamophobia. This new unit, according to the association, will investigate and prosecute acts of discrimination and hate and will ensure continuity for tackling the threat of racist individuals and movements within public and private sectors.
During the National Summit on Islamophobia, Chagger announced the federal government’s support, through the Anti-Racism Action Program, of eight projects addressing the issue of Islamophobia. The program seeks to back projects addressing barriers to employment, justice and social participation faced by religious minorities, racialized communities and Indigenous peoples.
“We will not stop until we work to challenge all forms of xenophobia,” said Mustafa Farooq, lawyer and chief executive officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, in the government’s news release.
