Justice committee  Thank you very much for that question. As I mentioned in my closing statement, we are calling on all parties to support Bill C-305. In terms of suggested amendments or improvements, I would encourage the committee to make sure that it hears from a variety of stakeholders, including legal specialists and others, to make sure that the language used in making changes to our criminal law is consistent with our charter values and Constitution.

Justice committee  No, not at this time, but we will be putting in a written submission as well.

Justice committee  That's correct.

Justice committee  I want to make sure I understand the question. You're looking for specific data that we have collected—

Justice committee  Targeted towards the Muslim community, yes. As I mentioned, we do have that data. It is available on our website. We do have and maintain an online interactive hate crimes and hate incidence map that categorizes the types of incidents, whether verbal harassment, physical harassment, vandalism, and so forth.

Justice committee  There was a study by the Department of Justice recently that talked about understanding the community impact of hate crimes. It quotes David Matas as saying, “People live in community. Rights are exercised in community”, and the commission of a hate crime is not just against the individual but against the entire community.

Justice committee  Thank you very much. On behalf of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, I'm pleased to have this opportunity to offer the committee our organization's perspective on Bill C-305. Briefly, the NCCM is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit grassroots Canadian Muslim advocacy organization.

Public Safety committee  In terms of the no-fly list, I would again echo what my colleagues at the Canadian Bar Association have said. I would also like to redirect part of my answer to the question raised earlier about another individual whose family member was listed. In our view, the act creates a mechanism to challenge a listing, but it's an ineffective tool.

Public Safety committee  In terms of the definition of Islamophobia, the term itself came into popular use around 1997 when Runnymede put it out in a publication that they created. I would argue that the concept dates back to the beginning of the faith itself. The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines Islamophobia as including “racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear or acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims”.

Public Safety committee  Do you mean the example of being able to criticize radical extremists?

Public Safety committee  What I can tell you, Mr. Miller, is that the NCCM believes in and upholds the Charter of Rights and Freedoms every single day. As a Canadian civil liberties and advocacy organization, that is our focal point.

Public Safety committee  Terms such as “sharia” are extremely loaded. Without even knowing what it means, it's actually offensive and does a disservice to building mutual understanding. I'm not quite sure how the question is relevant to the purpose of this committee, a hearing on Canada's national security framework.

Public Safety committee  I think it's important we recognize that efforts at community engagement to combat radicalization toward criminal violence do link with the effort to combat discrimination within mainstream society as well, along with the effort to promote integration of Muslim youth. We also have to recall that violent extremism is not the exclusive franchise of any one particular community, as we have so recently seen.

Public Safety committee  Our organization is also looking at it and reviewing Bill C-23 and Bill C-21. We will be putting together submissions on that. At the same time, we recognize that the U.S. is a sovereign nation that is able to determine who is or is not able to enter its jurisdiction. At the same time, some of the discriminatory and intrusive treatment that has been reported by Canadians is problematic.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question. In terms of implementing legislative improvements to prevent or mitigate the possibility of such future such horrific actions, I would argue that the existing provisions within the Criminal Code are sufficient. I think our organization has put forward some recommendations for governments at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels to take concrete actions to address the growing climate of Islamophobia and hate we have seen and our organization has documented, in addition to what has been documented by Statistics Canada.