Canadians less concerned about Islamic extremism than Europeans, Americans

A slight majority of Canadians say they are concerned about extremism in the name of Islam, a new study has found, but the numbers here at home pale in comparison to those in European nations or the United States.

Overall, the study from the American-based Pew Research Center found that 56 per cent of Canadians are somewhat (31 per cent) or very (25 per cent) concerned about Islamic extremism in their country. Meanwhile, 11 per cent of respondents said they weren’t worried at all.

In the U.S., the proportion of people expressing concern is much higher, at 72 per cent. And across the Atlantic, the median result across 10 European nations including Italy, Germany, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands was higher still, at 79 per cent.

Only residents of Sweden had a lower level of expressed concern than Canada (55 per cent).

The study was conducted between February and April, before a major terror attack in Manchester earlier this week that killed 22 people. The perpetrator, identified as Salman Abedi, died at the scene.

Still, people living in the United Kingdom were already expressing concern before the most recent bombing. On March 22, British citizen Khalid Masood drove a vehicle into pedestrians outside the U.K. Parliament buildings, then armed himself with a knife, injuring more than 50 people and killing five. He also died at the scene.

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The Pew study results for the U.K. (gathered between March 6 and April 3) show nearly eight in 10 Britons (79 per cent) were somewhat or very concerned about Islamic extremism on their soil.

Europe as a whole has seen a series of deadly terrorist attacks over the last two years in cities like Paris, Brussels, Berlin and now Manchester, all claimed by the so-called Islamic State.

“While individual terrorist incidents tend to increase fears about extremism, there has been great concern globally about the issue throughout the last decade,” the study’s authors note.

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Canada has seen two attacks linked to extremism in the name of Islam in recent years, on Parliament Hill and in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Both were carried out by homegrown extremists who had been radicalized.

A third radicalized man, Aaron Driver, was stopped last year before he could carry out an attack. Muslim groups across Canada have strongly denounced all of these attacks.

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The Pew Research Center results in each country were also broken down by age group. In Canada, as in all other nations polled, older people tended to express much deeper concern about Islamic extremism than their younger counterparts. Political views also mattered.

Sixty-six per cent of Canadian respondents who considered themselves more right-leaning said they were concerned about extremism in the name of Islam. Among those placing themselves in the centre of the political spectrum it was 58 per cent, and among more left-leaning Canadians, it was 30 per cent (the lowest result for any sub-group across all 12 countries).

The results released this week were part of the Pew Research Center’s broader Spring 2017 Global Attitudes Survey. In Canada, the survey was conducted by phone between Feb. 16 and March 3, 2017 with a sample size of 1,022 respondents. The margin of error is listed as +/- 3.6 percentage points.