TORONTO — “We cannot stand for this type of aggression,” said Canadian Arab Federation Acting President Mohamed Boudjenane during a news conference about hate crimes at Queen’s Park Thursday morning.
A number of anti-racism groups joined forces to address, what they call, an “alarming spike” in hate-related incidents across Canada in recent days.
“We have now reached double the amount of hate crime reports that we had in 2014,” said Mohamed El Rashidy, Director of the Canadian Arab Federation.
The announcement comes in the wake of last week’s deadly Paris terror attacks. Altogether, 129 people were killed and 352 were injured in Friday’s attacks.
Just this week, a Muslim woman wearing a hijab claimed she was attacked by two men as she went to pick up her children up from school in Flemingdon Park. Also, the words “Muslims Go Home” were scrawled on her cousin’s apartment in the same area.
Elsewhere, the only mosque in Peterborough was torched over the weekend.
And El Rashidy blames Toronto Police for not taking hate crime calls seriously.
“Our frontline response to hate crime has become increasingly discouraging, despite the fact that the crimes are increasing,” he said.
El Rashidy claims police respond with, “we’re not sure anything will come of this,” and “you don’t really need to call us.”
But Minister of Community and Correctional Services Yasir Naqvi disagrees.
“Those types of crimes will never be tolerated and our police, of course, take these matters very seriously and investigate them.”
A sentiment echoed by the Toronto Police Chief himself.
In response to a question about racial slurs allegedly said on the TTC to two Muslim women in hijabs Wednesday, Chief Mark Saunders said, “it is a big deal and if there is a criminal offence we will investigate and we will lay charges if we get enough evidence to do just that.”
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