Six years ago, a school board west of Toronto was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Security had to be stepped up after racist outbursts at board meetings, a man was filmed tearing pages out of a Qur’an during discussions about religious accommodations, and Muslim students were told they would have to choose from sermons approved by the board for their Friday prayers.
Today, the Peel District School Board (PDSB) is the first in Canada to adopt a strategy aimed at dismantling Islamophobia and affirming the identity of Muslims students, who comprise the largest reported faith-based identity at the board — about a quarter of its student population.
And the timing isn’t without significance, said the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
“The PDSB has set a tremendous example with this anti-Islamophobia strategy that other school boards across the country would be wise to study, examine and follow,” the council’s education director, Aasiyah Khan, said in a news release.
‘Historic step forward’
“It’s really fitting that this announcement is being made in the lead-up to the sixth anniversary of the Quebec City shooting, which really changed this country,” she added. “This is a historic step forward.”
The announcement comes after a 2020 review by Ontario’s Ministry of Education found anti-Black racism to be a significant challenge at the board. The board also noted “blatantly Islamophobic resources and teaching materials” had been used in classrooms, affecting the well-being of Muslim students and staff, in a report dated Wednesday.
The anti-Islamophobia strategy sprang from a motion put forth by former PDSB trustee Nokha Dakroub in September 2021 that proposed, in part, anti-Islamophobia training for all board staff members.
Nokha Dakroub was the PDSB trustee for Wards 9 and 10 in Mississauga until 2022, and first brought the motion for an anti-Islamophobia strategy. (Supplied/Nokha Dakroub)
The strategy relies largely on the definition of Islamophobia created by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, namely: “stereotypes, bias or acts of hostility towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling, Islamophobia leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level.”
“These systemic attitudes foster an unwarranted culture of suspicion and surveillance of Muslims and the Muslim community,” the board says, pointing to the example of a cash reward being offered to surveil Muslim students at Friday prayers in schools.
Strategy outlines 6 key pillars
The board’s plan also notes Islamophobia often intersects with other forms of oppression including racism, such as anti-Black and anti-Palestinian racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ hate and systemic oppression.
The strategy, developed with input from the NCCM, the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, lists six key pillars for the board to work on:
Building capacity to implement the strategy.
Affirming and celebrating Muslim identities, including using resources that acknowledge Muslim contributions across subjects like math, science, history and the arts to “counter the erasure of Muslim identity in the historically Eurocentric curriculum.”
Creating learning and working environments to intentionally disrupt Islamophobia, including annual mandatory anti-Islamophobia training for staff and establishing prayer or contemplation spaces for staff or student use.
Foster meaningful engagement with Muslim communities, including partnerships with community agencies and ensuring culturally appropriate referrals to services.
Supporting the mental health and well-being of Muslim students and staff, such as by recognizing Muslim beliefs and practices can differ between individuals and groups and creating “safe spaces” for groups such as Muslim Students Associations.
Implementing responsive hiring and supportive measures, including supporting the advancement of racialized employees into leadership roles.
‘Calls almost every day’ over Islamophobia in schools
In a news release, Khan added anti-Muslim hate is an issue that endures in schools even today.
“We’ve gotten calls almost every day for the last few weeks about horrific issues relating to Islamophobia in our schools, some violent, and some systemic.”
Samya Hasan, executive director of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians, experienced that kind of anti-Muslim discrimination firsthand as a student and said it can lead to Muslim youth questioning their identity having low self-esteem.
“We’ve heard from hundreds of youth, and their parents, about stories of things like being called a terrorist, or girls, having their hijabs pulled off from their heads, or being dismissed by teachers in the school system … And not to speak of tons of microaggressions that happen on an everyday basis.”
That, in part, is why the strategy also commits to collecting data to measure its success.
A group of Muslim parents attend a 2016 PDSB school board meeting where they discussed Muslim students feeling stigmatized after being told to choose from sermons approved by the board — prompting it to suspend the change. (Nick Boisvert/CBC)
Those metrics will measure the percentage of Muslim students who feel their school is a safe and inclusive environment, for example, as well as the number of human rights complaints made to the board’s human rights office, hate incidents and Muslim staff members’ well-being.
“The development of a strategy to affirm Muslim identities and dismantle Islamophobia is only the first step in an ongoing journey,” the board said in its strategy document.
“Fostering an environment that is free from Islamophobia will require the efforts of all members of the PDSB community to meaningfully engage in this important work”
News of the strategy comes as Canada marked another first.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s first special representative on combating Islamophobia. Elghawaby will advise the federal government on how to better fight discrimination against the Muslim community.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
