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Muslim organisation cancels Trudeau meeting over Gaza stance, hate crimes

"We no longer think it's productive to speak with him," says leader of Canada's largest Muslim organisation about PM Justin Trudeau.

AFP

"There is nothing new that we could say ... we've said it all before," Brown said, Globe and Mail newspaper reported. / Photo: AFP Archive

The leader of Canada's largest Muslim organisation has cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for failing to do more to help Palestinians in Gaza and for inaction to curb rising hate crimes.

"We no longer think it's productive to speak with this prime minister," Stephen Brown, chief executive officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), said Monday at a press conference in Ottawa.

"There is nothing new that we could say," Brown said, as reported by The Globe and Mail newspaper. "We've said it all before."

The meeting was slated to discuss anti-Muslim hate, but Brown said he skipped the session because Trudeau had not kept his promises made in the 2015 election, namely, funding programmes to curtail hate crimes, such as security cameras at Muslim prayer sites.

"It has become clear that we seem to only get a sliver of policy reform when our lives or our safety is destroyed," Brown said. "Our government has failed to move on substantive hate-crime legislation."

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Surging hate crimes

The cancellation comes hours before federal and provincial politicians, Muslim leaders and others were to gather in Quebec City for a ceremony to mark the seventh anniversary of the murder of six Muslim men at the Islamic Cultural Centre Mosque.

On his way into the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau did not address the cancellation, but his office later said the prime minister had "nothing to add."

Anti-Muslim incidents have jumped since the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and the Israelis launched an all-out war on the besieged Gaza. Toronto police said the Israeli war on Gaza led to an increase in hate crimes by more than 104% between October 7 and December 17.

Brown said Trudeau has not pressured Israel to step back from its bombardment in Gaza. More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed to date according to officials.

"We're interested in the government taking real tangible action to reduce Islamophobia in this country (and) taking real tangible action to stop the hostilities in the Middle East," Brown said.