Canada's Middle East policies and lack of action to fight Islamophobia at home are endangering Muslim lives

Canada’s apparent indifference to innocent Muslim lives—whether in Gaza, Iran, or elsewhere—cannot be attributed solely to geopolitical considerations.

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this can be found on Substack.

March 15 marks the seventh anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings, in which a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is also the fourth International Day to Combat Islamophobia, designated by the United Nations in 2022 precisely in response to that atrocity.  This year, the observance falls during the final week of Ramadan, a time of spiritual reflection, community connection and heightened sensitivity to threats against the global Muslim community.

As Canadian Muslims observe Ramadan nationwide, imams and community leaders are voicing a stark and shared concern--the federal government has not only turned a blind eye to the rise of institutional and structural Islamophobia within Canada but has, through its foreign policy choices, actively defended or even amplified it internationally. Symbolic measures—such as the annual National Day of Remembrance of the Québec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia, observed each January 29—offer little comfort when juxtaposed against tangible policy failures. These gestures, while acknowledging past tragedies, appear increasingly performative in light of the government's unwillingness to safeguard Muslim rights at home or to accord equal value to Muslim lives abroad, and in fact contribute to the ecosystem of Islamophobia.

At the domestic level, particularly in Quebec, Muslims feel acutely endangered by a series of provincial laws that restrict religious expression and practice. Federal inaction—failing to actively challenge measures like Bill 21's ban on religious symbols for public-sector workers or the more recent expansions of the law under Bill 9, which target collective prayer in public spaces, prayer rooms in institutions, and exclusive halal food options—has contributed to an erosion of Muslim visibility and security without meaningful intervention. The recent elimination of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia by Prime Minister Mark Carney further signals a retreat from dedicated efforts to address systemic anti-Muslim prejudice.

More recently, Quebec’s Bill 9—introduced in late 2025 as “An Act respecting the reinforcement of secularism in Québec”—has escalated these restrictions. The legislation will prohibit collective prayer in public spaces without municipal approval, eliminate dedicated prayer rooms in universities, colleges and other public institutions, and bar public facilities from offering exclusively halal or kosher meals.

Framed as advancing Quebec’s state neutrality, these measures overwhelmingly target religious minorities, particularly Muslims whose daily obligations include five prayers and dietary requirements. Critics describe the incremental layering of Bill 21 and Bill 9 as a targeted erosion of minority rights, drawing parallels to the early legal and administrative exclusions faced by Jews in Nazi Germany. Some analysts call it “ethnic cleansing by stealth”, where racialized Muslims are forced to choose between practising their faith openly while working in public sector jobs, or advancing their careers by leaving Quebec altogether.  The federal government’s inaction in the face of these provincial assaults on human rights leaves Canadian Muslims more vulnerable to harassment, discrimination and social exclusion—precisely the institutional Islamophobia the UN day was created to combat.

This domestic neglect is compounded—and amplified—by Canada’s foreign policy, which has consistently defended or enabled Islamophobia on the global stage. The ongoing Gaza crisis, now more than 29 months old and widely characterised by human-rights experts, organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and UN bodies as genocide, stands as the prime example of violent Islamophobia intertwined with genocidal anti-Palestinian racism. Palestinians, who are more than 90% Muslim, have been violently persecuted for decades and since October 2023 have endured relentless bombardment, famine and displacement while Canadian leaders refuse to label the atrocities as genocide, and continue to provide diplomatic cover and a flow of Canadian made arms to Israel. Additionally, Prime Minister Carney’s suggestion of a “Zionist Palestinian state” was widely condemned as dismissive and ignorant, effectively demanding that Palestinians adopt the ideology of their oppressors rather than achieve genuine self-determination.

The recent US-Israeli military strikes on Iran represent another stark manifestation of Islamophobia.  Since the 1980s Iranian Muslims have been portrayed by the Americans as evil incarnate, with George W. Bush calling Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil" in a speech to Congress in January 2002.  The most recent US-Israeli attack on Iran has been described by legal scholars and international observers as illegal and unprovoked aggression by two nuclear-armed powers. Prime Minister Carney initially voiced support for the campaign to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program (which Donald Trump said the US "obliterated" during the June 2025 bombing), framing it as necessary for global security.  Yet Canada’s willingness to align with allies launching unprovoked attacks on a Muslim-majority nation sends a clear message—Muslim lives and sovereignty are negotiable when politically convenient.

The selective outrage becomes even more glaring when contrasted with Canada’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ottawa has committed more than $25 billion in multifaceted aid—including billions in military assistance—to Ukraine, a country whose population is predominantly white and Christian, and more than 225,000 Ukrainian refugees have been accepted into Canada.  No comparable aid package or refugee program has been extended to Palestinians, and there has been steadfast refusal to impose meaningful sanctions or accountability on Israel despite its genocidal crimes.

The ongoing crises in Gaza and the recent US-Israeli military strikes on Iran represent some of the most severe manifestations of global Islamophobia today. These conflicts echo earlier US-led military interventions, such as the Iraq War—founded on lies about weapons of mass destruction—and the broader "War on Terror."  According to Brown University's Costs of War project, post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and related zones have resulted in at least 4.5–4.7 million Muslim deaths, directly and indirectly at the hands of the US and its allies.

Muslim community leaders contend that this apparent indifference to innocent Muslim lives—whether in Gaza, Iran, or elsewhere—cannot be attributed solely to geopolitical considerations. Rather, it points to a profound and entrenched devaluation of Muslim lives compared with those of white Christians (as seen in the response to Ukraine) or even segments of the Israeli Jewish population, a large percentage of whom support the genocide against Palestinians.

Confidential assessments from former Global Affairs Canada officials and independent reports have long pointed to institutional anti-Palestinian racism embedded in Canadian diplomacy.  The pattern is unmistakable.  When Muslims are under attack by Western allies, Canadian leaders remain silent or equivocate.  When the victims are European and Christian, or Israeli Jews, the response is swift, supportive and unequivocal.  Such double standards do more than undermine Canada’s claim to moral leadership, they actively promote Islamophobia globally by normalising the idea that Muslim suffering is less worthy of intervention.

None of this should surprise observers of Canadian history. A nation founded on Indigenous genocide, slavery and structures of white supremacy has never fully confronted the racism woven into its institutions. These foundational biases continue to shape policy, subtly influencing even leaders who publicly deny prejudice. The refusal to stand on the “right side of history”—whether by challenging Quebec’s anti-Muslim laws or by demanding an immediate end to the Gaza genocide and the illegal strikes on Iran—reveals a political class more comfortable with expediency than principle.

Canadian Muslims, observing this International Day amid Ramadan fasting and global crises are not asking for special treatment. They are demanding consistency with the same human-rights standards applied to Ukrainians, Palestinians, Iranians and other Muslims alike.  The same vigilance against hate at home must extend to foreign policy abroad. The government’s failure to act domestically leaves Canadian Muslims physically and psychologically endangered, and its complicity abroad signals that Muslim lives overseas—defenceless and overwhelmingly racialized—are simply less valuable.

Canadians must make a fundamental choice. Are we willing to accept leaders who offer only rhetorical commitments to fighting hate, upholding international law and defending human rights? Or will we insist on conviction-driven leadership unafraid to challenge allies, confront institutional racism at home and refuse to sacrifice principles for political or diplomatic convenience?

For the sake of social cohesion, international credibility and the lives of Muslims both in Canada and abroad, the latter path is not merely preferable—it is urgently necessary.

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