Stockwell Day’s recent comment about Muslims and Canadian values is wrong and dangerous

Day’s comments fit neatly into a pattern where Muslims are framed as inherently suspect, inherently foreign, and inherently incompatible with Canadian values.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

When former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day recently questioned the compatibility of Muslim values and Canadian values, he did more than repeat a worn-out, groundless talking point. He poured gasoline on a fire already burning across the country — a fire stoked by years of political opportunism, media sensationalism, and a growing willingness among public figures to treat Muslims as a problem that Canada had to deal with rather than as full citizens. Day’s claim is not only demonstrably false, it is reckless, inflammatory, and deeply harmful to millions of Canadians who have every right to call this country home.

Day has a record of rejecting facts about racism in Canada, famously insisting on national television in 2020 that systemic racism does not exist in Canada — a statement so out of touch with reality that it cost him his seat on the board of Telus, his position as a strategic advisor with the law firm McMillan LLC, and his role as a regular panellist on CBC’s Power & Politics. His latest comments follow the same pattern — sweeping declarations that erase the lived experiences of a racialized community, denying historical reality, and emboldening those who already view Muslims with suspicion or hostility.

This comment comes at a time when Canada is experiencing a surge in Islamophobia unlike anything seen since the aftermath of 9/11. During the 12 months after October 2023 incidents of anti-Muslim hate rose by 1,800% according to the National Council of Canadian Muslims and another 72% the following year.  During the same period political rhetoric has hardened, and media narratives increasingly frame Muslims as outsiders or threats because of their advocacy for Palestinians and their demonstrations against the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza. In this climate, Day’s words do not exist in isolation. They legitimize prejudice, signal permission for bigotry, and tell Muslim Canadians — especially youth — that their place in this country is conditional, fragile, and perpetually under review.

If Day truly believes Muslim values clash with Canadian ones, he should be asked to specify which values he means. Charity? Justice? Equality? Respect for religious diversity? These are not fringe concepts for Muslims, but rather foundational principles of the Islamic faith.

Zakat, the obligation to give to those in need, is one of the five pillars of the faith. The Qur’an also teaches that all humans share a common origin and that no race or tribe is superior to another other than through piety (49:13). In addition, Islam recognizes Jews and Christians as “People of the Book,” granting them respect and religious legitimacy. These teachings align seamlessly with Canada’s stated commitments to multiculturalism, equality, and human dignity.

If these values are “un‑Canadian,” then Muslims aren’t the issue it’s people like Stockwell Day.

Canada’s social contract and who is breaking it

Canada’s strength has always come from its ability to integrate people from every corner of the world into a shared civic project. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not fringe concepts, they are central to the country’s identity. Yet Day and others on the political right have spent years attacking these principles as “woke,” a term now used as shorthand for those who oppose racism and hate, embrace inclusion and diversity, and defend human rights.

When politicians rail against “wokeness,” they are not critiquing policy — they are signaling hostility towards the diversity of people who make up Canada. Quebec’s secularism law (Bill 21), which targets Muslim women who wear hijab, is a prime example of how governments cave in to public prejudice and weaponize hate and bigotry rather than uphold the fundamental Charter rights of Canadians. As documented in analyses of the law’s impact, Bill 21 has already derailed careers, pushed Muslim women out of public‑facing jobs, and normalized state‑sanctioned discrimination.

Similarly, federal and provincial leaders have used police powers and legal threats to suppress peaceful protests against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel — protests largely led by Muslim Canadians exercising their Charter rights. These actions contradict the very democratic values and freedoms politicians like Day claim to defend.

If anyone is violating Canada’s social contract, it is not Muslim Canadians, it is those politicians who selectively apply rights and freedoms depending on who is exercising them.

The human cost of Day’s rhetoric

Day’s comments inflict a heavy psychological burden on Muslim youth. Imagine growing up in Canada — celebrating Canada Day, cheering for national teams in hockey or the recent World Cup, dreaming of representing your country in sports or wanting to run for public office, only to hear a former national political leader declare that your faith makes you incompatible with the nation you love.

Whether he accepts it or not, Day’s words have real world impacts. Muslim Canadians have lived through decades of being “othered” by politicians like him, especially after 9/11, when children were assaulted on school grounds and called “terrorist,” mosques were vandalized, Muslim community  leaders received death threats, and Muslim businesses were targeted. The demonization of Muslims in media and politics helped create the conditions that led to the Quebec City mosque massacre in 2017, the murder of a Muslim volunteer outside a Toronto mosque in September 2020, and the killing of three generations of the Afzaal family in London in June 2021.

These tragedies did not emerge from a vacuum. They grew from toxic and racist narratives — the same narratives Day is reinforcing with his comment.

Recent analyses show that Islamophobia has become deeply embedded in Canada’s political and media ecosystem. Right‑wing outlets profit from sensationalist and prejudiced coverage that casts Muslims as threats. Right wing politicians exploit fear to mobilize voters. Governments pass laws that disproportionately target Muslim communities. And public figures like Day feel comfortable making dangerous and sweeping claims with little regard to the lives affected.

This normalization of anti‑Muslim hate is documented extensively in reporting on Canada’s response to global conflicts, particularly Israel’s war on Gaza, where Muslim voices, which are the largest segment of the anti-genocide movement, have been marginalized, vilified, or dismissed as disloyal. When Muslim Canadians speak out against human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza, they are accused of being terrorist supporters. When they demand accountability from political leaders, they are told they are undermining Canadian values.

Day’s comments fit neatly into this pattern, where Muslims are framed as inherently suspect, inherently foreign, inherently incompatible.

Even under minimal scrutiny Day’s assertion collapses under the weight of the historical record. From the time that Islam expanded from the Middle East across North Africa to the Atlantic and west to South Asia, Muslim civilizations were among the most pluralistic in the world. In Andalusia, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together peacefully for centuries, producing advances in science, philosophy, and culture that helped spark the European Renaissance. The Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Persian and Mughal empires had vibrant Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu communities, which produced some of history’s greatest works of art, architecture, and literature.

Meanwhile, Christian Europe repeatedly expelled Jews, launched violent pogroms against Jewish communities, and waged wars of religious domination against non-Christians for centuries.

If anything, the historical record shows that Islamic societies were more tolerant, more diverse, and more inclusive than many Western ones, even into the 20th century when Muslim states from Morocco Iraq had vibrant Jewish and Christian communities until Zionist elements instilled fear into those communities and convinced them that they could only be safe in Israel.  So the idea that Muslim values are incompatible with Canadian values is not only wrong, it is historically illiterate.

Muslims helped build Canada since before Confederation

Muslims are not newcomers to Canada. They have been here since before Confederation, contributing to the country’s development in every sector. Today, nearly 2.3 million Muslims call Canada home — about 5% of the population — and their achievements reflect the best of Canadian society.

Justice Mahmud Jamal made history in 2021 when he became the first racialized person and the first Muslim justice to sit on the Supreme Court.  Toronto human rights lawyer Faisal Kutty, an acclaimed legal scholar and writer has consistently been named among the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world for his extensive social justice advocacy.  Nazem Kadri, a celebrated NHL forward became the first Muslim hockey player to win the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, famously bringing the trophy to his local hometown mosque in London, Ontario. Mohammed Ahmed, Canada’s most decorated long-distance runner and a multi-time Olympian, secured Canada’s first ever Olympic silver medal in the 5000m at the Tokyo Games and a World Championship bronze. Naheed Nenshi served three terms as the Mayor of Calgary (2010–2021), becoming the first Muslim mayor of a major North American city and winning the 2014 World Mayor Prize. He is currently the leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party. Ibrahim “Obby” Khan played nine seasons in the Canadian Football League, later transitioning into business and becoming the first Muslim elected to the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, and subsequently being selected as the leader of the Manitoba PC Party. Zarqa Nawaz created the ground breaking CBC television comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, recognized globally as the first mainstream sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West. Bilal Baig made history as the first trans-feminine South Asian Muslim creator and star of a Canadian prime-time television series with the critically acclaimed CBC show Sort Of. And Ali Abouchadi pioneered trade and commerce in northern Alberta during the 1920s by operating a floating general store that served isolated communities along the Athabasca and Arctic waterways.

These are examples of a long tradition of Muslim excellence — people whose values allowed them to thrive and succeed in Canada despite not being part of the white majority.  If these individuals, and millions like them, are “incompatible” with Canadian values, then the term has lost all meaning.

Day’s logic collapses further when applied consistently. If the actions of extremists define an entire community, then white Canadians — whose members committed the Quebec City mosque massacre, the Toronto mosque murder, and the London truck attack — would also be “incompatible” with Canadian values. But you don’t hear that association being made by people like Day, because that would be absurd. No serious person judges an entire faith or ethnicity by the actions of a very small minority. Except, apparently, people like Stockwell Day.

Muslim Canadians should never be made to feel they must choose between their faith and their country. They are neither guests nor outsiders, and they are not conditional citizens. They are part of the Canadian story — historically, culturally, politically, and socially.

Day’s remarks aren’t merely wrong — they are reckless. They give oxygen to bigots, fracture social trust, and signal to millions of Muslim Canadians that their belonging in this country is somehow negotiable. Canada deserves leaders who strengthen our social fabric, not men who tear at its seams for attention.

Stockwell Day’s era of relevance ended long ago. He has nothing meaningful to contribute to conversations about Canadian identity, diversity, or democratic values. The most constructive thing he can do now is step back, stay silent, and stop injecting ignorance into a national discourse already poisoned by rampant Islamophobia.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Until the arrival of Zionism, Muslims and Jews lived together in relative peace for centuries

The relative harmony between Jews and Muslims frayed not due to ancient hatreds but a form of European imperialism—namely Zionism.

 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack. 

  

For decades, Israel and its Zionist allies in the West have invested millions in propaganda campaigns to portray Muslims and Jews as irreconcilable enemies for centuries to the Western public, even depicting Muslims in the West as an untrustworthy “fifth column.” This narrative has fuelled the targeting of innocent Muslims by police and security agencies, exacerbated Islamophobia well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and intensified crackdowns on pro-Palestinian activists—many of whom are Muslim—since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023.

Yet history reveals a far more nuanced reality. For much of the past 1,500 years of Islam’s existence, relations between Jews and Muslims have been characterized by coexistence, respect, and shared prosperity, severely disrupted only by modern colonial interventions and the advent of Zionism. Drawing on centuries of documented harmony and history dismantles the myth of eternal enmity between the two faith communities. From the Prophet Muhammad’s foundational pact with Jewish tribes to the Ottoman Empire’s embrace of Sephardic refugees, and even into the 20th century when Palestinians extended hospitality to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, the record shows a pattern of refuge and collaboration.

Only with the rise of Zionism and the Nakba—the 1948 catastrophe that displaced over 750,000 Palestinians—did this equilibrium shatter, as some of those welcomed refugees returned the hospitality of Palestinians by dispossessing their hosts. By reclaiming this history we can demonstrate that it is the Zionist political agenda and not religious imperatives that have sown division between these two faith communities.

A Foundation of Coexistence: The Dawn of Islam

The story begins in 7th-century Arabia, where Islam emerged amid a mosaic of Jewish, Christian, and pagan communities. Contrary to later Zionist distortions, the Prophet Muhammad’s interactions with Jews were shaped by proximity and shared monotheistic roots, not inherent antagonism. The Constitution of Medina, drafted in 622 CE shortly after Muhammad’s arrival in the city, stands as one of the earliest examples of interfaith governance between Muslims and Jews. This charter explicitly included Jewish tribes in the ummah—the broader Muslim community—granting them autonomy in religious practice, legal affairs, and mutual defence against external threats.

It was a revolutionary document, establishing Jews as equal partners in a pluralistic society and setting a precedent for “dhimmi” status: protected non-Muslims who paid a poll tax in exchange for exemption from military service along with full communal rights.

As Islamic conquests unified the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond under the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates from the 7th to 9th centuries, Jewish communities—long marginalized under Christian Byzantine and Sassanid rule—found unprecedented stability. Unlike the recurrent pogroms and expulsions in Christian Europe, Muslim lands integrated Jews into the fabric of society. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, Jews served as administrators, scholars, and traders, contributing to the caliphates’ golden age. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad, an epicentre of translation and innovation during the Abbasid era (8th–13th centuries), saw Jewish and Muslim intellectuals collaborate to render Greek, Persian, and Indian texts into Arabic, preserving knowledge that would later be the foundation of the European Renaissance. Figures like Saadia Gaon, a 10th-century Jewish philosopher, thrived under Muslim patronage, blending Talmudic scholarship with Islamic theology.

This pluralism extended to daily life. Synagogues and mosques coexisted in urban quarters, and inter-communal dialogues enriched both faiths. The Quran itself acknowledges Jewish prophets like Moses and Abraham, urging respect for “People of the Book,” though it critiques specific theological disputes. While tensions arose from time to time—such as the 627 CE siege of the Banu Qurayza tribe amid tribal warfare—these were political, not religious conflicts, often resolved through negotiation rather than military campaigns.

The Golden Age in Al-Andalus

Nowhere was this harmony more luminous than in Al-Andalus, Muslim-ruled Spain from the 8th to 15th centuries. Under the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba, Jews escaped the Visigothic persecutions that had plagued them in Christian Iberia, including forced baptisms and mass executions. Cordoba became a beacon of tolerance, its libraries rivaling Baghdad’s. Jewish viziers like Hasdai ibn Shaprut advised caliphs on diplomacy and medicine, while poets and philosophers crossed confessional lines.

The 10th-century “Golden Age” produced Maimonides (Musa ibn Maymun), the preeminent Jewish thinker, whose Guide for the Perplexed synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Jewish law under Muslim intellectual influence. In Granada and Toledo, Muslims, Jews, and Christians advanced astronomy, mathematics, and poetry. Jewish scholars translated Arabic works into Hebrew, disseminating them across Europe. 

However, this era was not without friction. Occasional fatwas in some regions restricted Jewish dress or synagogue construction, echoing dhimmi hierarchies. Yet violence was rare compared to the Christian Crusades or Black Death massacres in Europe, where Jews were scapegoated and burned alive. Historian Bernard Lewis notes that, over 14 centuries, “there is nothing in Islamic history to parallel the Spanish expulsion and Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, or the Nazi Holocaust.” Muslim rulers positioned themselves as guardians of all minorities, rooted in Quranic calls for justice. 

Refuge from European Fury

As Christian Europe’s intolerance peaked—the 1492 Alhambra Decree expelling 200,000 Jews from Spain—Muslim realms offered sanctuary. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire derided Ferdinand and Isabella as fools for impoverishing Spain to enrich his domains, welcoming Sephardic Jewish refugees to Istanbul, Salonika, and Izmir. There, Jews revitalized trade and scholarship, and by the 16th century, they comprised a third of Salonika’s population, dubbing it “the mother of Israel in exile.” This pattern persisted during the 12th-century Crusades, when European Christians slaughtered Jews in the Rhineland and Jerusalem. While in Palestine Saladin (Salahuddin Ayyubi) recaptured the city in 1187 and invited Jews (who had been expelled from Jerusalem by Christian rulers) to return, ending centuries of exclusion under Roman and Byzantine rule.

In North Africa and the Levant, Jews under Muslim governance fared far better than in Christian lands. When the 628 CE Byzantine-Persian treaty included protections for Jews—later betrayed by Roman massacres—Muslim leaders like Caliph Umar reaffirmed safe passage. By the 19th century, as Ottoman reforms equalized rights, Jewish communities in Baghdad and Cairo flourished alongside Muslims, sharing markets and festivals.

A Shared Stand Against Fascism

This legacy of refuge extended into the 20th century, even as European antisemitism surged. During World War Two Muslims across Europe, Africa and the Middle-East risked everything to shield Jews from Nazi horrors. Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein Sardari, the “Iranian Schindler,” issued over 2,000 passports to Iranian Jews in occupied Paris, exploiting Nazi racial pseudoscience by claiming they were “Aryan” descendants of Cyrus the Great—who had freed Jews from Babylonian captivity in 539 BCE.

In Albania, a Muslim-majority nation under German occupation, the entire society conspired to hide Jews. By war’s end, Albania’s Jewish population had grown, the only Nazi-occupied country to achieve this. The Pilkus family in Albania sheltered Holocaust survivor Johanna Neumann, convincing neighbours she was a German relative. “They put their lives on the line to save us,” Neumann recalled. In Tunisia, Khaled Abdul Wahab hid two Jewish families in his farm’s stables, defying Gestapo raids. At Paris’s Great Mosque, Imam Kaddour Benghabrit forged Muslim certificates for Jews, while Turkish consul Selahattin Ulkumen ferried 50 Jews to safety on boats from Rhodes. Noor Inayat Khan, a British Muslim spy, transmitted vital intelligence from occupied France until her execution at Dachau. Even in Palestine, amid rising Zionist-Palestinian tensions, thousands volunteered against the Nazis. A 2019 study revealed 12,000 Palestinians—Muslims and Christians—served in British forces, fighting in North Africa and Europe. The Palestine Regiment saw Arabs and Jews shoulder-to-shoulder fighting against Hitler’s Nazi forces, a unity later fractured by the Nakba in 1948.

Palestinian Hospitality Betrayed

In Mandatory Palestine, this spirit manifested profoundly. As Nazi persecution escalated in Germany in the 1930s, over 60,000 German Jews fled to Palestine under the Haavara Agreement, despite British quotas limiting immigration to quell Arab unrest. Initial arrivals in the 1920s and early 1930s were often met with Palestinian hospitality. Oral histories and contemporary accounts document Palestinian families housing destitute Jewish refugees in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem, sharing meals and aiding integration. Palestinian leader Musa Alami recounted villagers offering shelter to European Jews, viewing them as fellow Semites fleeing tyranny—before Zionist land purchases and exclusivist settlements soured relations between the two communities.

Tensions boiled during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt, sparked by fears of dispossession, but even then, individual acts of kindness persisted. Tragically, this generosity was repaid with expulsion. By 1948, Zionist terrorist groups like the Haganah and Irgun—bolstered by those once-welcomed refugees—destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages, expelling 750,000 in the Nakba. In places like Deir Yassin, Lydda and Ramle, families who had hosted Jews were driven out at gunpoint, their homes seized, and the inhabitants massacred. Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, documented how these operations, code named Plan Dalet, ethnically cleansed Arab populations to secure a Jewish majority on territory seized by the Zionists. The betrayal was stark. Palestinians, who had opened their doors amid global indifference, became refugees in their own land. 

Colonial Shadows: The Modern Fracture

The relative harmony between Jews and Muslims frayed not due to ancient hatreds but due to a form of European imperialism—namely Zionism. Born in 19th-century Europe, this Jewish supremacist ideology framed Palestine as a “land without a people” for a “people without a land,” conveniently ignoring its 1.2 million Muslim, Christian and Jewish inhabitants. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, a British colonial proposal, pledged a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine without the consent of its inhabitants, enabling mass immigration that tripled the Jewish population by 1947. Post-World War Two, as Britain withdrew its forces from Palestine, the United Nations’ Partition Plan allocated 56% of the territory for a Jewish state—despite Jews owning just 7% of the land, and accounting for only 33% of the population. The ensuing war cemented the Nakba, with Israeli policies of settlement expansion, exclusion, and blockade perpetuating Palestinian displacement.

The history of Jewish-Muslim relations is not a tale of a centuries long religious conflict as Zionists would like everyone to believe. It is rather a rich narrative marked by remarkable coexistence during very hostile eras of history. Only in the 20th century, with the colonization of historic Palestine, did tensions flare, fracturing ties between these communities in the Middle East.

The Zionist narrative of perpetual enmity between Jews and Muslims serves a political agenda, yet history offers a beacon of hope. From the inclusive pact of Medina to the flourishing Jewish communities in Al-Andalus and the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim lands, to the heroic acts of Muslims shielding Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II, these faith communities wove a tapestry of relative peace and mutual respect, unlike what Jews had experienced for centuries in Christian Europe. Ultimately this was all undone not by religion but by the political machinations of the Zionist movement. By drawing on this shared heritage, Muslims and Jews seeking peace in the Middle East can find inspiration to forge a harmonious future, and work towards an end to the decades-long conflict in historic Palestine that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives since 1948.
  
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.