Muslim organization cancels meeting with Canadian PM

TEHRAN, (MNA) – The leader of Canada’s largest Muslim organization canceled a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday for failing to do more to help Palestinians in Gaza and inaction to curb rising hate crimes.

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

“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 cancelation 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 cancelation, but his office later said the prime minister had “nothing to add.”

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 programs 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.”

Brown said Trudeau has not pressured Israel to step back from its bombardment in Gaza. 

“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.

Israel waged the genocidal war on besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas Resistance movement carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 26,422 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 65,087 others.

The Israeli military has committed war crimes in Gaza by targeting medical facilities, personnel, and transport and destroying the healthcare system in the Palestinian territory.