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Half of All Canadians Mistrust Muslims

By on March 30, 2012 in Loon Politics

Our friendly neighbors to the north seem to have been infected with the same xenophobic, jingoistic, extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric sweeping the USA. (H/T: JB)

More Than Half of All Canadians Mistrust Muslims Poll Says

(Ottawa Citizen)

More than half of all Canadians believe Muslims can’t be trusted and nearly as many believe discrimination against Muslims is “mainly their fault,” say the results of a new national survey released before Wednesday’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The online poll of 1,522 Canadians, commissioned by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) and Toronto-based Canadian Race Relations Foundation, also highlights how Canadians see the Internet as by far the leading conduit for racism in the country.

ACS executive director Jack Jedwab described the results as a “disturbing” sign that racism not only remains a problem in the country but that many Canadians feel comfortable holding transparently discriminatory views, then saying things like: “If we feel this way about you, it’s your fault.”

Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, said the findings provide more reasons to promote better inter-faith and inter-cultural relations and to “build bridges among different communities” in Canada to combat discrimination.

Asked if Muslims can be trusted, a countrywide total of 52 per cent of respondents said either “not at all” or only “a little.” Conversely, 48 per cent of those surveyed said they trusted Muslims “a lot” or “somewhat.”

No other group asked about in the survey registered such low levels of trustworthiness.

On the question of who deserves blame for such negative feelings, Muslims again fared significantly worse than other groups in Canadian society.

Forty-two per cent of respondents said they agreed (either “strongly” or “somewhat”) with the statement: “If there is discrimination against Muslims, it is mainly their fault.”

By comparison, 36 per cent of those surveyed said aboriginal Canadians were mainly responsible for any discrimination directed toward them, while respondents considered Jewish Canadians (26 per cent), homosexual Canadians (20 per cent) and Black Canadians (19 per cent) less responsible for the discrimination they suffer.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/More+than+half+Canadians+mistrust+Muslims+poll+says/6333500/story.html#ixzz1qFhjsuxD

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  • Tanveer Khan

    I consider myself a very tolerant person of different races and religions
    Just saying something does not make it so. If it does…. then I’m a trillionare with a palace in Hawaii and I own the iPhone 5c.

  • James

    I consider myself a very tolerant person of different races and religions. The situation in Europe and recent events here in Canada have led me to believe that the Muslim religion, Islam and Sharia law is more of a cult than a religion. Considering its fundamental ‘intolerant’ view of other people and religions, should be banned as a cult from being practiced in civilized society.

  • Géji

    “I guess a bad Muslim is worse than a good kaffir to many of you, isn’t it?”

    By the way @dan 15, if I’m not mistaking, I think you meant – “I guess a bad Muslim is [better] than a good kaffir to many of you …” – and not “worse”, right? In case yes, I hope you won’t mind me correcting it for you.

  • Géji

    > “Lucky both Marine le pen and mercozy are doing badly in the polls. Sarko in courting the right has lost the centre. And his job it looks like. thaïs why hé is getting desparate”

    lol, @Sir David, what do “thaïs” means? is it a new slang les Français decided adding to their vocabulary? I haven’t been there for a while so that may be it. But en-tout-cas, good going well with your French lessons. Anyway, you’re right that Martine la-racist-folle and Sarko le-boufon are both desperate, they’re using this tragedy not only to distract from their incompetence to resolve the economic problems, but also to further apply their open racism towards the French Arab community. I don’t know whether you still live there, but if you are, watch what happens and mark my word, for many French racists this Merah affair is a gift fell from heaven, a gift they’ve been probably waiting for a while, to give them once again the chance to “clean-up” the house of France. A perfect warrant to get rid-of the French Arabs-(most of whom are Muslims)- that racists always wondered why they’re in France “polluting” “their” French soil. I’ve lived there and know how their racist mentalities works, every time a little something even remotely near to this Merah situation comes about from the French Arab community, the awaiting French racists éguise-leur-couteaux to cut/crack down on the unwanted, via letting-go their while suppressed racist rhetoric, imprisonment, further oppression, and more perfectly, expulsion. After all, didn’t boufon-Sarko publicly said himself, Quote: – “the operations [raiding on French Arabs/Muslims] will continue and will also allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people.” – just few days after the tragedy?? —- Haha! it looks like they’ve never changed their script since the last time I was there. Although, this Merah tragedy is kind of big for the poor Arab/Muslim Français, so the unlucky number of them that will have liberate the terre-sacré française may higher than usual, I don’t, we’ll probably never know the exact number, cause the racists always made sure to hid it, but as I’ve said this is an heavenly fall Opportunity-(with capital O) for Franço-racists, and they’ll milk it for a long time. Anyway good-luck with your lesson française, it looks like you’re doing well, and you’ll realize it’s not that hard, after all there are many French words similar to English, just that their pronunciation are different. Salut mon ami!!

    ———–

    dan15 says: “I guess a bad Muslim is worse than a good kaffir to many of you, isn’t it?”

    @dan, amigo, since there never been a clean-cut definition of the meaning of the word “Kafirun”, always leading to contention, and everybody having their own “version” about it. Thus, first, before answering the question you’ve asked us, it will be better if you’d give us your version of the word, deal!. So, can you tell us who defines “kafir” for you and why they’re “kafir”, in order for us to tell ya if they’re “a good kafir” better than “a bad Muslim”? — And BWT, “a good kafir”? is there even something like that?.

  • ladouceurg

    dan,,

    Kaffir. Unusual language. It is the victims fault again. Or the jew in germany who caused their own genocide. we are in very dangerous times here, with so much hate that is based on a lack of facts. Of course there are crimes in the world. There are two reports of cannibals in Russia, there are people being chopped up in the USA and many many murders as well. If we pick everyone of these crimes committed by Kaffirs as you say, there would be no room on this blog to write anything except obits. Many fathers, kaffir fathers if you will who have killed their children today in the usa. I am thinking of that man who blew up his house and his kids in Utah for example. Just read you papers. You have to travel all the way to afghanistan to people your hate. Just look at your newspaper today and see how you could help your own people who are killing each other over love, money, sex, hate, honour, crazy. There are 6 million people in american jails right now. More than even in stalins gulags.

  • dan15

    ali: “Its all because of people like Tarek Fatah, Ezra Levant and Michael Coren. Three really big bigots.”

    But not the imbecile Muslims like the family of the deceased Aqsa Parvez who blamed her for the murder brought upon herself by the father, the recent terror plots in the past 6-7 years, or the disgusting Shafia family of Afghanistan who helped fuel these polemic demagogues their agenda.

    It’s amazing how so many people here are willing to give a free pass to fellow Muslims even when their actions help fuel Islamophobes. I guess a bad Muslim is worse than a good kaffir to many of you, isn’t it?

  • KnowingTheTruth

    Seeing that the poll was only over a 1000 people, I don’t really think it’s that big of an issue. Many Canadians are good people, yeah there are few that I know who are hateful against us but that’s about it. But seeing the propaganda from Sun News I do worry that they may cause fear in the nation.

  • ladouceurg

    THANK YOU LO. I feel a bit guilty that I have left all of the weight of the fight against this illness in Canada to Muslims and others of a different colour. I just got old and tired. a shame I know.

    garry.

  • Lo

    I have some reservation about this poll. 1522 people can’t possibly speak for a country as big as Canada. I personally know several Canadians and I find it hard to believe that 50% of them think I should not be trusted and that I deserve to be discriminated against. 20% maybe…

    On the other hand, the democratic force keeping Stephen Harper as PM longer than George W Bush was ever president is very worrying.

    ladouceurg, my heart goes out to you. If it makes you feel better, all the Canadians I’ve met have mentioned at some point how terribly helpless they feel seeing how the natives are treated in their country. These are young 20-somethings who grew up in a multiracial society, children of war refugees, the future leaders. Give them 20 years and maybe the wrongs can start being undone.

  • Sir David : Man on a phone with a french spell check

    Lucky both Marine le pen and mercozy are doing badly in the polls. Sarko in courting the right has lost the centre. And his job it looks like. thaïs why hé is getting desparate.
    Lots of questions in the french press why the idiot dumb terroriste was not captured sooner not many answers.

  • Hard Core Atheist

    “not to hate on black people…” and then you hate away…..smh

  • Michael Elwood

    @Hassan

    “Not to hate on Black people, but considering their circumstances, and the higher crime rate that results, you’d expect them to be blamed most for their own discrimination.”

    Not to hate on immigrant Muslims, but they are partially to blame for discrimmination against them. Take the quote above, for example. There was a recent article on altmuslimah.com about the inability of immigrant Muslims (due to prejudice within the immigrant Muslim community) to build coalitions with others to help combat discrimmination against them:

    http://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/spa/4607/

    The article is very diplomatic. I have been less diplomatic when people here have expressed racist views:

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/12/loonwatch-response-to-asra-nomani/#comment-46707

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/01/ayaan-hirsi-ali-change-the-constitution-to-eliminate-muslim-rights/#comment-53130

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/09/a-murfreesboro-paper-and-a-smyrna-citizen-do-battle-over-islam/#comment-96663

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/01/why-islamophobes-hate-ron-paul/#comment-128825

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/01/raphael-shore-director-of-clarion-funds-third-jihad-upset-nypd-wont-be-showing-his-anti-muslim-movie/comment-page-2/#comment-137123

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/01/illinois-joshua-scaggs-stabs-man-to-save-this-country/comment-page-1/#comment-127151

    http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/01/sikhs-against-the-edl-backs-love-leicester-hate-racism-demonstration/#comment-139789

    “Every non-black guy feels some degree of fear or discomfort when black men approach. Everyone has some negative story about what happened to them in ‘a bad part of town’.”

    Speak for yourself.

    “That’s natural, anecdote-based prejudice.”

    That fear is no more “natural” than the fear many people have sitting next to Middle Eastern or South Asian looking person on a airplane.

  • Géji

    BTW, Is anyone following how Sarkozy is Profiting from the Merah tragedy to win his re-election? — Via AlJazeera-English, Mr president Sarkozy apparently order to “cracked down” on what he termed “radical Islam”, and arrested 19 people-(3 of them women)- not even linked to the Merah affair, also banning 4 Islamic scholars that was scheduled for a conference of ‘Union of Islamic Organisations in France’-(UOIF), saying, Quote: – “their calls for hatred and violence were a threat to public order” – —- He then went on to say, Quote: – “The attacks had been profoundly felt in France, and a little like the trauma that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US” – —- He then suggested that more arrests will occur, saying, Quote: – “We have some extremely precise questions to ask a certain number of people and what happened this morning will continue” – Adding, Quote: – “There will be other operations that will continue and will also allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people.” –

    [AJE] – National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Friday called for the conference to be cancelled and the UOIF to be disbanded. “Drastic measures must be taken without delay and without weakness against radical Islam”, she said in a statement. –

    The hypocrisy is apparent, I knew this tragedy would yet be another backlash for Muslims, how many more backlashes Muslims have to receive again? only Allah knows, but I feel sorry for Muslims living in France, I fell sorry for most Muslims living in a Western world that succombed yet again rehashing and reheating it’s old intolerance and hate.

  • ladouceurg@gmail.com

    I am no longer Canadian. I left my home and native land and have never, for even one moment, wanted to go back. It is actually a hate filled place canada is. It sings of itself as tolerant. but that is a lie. It is a very big place but there is no room for anyone who is not white, who does not have links to the old country and who is scary because of the way they walk or dress or think. It is a white mans world.

    I am Swiss now. It is not easy being a Native American Swiss man who does not look like the average Swiss man but in this country of white people, I feel ok. I am among the aboriginal(ab from original) people of Switzerland. They were there from the beginning and they understand me and how I feel about Canada because it is truly my native land and like my mother, i had to leave her in the end.

    I have always been disrespected in Canada. The savage, the indian, the unwashed, the dirty, the lazy, the non white. We should go back where we came from. To the garbage. To death itself. That is what I learned about being Native in Canada.

    So I pity the muslims. They are not going to find peace in Canada. It is too hateful of a place. I will never go back to my homeland. I am le canadien errant… far from my home which i shall never see again….

  • NurAlia

    You know…

    You can find a poll to say anything you want. As much as westerners are catalouged by thier own habits…you can select a group of people to ask, simply by using thier loyalty cards to stores to alomot guarntee an outcome to a poll.

    I am trying to figure out why this is really important.

  • GlobalAtheist

    Whether it is in Canada, France, UK, US, Germany, whatever- people must stop being so hostile towards and afraid of Muslims/Islam.

  • Awesome

    The % decreases with those minorities that Canadians in general are more familiar with. You’ll notice that they didn’t ask how many of those responding actually knew any Muslims personally or not, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a correlation between familiarity, discrimination and level of trust.

  • Hassan

    Every non-black guy feels some degree of fear or discomfort when black men approach. Everyone has some negative story about what happened to them in “a bad part of town”. That’s natural, anecdote-based prejudice. This is something altogether different, closer to what happened in 1930’s Germany. A community perceived as being at fault for their own discrimination, despite having never done anything to personally threaten or wrong anyone.

  • Hassan

    This goes to show how negative attitudes have extremely little to do with reality, and everything to do with media. Not to hate on Black people, but considering their circumstances, and the higher crime rate that results, you’d expect them to be blamed most for their own discrimination. Using anecdotes (the only form of evidence people naturally adhere to), it should be much easier to claim Blacks bring about their own discrimination. Instead they are perceived as being least at fault, despite an actual socioeconomic and criminal justice crisis. Muslims on the other hand, are statistically better off, more educated, and more law abiding than the average white citizen. Thus, fewer anecdotes about Muslims stealing your bike or mugging you in an alley. They don’t even have their own pop subculture, music, or gangs. Without media telling people to fear Muslims, nobody would be afraid of them.

  • ali

    Its all because of people like Tarek Fatah, Ezra Levant and Michael Coren. Three really big bigots.

  • mindy1

    WTF is with people

  • Sir David : Man on a phone with a french spell check

    One does wonder how many trust other religions.
    The Mormons ?JWs and others.

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