The federal government has been asked by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) to declare Jan. 29, the first anniversary of a murderous attack on a Quebec mosque that left six dead and several others injured, a “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia.”
The word Islamophobia is something of a trigger to some of us, as NCCM knows well. The group was instrumental in the wording of Motion 103, where inclusion of “Islamophobia” sparked a passionate national debate (including over the potential to suppress criticism of Islam or certain Islamic people or groups if the same wording were to show up someday in law). When M-103 backers refused to consider replacing Islamophobia with the more precise “anti-Muslim,” it alarmed Canadians concerned with free-speech erosion, including more than a few staunchly pluralistic Muslims.