Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly announced advisory committee on equity feels like a slap in the face to many Canadians, particularly Muslims and pro-Palestinian advocates who, since October 7, 2023, have faced harassment, intimidation and professional consequences for speaking out against what many human rights experts have unequivocally described as genocide in Gaza.

When Carney launched the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion this week under the banner of combatting “all forms of hate,” his remarks raised questions about whose pain is met with political urgency in Canada and whose is not.

Speaking at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Carney announced the council would be chaired by former senator Marc Gold, a Jewish community leader and former national chair of the Canada-Israel Committee. He spoke forcefully about antisemitism, declaring that “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” while citing disturbing incidents of anti-Jewish violence and intimidation.

He is right to be alarmed by antisemitism; any credible response to hate must take it seriously.

But if this is truly an advisory council aimed at combatting hate against all communities, why was the launch so singularly focused on one community with only passing acknowledgment of the threats facing others?

Muslims, too, are living through a period of extraordinary fear and vulnerability.

A 2023 Angus Reid Institute survey found that 43 per cent of Canadians viewed Islam as a “harmful presence” in Canadian society — rising to 55 per cent in Quebec. Muslims are among the least favourably viewed religious groups in the country. 

But besides grappling with prejudice, we have also experienced some of the deadliest violence in the G7. This year marked nine years since the Quebec City mosque massacre, where six Muslim men were murdered by a white nationalist gunman during evening prayers. In 2021, four members of the Afzaal family were killed in London, Ontario, when a man deliberately drove his truck into them because they were Muslim.

More recently, Durham police allegedly assaulted a Muslim lawyer in an Oshawa courthouse, slamming her head into a desk and ripping off her hijab. Last October, a Muslim employee at a hotel in Markham, Ontario. was beaten and left with a scarred face and shattered teeth, requiring surgery. Last March, a woman studying in an Ajax library had an unknown liquid poured on her hijab. Her attacker had attempted to set her on fire.

Yet public and political acknowledgment of this reality is often fleeting. Sociologist Jasmine Zine has called it “a national amnesia.”

That amnesia became harder to ignore when Carney’s government recently ended the Office of the Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia. Was that really bureaucratic restructuring — or a signal that Muslim communities’ fears mattered less?

Under Amira Elghawaby, who led that office, many of us felt for the first time that someone inside the government was listening. Elghawaby was widely respected and consistently documented concerns, engaged communities and brought national attention to forms of anti-Muslim hate that are too often minimized or ignored.

But what also made Carney’s speech difficult to reconcile was its irony.

He began by reflecting on Jewish teachings that societies should be judged not by wealth or power, but by how they treat the vulnerable. He spoke of a civic compact grounded in mutual recognition – the belief that our flourishing depends on one another.

These are values that I believe Canadians of all backgrounds share. And I have long admired the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, which translates to ‘repairing the world.’ It’s the belief that human beings share a responsibility to mend what is broken in society and pursue justice.

But what becomes of those ideals when governments become selective in how they distribute compassion, urgency and political attention?

As a journalist, I am sometimes the first point of contact for Muslim parents whose children have been bullied, beaten or taunted with slurs linking them to Hamas or terrorism. They come to me because they want the public to understand how bad things have become – not for sympathy, but to prevent it from happening again. Yet most of these stories never make it into print. Lawyers advise against publicity. Children fear being permanently stigmatized. Families simply want to move on.

After hearing news of Carney’s speech, my 17-year-old son — who campaigned enthusiastically for the Liberals and once urged Carney at a rally to maintain a balanced perspective on Israel and Palestine, leaving hopeful — sent me an uncharacteristically angry message.

To him, the move was strategic: the government had quietly ended its dedicated role combating Islamophobia, only to now elevate concerns about antisemitism through a high-profile new advisory body.

When I asked if he’d posted this criticism online, he said no. Like many young racialized Canadians, he has learned to calculate the cost of speaking publicly.

“It’s just how I feel,” he told me.

And perhaps that is what should concern Carney most. Disillusionment. 

The danger for any democratic government is not criticism or anger. It is when citizens – especially young ones who once believed that their fears, grief and dignity are regarded equally — begin to lose faith.

If this council is truly meant to confront all forms of hate, Canadians deserve proof that every community’s pain matters.

Shenaz Kermalli is a journalist and journalism instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. Her work can be found on Substack.