Un-Canadian: Islamophobia in the True North

Finalist for a 2020 Ottawa Book Award

With a Foreword by Ihsaan Gardee, former executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims

Un-Canadian: Islamophobia in the True North is a provocative warning to Canadians that the values they cherish are being eroded through a disturbing pattern of political, legal and social prejudice against Muslims.

Even to the most politically-engaged Canadians, when these instances are surveyed as a whole, the pattern of “othering” is shocking. This readable book recounts vicious hate crimes and police harassment of innocent individuals, and compares the frenzied response from the media, politicians and the justice system when an accused criminal is a Muslim, to the muted equivocations when they are not. The book examines the ordeals faced by Muslim Canadians like Omar Khadr and Maher Arar who have had their most basic human rights actively violated by the Canadian government, and analyzes the impact of laws targeting what Muslim women are allowed to wear. Finally, the book concludes with the inspirational and creative efforts of Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians working to bring us closer together.

Spanning settings from dark prison cells in Guantanamo Bay and Syria to the gilded corridors of power on Parliament Hill, this book addresses fundamental notions of social cohesion and the value of Canadian citizenship. Canadians who are worried about the direction our country is headed will consider it a must-read.