A New Wave of Islamophobic Attacks Targeting Muslims Across Canada

In the past two months alone, Muslim communities have faced a disturbing series of violent and intimidating incidents: a Black Muslim man in St. Albert, was assaulted after leaving Jummah prayer with his family while racial and Islamophobic slurs were reportedly used; an imam in Victoria was assaulted after prayers and told to “go back to your home country”; Islamophobic graffiti reading “Protect women, rise against Islam” was found near an Edmonton daycare for Muslim children, leaving Muslim women and families questioning their safety; a Muslim woman in Edmonton who wears a hijab was struck by a vehicle after racist and xenophobic comments; a Palestinian Muslim family in Thunder Bay was attacked while walking with young children and an elderly parent; a Muslim woman in Moncton was violently assaulted; a fake severed hand covered in fake blood was left at the Islamic Centre of Verdun in Montreal; shots were reportedly fired at the Rahma Islamic Centre in Winnipeg while people were inside; and “Deport Islam” graffiti has repeatedly appeared around the Centre islamique de l’Outaouais, including on one of the centre’s buildings.

These attacks must not be treated as isolated acts of individual prejudice. Islamophobia in Canada is structural: it operates through policy decisions, policing practices, media narratives, political rhetoric, online platforms, institutional neglect, and individual acts of violence. From public debates that cast Muslims as security threats, to government policies that normalize suspicion toward Muslim communities, to media platforms that amplify narratives about Muslims as foreign, dangerous, or incompatible with “Canadian” or “Western” values, Islamophobia is produced at multiple levels of society. Some of this Islamophobic violence and vitriol also overlaps with anti-Palestinian racism, as racist discourse about Gaza often dehumanizes Palestinians by portraying them as violent, terrorist, or disposable, while simultaneously extending that suspicion to Muslims more broadly. This dehumanization makes both the exclusion of Palestinians and the targeting of Muslim communities easier to justify. Individual attackers do not act in a vacuum; they act in a climate shaped by years of dehumanizing discourse and institutional failure.

“These attacks show that Islamophobia in Canada is not only a matter of offensive speech or online hate; it is a direct threat to the physical safety of Muslim families, worshippers, women, elders, children, and community leaders,” said Jamila Ewais, Lead Researcher of the ARPCF. “A mosque should never be a target. A woman wearing hijab should never fear being attacked in a parking lot. A Muslim family should not be assaulted while walking with children. An imam should not be attacked after prayers. Yet across Canada, Muslim communities are repeatedly being forced to absorb violence while waiting for meaningful protection, accountability, and political leadership.”

The ARPCF calls on public officials, police services, media institutions, and civil society leaders to respond to this pattern with urgency and seriousness. Condemnations after each incident are not enough. Canada must confront the ecosystem of Islamophobia that makes Muslims vulnerable to violence: racist media narratives, political fearmongering, online hate, inadequate institutional responses, and the failure to treat anti-Muslim racism as a structural threat. Protecting Muslim communities requires stronger support for victims, transparent hate-crime investigations, sustained anti-racism education, accountability for public figures and platforms that normalize Islamophobic rhetoric, and concrete measures to ensure that mosques, Islamic centres, Muslim families, and visibly Muslim people can live safely and with dignity in Canada. The ARPCF also renews calls for a National Strategy on Islamophobia, because hatred directed at minority communities cannot be allowed to become the new normal.