Canada Needs to Confront Its Xenophobia

This past weekend, a group of Syrian refugees was pepper sprayed at a welcome event in Vancouver.

The gathering took place Friday night outside a local chapter of the Muslim Association of Canada. At about 10:30 PM, police say a man rode by on his bike and pepper sprayed a crowd of adults and children, causing them to cough and vomit and their eyes to burn. Around 15 people were treated by first responders for their symptoms.

The cops are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Responses to the attack came swiftly from a number of sources, though they all bore a similar sentiment: "This isn't Canada."

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said it "was a disgusting display of hate—and Vancouver won't stand for it. #VanWelcomesRefugees and always will."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted, "This isn't who we are—and doesn't reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered."

Both Immigration Minister John McCallum and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan used the classic line about how this is an "isolated incident."

"Because of the positive reaction that they're getting from everywhere they go, a horrible but isolated incident like this can be quickly forgotten and they can get on with their life," Sajjan told reporters.

I can't help but feel these statements, the same ones trotted out every time something similar happens, are disingenuous.

Being pepper sprayed by a stranger upon moving to a new country isn't an experience most people would easily "forget," nor should any of us be trying to forget about it. In doing so, we're brushing an ugly societal problem under the rug, a problem that deserves to be exposed. How can we possibly argue that xenophobia is not part of the Canadian identity when, historically and at present, there's so much proof to the contrary?

We saw it in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, when a Toronto woman wearing a hijab was beaten and robbed while picking up her kids from school and when a Peterborough mosque was set on fire.

There was also the niqab "debate," which looked set to decide the federal election for a depressing but not insignificant chunk of time.

Islamophobia here is in fact strong enough to warrant self-defense classes for Muslim women and an anti-Muslim incident tracker, started by the National Council of Canadian Muslims in 2013. Dozens of events were recorded last year.

Polls gauging Canadians' views on the Liberals' refugee plan, meanwhile, have been fairly split, with a recent one reporting 48 percent are in favor while 44 percent are opposed. In other words, almost half of Canadians do not want Syrian refugees to be resettled here—hardly a fringe minority. Another survey shows a majority of the population (63 percent) is concerned Syrians will become a burden on social services and the healthcare system.

And yet a quick scan of headlines relating to the pepper spray ambush ("Syrian refugees say pepper spray attack won't spoil first impressions" or "Pepper Spraying of Syrian Refugees Won't Hurt Canada's Reputation: John McCallum"), reveals a frustrating desire to minimize this hate crime as a one-off and reassure the public, and the rest of the world, that all is warm and fuzzy here.

Even members of the Syrian community quoted in these articles appear to be appeasing Canadians.

"To be honest, Canadian people would not do this, the majority of them," said Tima Kurdi, the aunt of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, who was found dead on a Turkish beach. "They are big supporters to the refugees."

You can't blame Kurdi for choosing her words carefully. The refugees who end up in Canada will rely in part on goodwill from citizens to help them adjust. Likewise, it's not fair to expect people in targeted groups to subject themselves to more hate by calling out this behavior for what it is—a shitty reflection of a sizable number of Canadians. But we should be able to expect some frank dialogue from our leaders.

After his city was dubbed the most racist in Canada by Maclean's Magazine, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman broke down and acknowledged, "We do have racism in Winnipeg… You can't run away from facts." The city has since hosted a national summit on the issue, with Bowman pledging his constituents have "a responsibility right now to turn this ship around and change the way we all relate." (For the record, Mayor Robertson's claim that Vancouver is an immigrant haven is debatable considering the anti-Chinese attitudes currently being perpetuated throughout the city.)

More recently, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson admitted to a group of First Nations chiefs that there are racists in his force and that weeding them out would be key to tackling the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis.

For those directly impacted, concessions like these must be validating, at the very least. For the rest of us, they're difficult to hear, but it's hard to envision how we'll move past our shortcomings without first acknowledging them.

The harsh truth allows for discussions and a potential growth in awareness amongst those with anti-immigrant viewpoints. A false narrative about how Canadians are just so darn nice, on the other hand, serves no one.

Follow Manisha on Twitter.