From raising voter turnout to raising flags

TorontoSun.com
Sept. 9, 2016
By Maryam Shah

A grassroots Canadian-Muslim organization that focused on raising voter turnout during the 2015 federal election has now turned its sights to raising Canadian flags in front of mosques around the country.

Afternoon prayers at a Thornhill mosque on Friday were followed by the anthem and the raising of a Canadian flag, as part of a flag-raising campaign by The Canadian-Muslim Vote.

The campaign hopes to see flags raised at mosques around Canada in the leadup to the country’s 150th birthday celebrations next July. The organization said the first mosque in Canada was built in 1938 in Edmonton.

Muneeza Sheikh, spokesman for the nonpartisan Canadian-Muslim Vote, said the group wants to send a message to both Muslims and non-Muslims.

“Your Canadian identity and your identity as a Muslim is something that can actually co-exist harmoniously, contrary to what a lot of people have put out there in the media,” she said.

The organization originally came to the forefront last year to get out the vote in the Muslim community, where voter turnout was as low as 30-40% in the 2011 federal election, Sheikh said.

For the 2015 federal election, the group estimates 79% of Canadian Muslims in some ridings.

Now, the group wants to continue promoting civic engagement within the community.

“And then outside of the Muslim community, it’s about dispelling some of the myths and some of the aggressive propagation of negative stereotypes around Muslims in general,” Sheikh said.

The inaugural flag-raising at the Jaffari Community Centre in Thornhill was attended by local politicians such as MP Deborah Schulte (King-Vaughan) and Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco (Ward 4, Vaughan).

Sheikh said so far around 20 other mosques and centres are on board, with more in the works.