Sri Lankan-born Toronto city councillor Neethan Shan says his office has been getting a barrage of hate emails after he proposed to proclaim January 29 as a day of remembrance and action on Islamophobia.
He made the proposal to coincide with the first anniversary of the Quebec mosque killing. A gunman walked into the Islamic Cultural Centre mosque in Quebec City and began spraying gunfire at those who gathered for evening prayers on January 29 last year. Six people were killed and 19 sustained injuries.
More than a thousand people in Quebec City braved bad weather to mark the first anniversary of killing yesterday. Sombre events were also held in Ottawa, Toronto, Victoria and St.Johns, capital of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The multi-lingual former teacher and youth worker, who came to Canada as a refugee when he was 16, also promises to bring the perspective of ‘resilience’ and ‘struggles’ of different communities, so there is more ‘inclusive decision-making at city hall’
Last week Shan issued a press release, proposing January 29 as a Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia. “They were innocent and randomly targeted for practising their faith,” Shan told the CBC News referring to the victims of the massacre.
“It’s a day for us to collectively come together and denounce Islamophobia and also to commit to action because it’s one thing to make statements, but we have to do something to make our society more inclusive,” he said.
“There is hatred displayed in many of the emails we get,” he said. “You know there will be a long email that is filled with Islamophobic rhetoric and then it will end with a statement that there is no Islamophobia.”
Shan says of the hundreds of emails he’s received so far about one in 10 fall into this category. “These emails and the hate that is pushed towards this motion reinforces the need for why we need a day of action on Islamophobia,” he said.
Shan is the first Tamil-Canadian to serve on Toronto city council after he won a by-election in Ward 42 Scarborough-Rouge River last year. He contested on New Democratic Party (NDP) ticket and ran a campaign promising to put “Scarborough First” after what he said has been decades of neglect at city hall.
The multi-lingual former teacher and youth worker, who came to Canada as a refugee when he was 16, also promises to bring the perspective of “resilience” and “struggles” of different communities, so there is more “inclusive decision-making at city hall.”
In January 2016, Shan, a married father of two, was elected as a Toronto District School Board trustee for the area after the previous representative joined the federal Liberals.
