On the surface, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has sparked a diplomatic war with India accusing the latter of playing a role in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who Trudeau considers a “Canadian citizen”. But dig deeper and you will find an entire propaganda army of Islamists, Khalistanis, and left-liberals being led by Trudeau.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and World Sikh Organisation (WSO) on 20 September tabled four demands before the Canadian government which include that it expel the Indian High Commissioner to Canada, recall the Canadian envoy, block trade with India, and ban the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS).
If you thought that Trudeau and his administration’s statement was atrocious, wait till you hear this. The anti-India statement by NCCM and WSO was made at the House of Commons of all the places in Canada proving that the Trudeau administration not only shelters but also nurtures propagandist organisations.
Who are the National Council of Canadian Muslims?
The National Council of Canadian Muslims was formerly known as the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR.CAN), the Canadian chapter of the US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR is a US-based Islamist organisation with ties to the Islamic terrorist organisation Hamas. The radical group was amongst the 17 India-hating organisations in the US that wrote a joint letter to US President Joe Biden to cancel state dinner with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the US in June.
CAIR was originally established by the Muslim Brotherhood and was designated by the US Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. One of NCCM’s (then CAIR.CAN) founding directors was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial against illegal funding of Hamas.
Moreover, NCCM is known for filing libel suits against its critics. When former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s communications director Jason MacDonald implied in 2014 that NCCM has ties to Hamas, the organisation sued him for libel. In a setback to the NCCM, the court agreed Jason’s demand for more documentation on the group. However, in 2017, Jason and the NCCM issued joint statements that their differences were “resolved”.
NCCM and CAIR have also collaborated on issues in the past which raises concerns about how both organisations jointly lobby with favourable administrations and government officials to take the liberty to interfere in internal matters of other nations.
In very sugarcoated words, the NCCM on its website is basically exposing itself. CAIR.CAN was founded in 2000 by Canadian Muslim advocates. In 2013, the organisation changed its name to NCCM.
It says on its website, “We originally adopted the CAIR.CAN name because CAIR was and remains an established and recognized brand in civil rights activism within North American Muslim communities since 1994. Using this well-known brand, over the years we successfully established ourselves from a fledgling Canadian organization into one whose professionalism and accomplishments made us a leader in promoting civic engagement and defending civil liberties.”
The NCCM thereby openly admits that it took the assistance of the brand CAIR in order to grow in Canada. It further states how after it had developed its clout, it renamed to NCCM. “Given our Canadian heritage and mandate, we believed the organization needed to look to the future to meet the growing needs and aspirations of Canadian Muslim communities. Thus, on July 6, 2013 the organization became the National Council of Canadian Muslims.”
It is safe to say that a so-called organisation which took the support of a foreign entity like CAIR to build its base in Canada must also have engaged in sharing resources, information, and parroting the same narratives.
How the Canadian government has collaborated with NCCM and related Islamic organisations
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) agreed to collaborate with the NCCM and the Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA), another Islamist organisation in Canada. The collaboration yielded funding from the Red Cross to publish a guide for Canadian teachers titled “Helping Students Deal with Trauma Related to Geopolitical Violence and Islamophobia”.
The entire guide is speculative. On the first page itself, it reads, “What Muslim Students May Be Experiencing”. And follows it up with another sub-section titled, “What Canadian-Muslim Youth Need”. The guide fails to provide any substantiative research and data to explain the reasons for its demands and only gives a speculative narrative about how Muslim youth are facing challenges. Notably, it repeatedly uses the word minority to sound as if it is speaking for all minority communities.
With this collaboration, not only did the CHRC lend credibility and authenticity to NCCM and ISSA but also proved that the Islamic organisations are supported by the Canadian government. Moreover, the guide released by this collaborative initiative is deeply Islamic in nature thereby proving false the narrative of the Canadian government and the NCCM that they working for “all minorities”.
The guide also suggests that the suffering of Israeli children receives more media sympathy than Palestinian children’s suffering. For a state department like CHRC to take such positions on geopolitical matters is highly atrocious.
In a tip to teachers at the end, the guide states, “Generally, some care should be taken by teachers on the language and tone they take when discussing world events and the Islamic faith.”
It doesn’t remotely end here. The NCCM and ISSA have also collaborated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to create a so-called “counter-radicalisation” handbook titled “United Against Terrorism”. The handbook reportedly recommends hardline clerics for consultation and emphasises Muslims’ rights not to cooperate with law enforcement. Amid backlash, the RCMP withdrew its support but its name and logo continue to appear on the handbook.
The NCCM and ISSA through the handbook ordered the Canadian police not to use terms such as ‘Islamist terrorism’, ‘Islamicism’, and ‘Islamic extremism’. Another part of the handbook says that terrorists are not “jihadis” and that “jihad is a noble concept”. The RCMP rejected the handbook a day after its release for its “adversarial tone”.
A news report citing Globe and Mail states that “it does not appear that the RCMP raised concerns about the handbook during a 14-month development and review period in which information was shared with all the handbook’s contributors”.
The report quoted a terrorism analyst Patrick Poole as saying, “Even though they have retracted their endorsement for this publication, their name remains on it, and the initial media blitz tied them to it. This is exactly how governments legitimize, even unwittingly, extremist ideology through outreach.”
The NCCM along with World Sikh Organisation (WSO) on 1 March 2023 released a report titled “The RSS Network in Canada” targeting the non-governmental organisation in India for supporting Hindu rights. In the very first sentence of its press release, the NCCM exposes its agenda behind the report by saying, “Today, as Canadian officials begin meetings at the G20 Summit hosted by India, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) launch a major report — The RSS Network in Canada — that looks at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its supremacist ideology, and its influence network in Canada.”
There is no doubt then that the NCCM and WSO along with their affiliates had every bit of intention to negative impact and derail the G20 Summit under India’s Presidency.
Moreover, Trudeau and his Liberal colleagues have also been accused of funding anti-Semitic professor Jasmine Zine, who is closely affiliated with the NCCM. Zine in 2018 was awarded a federal grant of $24,900 for research which resulted in a report titled “The Canadian Islamophobia Industry: Mapping Islamophobia’s Ecosystem in the Great White North”.
Zine has also been an activist in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is a Palestinian-led movement against Israel. CEO of Jewish group B’nai Brith, Michael Mostyn told the Canadian daily, “It is totally unacceptable that government funds have been used to promote an antisemitic movement in Canada.”
The former CEO of NCCM, Mustafa Farooq, during his tenure, had said that the organisation aspires to live by the ideals of Malcolm X, a deeply anti-Semitic American Muslim figure who emerged as a prominent figure during the civil rights movement in the US.
The NCCM rushed to Trudeau’s defence in August 2014 for his visit to Montreal’s Park Extension mosque, which is linked to Al Qaeda. Moreover, the WikiLeaks files, written by US military chiefs in 2011, list the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque among nine houses of prayer worldwide considered as a place “Al Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated, or trained.” The mosque, visited by Trudeau in 2014, is also linked to a terror cell which was planning attacks on Los Angeles airport. Its former imam Mohamedou Ould Salahi, later locked up in a Guantanamo jail cell, was head of the Canada wing of Al Qaeda.
The NCCM’s argument in defence of the mosque in question, while also defending Trudeau’s visit, was that the Canadian Muslim community is not supposed to know what each and every one of them is up to. “There are more than 1 million Muslims living in Canada today. Is the community supposed to know what each and every one of them is up to, at any given time? Of course not; the question is both preposterous and offensive.”
Not only did the NCCM defend the mosque but also gave a free pass to the Al Qaeda-linked terrorists who frequented the Islamic place of worship. Playing the victim card as usual against criticism of Trudeau’s visit to the mosque, the NCCM said, “This type of fearmongering is not isolated, but is part of what appears to be a wider smear campaign aimed at Canadian Muslims and their institutions.”
NCCM’s collaboration with anti-Hindu, anti-Indian forces in Canada
The NCCM and World Sikh Organisation (WSO) have a shared history of running anti-Hindu and anti-India narratives and propaganda. Moreover, the World Sikh Organisation, which operates out of Canada, incessantly meddles in India’s internal affairs and has lent support to and is supported by pro-Khalistani elements.
The WSO had called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) a controversial law and had blamed Hindus for the anti-Hindu Delhi riots in 2020. The WSO parrots the same language as Trudeau on such issues. As far as CAA is concerned, it said, “India has repeatedly seen attacks against minorities, including Sikhs, Muslims and Christians, that have been either sanctioned by the state or ignored.”
Ironically, this radical organisation has been urging the Canadian government to bring in a legislation that would provide shelter to minorities from Afghanistan.
The WSO was formed in July 1984 following Operation Bluestar. Its X account is currently withheld in India. The organisation has openly encouraged and supported and even participated with Khalistanis.
One of the key WSO members Didar Singh Bains had prominently called for the separation of Punjab from India and raised a demand for Khalistan. In 2014-15, the WSO helped Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party campaign before the federal polls.
What’s worse is that the WSO was granted an intervener status before the Commission of Inquiry set up for probing the Air India 182 bombing. An X user alleged that the WSO openly questioned the Canadian police in order to defend the terrorists responsible for the attacks.
Mr @brodiefenlon -here is testimony of @WorldSikhOrg -whose report your journalist @LisaYaxiXing used to abuse @RSSorg before AI Flight 182 commission- worst terror act in the history of Canada https://t.co/vALWHYAyWU – they openly questioned Canadian police to defend terrorists
— Alok Bhatt (@alok_bhatt) March 5, 2023
It was at the founding convention of the World Sikh Organisation at Madison Square in New York that the Babbar Khalsa terrorist Ajaib Singh Bagri on 28 July 1984 had openly called for the killing of Hindus. ““Until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest,” he had said using the WSO platform.
Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party’s sinister ideas of liberalism have taken shape in the formation and growth of organisations like the NCCM and WSO. They do not want to fight terrorism, racism, anti-Semitism and so on. They want to use terrorism so as to be able to victimise their Islamist and Khalistani citizens and be able to justify every anti-Hindu, anti-Indian move they make in the name of “immigrants”, and “minorities”.
