CUPE Ontario, the Ontario Municipal Workers committee, and CUPE library and municipal workers across the province were appalled to learn of the Islamophobic attack on a library patron in the Ajax public library. That the attack was committed in the last days of the holy month of Ramadan makes it all the more horrific. We offer our sincere sympathies to the victim and her family and express our unwavering solidarity with the Muslim community in the fight against Islamophobia.
As public sector workers, we cherish our community spaces and work hard to keep them safe and welcoming places for everyone. We will never allow them to become sites of fear. We recognize and welcome the role that public library workers and all municipal workers play in ensuring that public confidence.
We are especially proud of the members of CUPE 3565 who, alongside library security, rushed to offer immediate assistance to the person who was attacked. As CUPE 3565 president Sheila Antunes-Ensor said, “Our library staff has always taken great pride in fostering a warm, welcoming, and inclusive environment for our community and we remain fully committed to upholding that mission.”
This attack cannot be treated as a one-off, isolated incident. It will receive an investigation as a hate crime, but it deserves to be seen as a part of a terrifying pattern of Islamophobia across our communities; a response from all levels of government and a coordinated plan to fight Islamophobia must follow.
We echo the exhortation of the National Council of Canadian Muslims: CUPE members, and all Canadians, must raise the issue of Islamophobia in the federal election campaign and demand that all candidates and parties take action to combat this virulent form of racism.
