Canadian Muslims and Foreign Policy
| Author | Liat Radcliffe Ross |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300115 |
| Subject Matter | Coming Attractions |
Liat Radcliffe Ross
Canadian Muslims
and foreign policy
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Liat Radcliffe Ross is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. She wishes to
thank James Piscatori for his feedback and support.
1 See www.canadianislamiccongress.com and www.caircan.ca, respectively.
Canadian Muslims are increasingly active and prominent in political and
media circles. Still, little is known about the groups that claim to represent
them; surprisingly few academic studies have been conducted about the
community’s political organization or activities. This study seeks to begin
to fill this gap by examining the foreign policy interests of two leading
Canadian Muslim groups—the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and the
Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN)—between
2000 and 2005.1
These two organizations have been chosen for in-depth study because
of their prominence: they have access to federal government ministers,
politicians, and policymakers, and are prolific contributors to the national
media. Debates about the groups’ representativeness of what are very
diverse Canadian Muslim communities continue—and will not be
addressed here. As a result, this study does not claim that the interests of
these organizations are indicative of those of Canadian Muslims in general
(nor can we suggest that there are parallels with Muslim organizations in
| International Journal | Winter 2007-08 | 187 |
| Liat Radcliffe Ross |
other western countries without further study).2Nevertheless, because CIC
and CAIR-CAN are taken by those in positions of power to be the spokes-
people of Canadian Muslims, it is important to understand their political
views.
FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS
Foreign policy is only one of several interests for CIC and CAIR-CAN. Both
the president of CIC, Mohamed Elmasry, and the former chair of CAIR-
CAN, Sheema Khan, suggested instead that their organizations were most
concerned with Muslim integration within Canada. Elmasry stated the
organization’s objective as follows: “The main project which drives CIC—
even before 9/11—is what we call smart integration…which is a happy
medium between assimilation and isolation.”3CIC’s efforts to influence
Canadian foreign policy are considered to be one aspect of this overarching
theme, as Elmasry argued:
So when it comes to influencing foreign policy, it’s part of the agen-
da of smart integration because foreign policy affects domestic pol-
icy and also Muslims cannot divorce themselves from the associa-
tion of the world at large, especially [because] the Muslim world
right now is victimized because of oil and because of [its] strategic
position and because of the large market of 1.2 billion people.
Similarly, CAIR-CAN’s Khan suggested that advocacy on foreign policy
issues was “on our low priority list,” coming after “media engagement,
human rights and, more importantly…educating the Muslim community in
Canada about Canadian institutions and how to become engaged—so what
you would call integration.”4Khan explained:
2 This article is part of a larger ongoing study comparing the efforts of Muslim polit-
ical organizations to influence foreign policy in Britain, Canada, and the United
States.
3 All quotes by Mohamed Elmasry are from the author’s interview with him on 30
August 2006.
4 All quotes by Sheema Khan are from the author’s interview with her on 7 September
2006.
| 188 | International Journal | Winter 2007-08 |
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