Muslim council cancels meeting with Trudeau over Liberal stance on hate crimes, Gaza

The National Council of Canadian Muslims abruptly cancelled a meeting Monday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and accused his government of failing to protect Palestinians or take «tangible action» against hate crimes.

«We no longer think it's productive to speak with this prime minister,» chief executive Stephen Brown told a news conference.

«There's nothing new that we could say. We've said it all before.»

Trudeau did not address the cancellation directly Monday before question period, confining his comments to the national day of action against Islamophobia. His office later said it had «nothing to add.»

Brown had been scheduled to meet with Trudeau to touch base on fighting anti-Muslim hate, but said he pulled out because the prime minister has so far neglected to follow through on promises he made to the Muslim community in the 2015 election campaign that brought him to power.

Those commitments included doing more to prosecute hate crimes and adequately funding programs and services meant to prevent such acts, such as security cameras at religious sites.

«It has become clear that we seem to only get a sliver of policy reform when our lives, or our safety, is destroyed,» Brown said. «Our government has failed to move on substantive hate-crime legislation.»

He said he sees no evidence Ottawa is willing to pressure Israel to ease its bombardment of the Gaza Strip and Hamas, whose brutal attack on Israel last October provoked a massive military response.

«We're interested in the government taking real, tangible action to reduce Islamophobia in this country (and) taking real tangible action to stop the hostilities in the Middle East,» Brown said.

He noted Canada broke with many of its allies last week when it refused to call on