The Economist: Soaring Number of Canadian Muslim Schools Traced to Islamophobia

I just published a post on The Economist and its cover story, ADVANTAGE IRAN, detailing how a month of bombing has accomplished nothing. That brought to mind a story that The Economist has plugged a couple of times this week. Just as with the Iran story, I can't believe this one is true because it suggests that Canadians are Islamophobic. Well, that's one reason it gives for the soaring number of Islamic schools in the nation.

This was their first attempt:

Some Muslim parents worry about their children losing touch with their faith https://t.co/LDwb1ZtPuo
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 23, 2026

A couple of days later, they went with the predictable "Islamophobia" angle.

Concerns about Islamophobia are a factor in this expansion. Reported hate crimes against Muslims have risen in Canada in recent years. State-schools are responding to the critique https://t.co/D5U0N5W2gN
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 25, 2026

Hate crimes? In Canada?

The Economist reports:

“We all would fight and die for Canada,” declares Abraham Abougouche as snow pelts his office window. The “we” Mr Abougouche pledges are the staff and pupils of Edmonton Islamic Academy (EIA), the largest of its kind in the Americas. He is the principal. His office bears symbols of a dual identity: boxing gloves emblazoned with the Palestinian flag hang opposite a cabinet of ice-hockey memorabilia. That balance is tricky. “Assimilation”, he says, can be “dangerous if done blindly…You’re going to lose your own personal identity, your own connection with your ancestry.”
Many Muslim parents across Canada share his anxiety. They worry that the country’s state-school system—which mostly separates religion from education, allowing religious schools to operate privately—may distance their children from Islamic values or expose them to Islamophobia. Most Muslim pupils attend the state system, but data from the Islamic Schools Association of Canada show rising enrolment for private Islamic schools. There are long waiting lists for existing schools and new ones are opening fast.

It’s soaring due to mass immigration, and their refusal to interact or integrate with Canadians. Where’s you article on the hundreds of Catholic Churches burned and vandalized over the last few years? You didn’t write one? You’re all propaganda.
— LillllyWhyte (@LillllyWhyte) March 25, 2026

Hundreds of Catholic churches were set on fire after word got out that there was a mass grave of 215 indigenous children at one of Canada's so-called "residential schools." The government's response included lowering the Peace Tower flag for 161 days, allocating $3.1 million for a national Residential Schools Student Death Register, and earmarking $238.8 million for a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund.

After spending $8 million to excavate the site, they found nothing.

Just last summer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that "Muslim values are Canadian values." So why the friction?

They can find touch with their faith back in their Muslim countries. Parents that block their children’s integration into western society should be sanctioned.
— Vox populi, vox dei (@PopuliDei) March 23, 2026