“Mr. Francois Gendron, the Minister of Agriculture, has specifically singled out the production of halal and kosher meat when speaking about the new guidelines,” stated Salam Elmenyawi, president of MCM. “Of course we welcome any guidelines to help ensure quality control and safety and are already committed to upholding such standards; however, to single out minority religious communities like this implies that our meat production requires specific regulation because we do not follow the already established procedures and regulations. This is simply not true and such implications will only have negative ramifications in Quebec. We are disturbed to see this trend from the PQ government to create the illusion of problems where they do not exist and to instigate sentiments of Islamophobia and intolerance. It appears they are concerned only with creating division as opposed to social harmony, and care not for the interests of our province as a whole or for our economy.”

CONTACT:

Salam Elmenyawi

Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM)

Ph.: (514) 748-8427

E-mail:   muslimcouncil@gmail.com

Website: http://www.muslimcouncil.org

 The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) is an umbrella organization representing a number of Islamic institutions in the Montreal region. There are over 325,000 Muslims in Montreal, about 1,300,000 in Canada and 1.9 billion worldwide.

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