The Atlantic

Why Did This Happen in Canada?

The context of the Quebec shooting
Source: Mathieu Belanger / Reuters

At around 7:50 pm on Sunday evening, police received several emergency calls from the Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec, a mosque and cultural center in Quebec City. They arrived to a scene of carnage: Six Muslim men, including a halal butcher, a university professor, and a government worker, had been shot and killed by a gunman. Nineteen others were injured. Of the five who were sent to the hospital, four remain, two in critical condition. The attack, one of the worst acts of violence against Muslims in Canadian history, shocked a nation that prides itself on being a paragon of multicultural inclusion. “We are a country of diversity,” the Syrian Assembly of Manitoba’s Tarek. “For something like that to happen here, it's very sad.”

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