Results from a recent poll reveal that a majority of Canadians surveyed feel there is an ideological rift between the Muslim world and the West which is “irreconcilable.” Of the 1,500 consulted in the week before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 56 per cent felt the West and the Muslim world could not overcome their perceived differences. Thirty-three per cent felt they could be reconciled, while 11 per cent did not answer the question. The poll was conducted by Leger Marketing on behalf of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, whose director, Jack Jedwab, told Postmedia News that the survey’s results contradict “a fundamental idea in multicultural democracies like ours that conflicts between societies can be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.” However, Jedwab said the result provided a slight “ray of hope” in that 52 per cent of Canadians say it’s wrong to conduct extra airport security checks on people who “appear to be of Muslim background.”
