Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Riz Ahmed is putting his money where his heart is.
The Academy Award-nominated actor is one of the backers of a new study which looks at the representation of Muslims in Hollywood.
Ahmed partnered with advocacy organization Pillars Fund and the Ford Foundation to sponsor the study "Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies," which was released by Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
"The groundbreaking study includes a quantitative and qualitative exploration of Muslim representation in 200 popular films from the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand released between 2017 and 2019," according to the Pillars Fund site. "The results point to the scope of the problem and have prompted action from this coalition of voices to tackle some of the underlying reasons for the lack of Muslims in popular movies."
Despite being one of the fastest-growing groups in the world, according to the Pillars Fund the study found "Less than 2 per cent of more than 8,500 speaking characters across the films examined were Muslim. When the movies were examined by country of origin, 5.6 per cent of characters in 32 Australian films were Muslim, as were 1.1 per cent of characters in 100 U.S. movies, and 1.1 per cent of characters in 63 U.K. films."
"The representation of Muslims on screen feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded," Ahmed said in a statement. "The data doesn't lie. This study shows us the scale of the problem in popular film, and its cost is measured in lost potential and lost lives."
In a video announcing the study Ahmed recognized that he is one of a few Muslim actors in Hollywood who are able to portray characters who are "either non-Muslim or unremarkably Muslim."
"I ask myself if I'm the exception to the rule, what must the rule be about people like me?," he said. "What must the unwritten rule be about Muslims, a quarter of the world's population and their place in our stories, our culture and their place in our society, if any?"
The report also found that when Muslims do appear in films they are overwhelmingly portrayed "as outsiders, threatening, and as subservient, particularly to white characters."
Ahmed, the Pillars Fund and the Ford Foundation have created US$25,000 fellowships for Muslim storytellers to help improve Muslim representation.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
The trial of a man who admits he killed four women in Winnipeg is set to begin Wednesday, and a law professor says lawyers for Jeremy Skibicki have multiple hurdles to clear for a defence of mental illness.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.