A/HRC/13/23/Add.2 Arabs and Muslims described discriminatory treatment, detention, interrogation and fingerprinting by immigration officials and consular services and pointed out incidents revealing marked contrasts in the experiences of Arabs and Muslims in comparison to white Canadians. 70. The government of British Columbia noted that within its multiculturalism and antiracism programme, entitled “EmbraceBC”, a specific programme element called “Interfaith Bridging” exists. In recognition of intersectional identities (such as race, gender, religion, etc.), Interfaith Bridging promotes the building of relationships between diverse, established faith communities. B. Language issues 71. The official language provisions in the Charter serve to preserve and promote the two official languages of Canada and the cultures represented by those languages, by ensuring that each language flourishes in provinces where it is not spoken by the majority. Section 23 aims at achieving this goal by granting minority language educational rights to minority language parents throughout Canada. In addition to the minority language rights contained in the Charter, the Official Languages Act is the cornerstone of Canada’s legislative and regulatory regime of language rights protections. 72. The 2006 Census revealed that 98 per cent of Canadian residents speak at least one official language, English or French. However about 20 per cent of Canadians (roughly 6.1 million people) speak a different mother-tongue language. Immigration trends have resulted in significant growth in the number of people speaking non-European languages including Chinese, South Asian and African languages. However, minority representatives noted that government policy is geared towards promoting the universal knowledge of and equality of official languages, rather than the teaching of non-official languages. 73. The federal Multiculturalism Act aims to, among other things, “preserve and enhance the use of languages other than English and French”, and some support has been provided to ethno-cultural communities via multiculturalism programmes. Teaching of mother-tongue languages is generally based upon community classes and the initiatives of individual school boards. The Toronto District School Board operates the International Languages Elementary Program in some Toronto schools. Students learn mother-tongue languages including Arabic and Cantonese as extra-curriculum activities in which parents contribute as teaching assistants. The government of Quebec offers members of minority communities courses in some 20 languages other than French and English. V. Protection against violence 74. A Statistics Canada 2004 General Social Survey found race or ethnic origin was the most commonly cited motive for hate crime incidents (66 per cent of all hate-motivated incidents). In just over 3 per cent of all crimes victims believed that the crime had been motivated by hate. However, for incidents in which the victim was a visible minority the proportion is over 7 per cent. Research on hate crimes in 2007 reveals that 33 per cent of the victims of all racially motivated hate crimes were black, decreased from 48 per cent in 2006.26 26 GE.10-11860 Phil Walsh and Mia Dauvergne, “Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2007”, Juristat, vol. 29, No. 2, table 2, available from www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/85f0033m2008017-eng.pdf. 17