For the Muslim community, exercising the right to vote in the 2015 federal election was especially an urgent matter.
Last week, a post-election poll by Mainstreet Research found 79 per cent of Muslim-Canadians voted in the 2015 federal election.
The surge in Muslim voter turnout is attributed to different grassroots movements, activists, community initiatives and organizations in mobilizing the Muslim community.
The poll was commissioned by one of the organizations, The Canadian-Muslim Vote (TCMV), a non-partisan group founded to increase civic engagement within the community.
In more than 20 GTA mosques, imams emphasized the importance of casting ballots to their congregation, according to the post-election report. The TCMV also focused its efforts on nine ridings throughout the GTA, and in those targeted ridings, Muslim-Canadian voter turnout was 88 per cent. which is more than 20 per cent higher than the national voter turnout.
Those ridings included Don Valley East, Scarborough-Guildwood, Don Valley West, Scarborough Southwest and Scarborough Centre.
In the 2011 election, Muslim-Canadian voter turnout was only at 46.5 per cent.