Source: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/the-other-canada-day-communities-celebrate-away-from-the-hill | By JAMES BAGNALL, OTTAWA CITIZEN

To celebrate Canada Day the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Ottawa organized a Canada Day Festival at Baitun Naseer Mosque in Cumberland Saturday July 1, 2017. L-R 13-year-old Aneeqah Mehmood and 12-year-old Areeka Noor stand with balloons during the speeches Saturday.ASHLEY FRASER / POSTMEDIA

In Cumberland, well east of the downtown core, the gathering stressed the many links that bind the country. The local Muslim chapter — strongly affiliated with the Ahmadiyya movement — collaborated with other religions and groups to celebrate Canada 150. Outsiders have long been welcome at Canada Day events here but this was the first time the Ahmadiyya community formally banded together with Cumberland groups such as the Lions Club and the Farmers’ Market.

“Love for and loyalty to your country is part of our faith,” said event organizer Imtiaz Ahmed, who immigrated to Canada from his native Pakistan as a teenager. The Ahmadiyya movement, founded in 1889 and currently based in the U.K., maintains that terrorism has no place in Islam.

“We believe in the non-violent version of jihad,” Ahmed noted, explaining that followers of Ahmadiyya hold that Islam must be defended using words rather than the sword.

It’s a fitting notion for Canada, which, with the notable exception of its indigenous people, largely avoided shedding blood produced by revolution.

Celebrants were welcomed by local Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, a highly decorated retired general.

“To all of you who made the choice to come to Canada,” he told the crowd of 100 or so, “thank you.”… read more at source.