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When called at his home in Victoria on Thursday, a woman who answered the phone hung up without passing the phone to the controversial cleric.

On the video, he also said, “do you know that you and I must be offended when people say that they worship Jesus, or when they say that Jesus is the Son of God?”

“There are those who will say to them, ‘Merry Christmas.’ What are you congratulating them on? Congratulations on the birth of your Lord? Is that acceptable to a Muslim? Are you now approving of their beliefs?” he asked.

Our next door neighbours are Muslims. They are truly lovely people who not only robustly wish us a Merry Christmas every year, but they give us gifts as well. They represent the vast majority of Muslims, but as countless terrorist attacks show, it only takes one, two or, in the case of 9-11, nine radicalized Islamists to bring down buildings and murder thousands.

This is not the first time Kathrada has said controversial things. In October 2016 he was denounced for other sermons he posted online, where he referred to Jews as “the brothers of the monkeys and the swine,” and said the Prophet tells them, “Oh Muslim, Oh slave of Allah, that verily behind me is a Jew. Then come and kill him.”

The RCMP are investigating him for those earlier comments. Clearly he is not cowed by the lengthy probe. Vancouver Island RCMP did not respond to Postmedia’s calls about the status of the investigation.

We know the radicalization of Muslim youth is a problem all around the world, including here in Calgary, so why the silence on this?