Journalist, advocate, trusted voice on the challenges facing democratic societies.

Amira Elghawaby has confronted discrimination from every angle. She documented it as a journalist. She confronted it as a human rights advocate. She built the country's first federal office to address it, as Canada's inaugural Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia. Now she carries that work forward independently — with the clarity that comes from having done it at every level.

Over two decades, Amira has worked across media, human rights, and public policy — in journalism at CBC and the Toronto Star, and in leadership roles with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and at the Canadian Labour Congress. As Special Representative (2023–2026), she advised the federal government and led the creation of the Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combating Islamophobia. In 2026, she was named to the global list of the 500 Most Influential Muslims. Her work has also been recognized with the King Charles III Coronation Medal (2025) and the Jack Layton Progress Prize (2026). She is currently leading powerful initiatives to advance community change and advance democratic engagement.

Across all of it, Amira connects the dots: from discrimination to democratic breakdown, from representation to real power, from rhetoric to accountability.