Less than 24 hours after Faisal Hussain opened fire in Toronto’s Greektown, a middle-aged white man approached a visibly Muslim family at the city’s ferry docks, pushed two men and screamed: “Where the f— are you from?”

A video of the racially charged incident appears to begin in the middle of the confrontation as the white man continuously advances toward one of the three men in the Muslim family until they’re forehead-to-forehead. “You don’t ask me a f—ing question in my province,” the man says, shoving one of the Muslim men into a child.

The confrontation escalates until the white man begins to scream at the Muslim man, who repeatedly told him that he was born in Ontario: “I’ll f—ing kill you… Welcome to Ontario, a–hole.”

On Friday, Lombray Ball, 50, was arrested and charged with two counts of assault and threatening death.

In the wake of the Danforth shooting, there’s been a spike in hate-related incidents targeting Muslims across Canada, according to the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Although the average number of recorded incidents between April and June was 1.5, the Muslim council says there have been five in the past week alone.

When Muslims are at the centre of large-scale violent incidents such as the Danforth and Parliament Hill shootings as perpetrators, the council’s statistics show that hate incidents — anything from verbal and physical attacks to vandalism — spike. The same occurs, the statistics show, when Muslims have been the victims.

“Either way, we can’t win sometimes,” said Leila Nasr, a council spokewoman. “Every time things like this happen, the Muslim community has to go into damage control to somehow defend itself from people who wish to lump everyone into the same category.”

Four hours before the confrontation involving Ball, a 17-year-old Halifax woman was walking to a bus stop from Dalhousie University when she was approached by a white man who yelled “F— you, f— all Muslims,” before telling her to go back to her country.

On Friday, a white man stood in front of a memorial dedicated to the Danforth shooting, holding a sign that read “C.B.C. presents: Little Mosque on the Praire (sic). Two girls dead in Greektown.” That same day, a video was posted to YouTube showing a white man spitting at a Muslim man and telling him “you look like that guy that shot everyone on the Danforth.”

Two days later, Peel Regional Police near Toronto arrested Sandra Alexander, 35, for allegedly trying to rip the hijab off the head of an 18-year-old woman while “flicking a lighter.” She was charged with assault with a weapon, assault and uttering threats.

Seeing such an increase in Islamophobic incidents has led Nasr to suggest that the tension in the aftermath of the Danforth shooting is causing some to “act out on their fears or their prejudices.” It wouldn’t be the first time.

The council has collected data on anti-Muslim hate incidents since 2013. It keeps track of the incident reports that members of the Muslim community file with them along with those that are publicly reported.

In the week following the Parliament Hill shooting in 2014, the council recorded four anti-Muslim hate incidents that were publicly reported. The average per week in 2014 was 0.4. Nine incidents were also reported directly to the council.  In the wake of the Quebec mosque shooting on Jan. 29, 2017, when Alexandre Bissonnette shot and killed six Muslim worshippers, the number of reported hate incidents jumped from four in January 2017 to 11 one month later. In March, there were another 10.

But these numbers aren’t completely accurate, Nasr acknowledges. They can’t be when two-thirds of hate crimes go unreported, according to a 2014 Statistics Canada survey. When contacted by the National Post, Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said the information available to him shows no spike in hate crimes in the city.

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Imam Ibrahim Hindy said.

Hindy, an imam at the Dar Al-Tawheed mosque just outside Toronto, said that members of his community often tell him about hate incidents they experience and he “practically begs” them to report it but there’s an “unwillingness.” His wife experienced the same behaviour, Hindy said, when years ago, a man approached her in a parking lot and told her to go back to her country. Like most, she didn’t report the incident.

“There’s a feeling that nothing is going to come out of it… that they’ll just become another number,” Hindy said.

After the Danforth shooting, Hindy asked the volunteers in charge of security at Dar Al-Tawheed to spend more time at the mosque. Peel police also offered to send a cruiser to the mosque during prayer time. In conversations with his congregants, Hindy has warned them to be more vigilant.

Having such discussions is a new experience for Hasan Ahmed. Ahmed was visiting Toronto from Saskatoon with his wife and young children when he witnessed the scene at the Toronto ferry terminal.

A Muslim himself, Ahmed said he tried to tell the middle-aged white man that he didn’t have the right to push anyone around.

“My kids were very scared and my wife was very scared too,” he said. “We never had this kind of incident before.”

Ahmed, who has lived in Canada for eight years, explained to his children that “most Canadians are great” and that the man’s behaviour wasn’t reflective of society.

Despite the abuse he and his family endured, Ahmed was sad to hear that the man had been arrested.

“I’m feeling bad for him, you know? It’s really difficult for a person to go to bed and sleep with hate in his heart,” he said.