Later, a leader of the Muslim group is seen defending to a local person the plan to turn the parish hall into a mosque. “It’s a pilot project,” he says, leading the man to exclaim wide-eyed, “You’re training pilots?!”

A bit hokey, perhaps. But light-hearted moments like these between Muslims and non-Muslims have been few and far between in Canada of late.

Last year, 13 Muslim men and five youths were arrested in the Toronto area in connection with a suspected plot to attack several targets in southern Ontario. Their case continues to wind through the courts. In September, an inquiry cleared a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, of terrorism accusations—for which the United States deported him to Syria, where he was tortured —based on faulty intelligence from Canadian authorities.

“I want the broader society to look at us as normal, with the same issues and concerns as anyone else,” said Zarqa Nawaz, the show’s creator who based the series loosely on her own experiences as a Muslim woman who moved from Toronto to the prairie.

The CBC has committed to eight episodes of the programme, and is negotiating with the show’s producers for 13 more in the spring.

The show has generally been well received by Muslim leaders, who welcome the light touch it brings to issues that are normally debated in numbing seriousness.

-CHRISTOPHER MASON