Task Force Guardian, Toronto Police Service

Toronto Police Service

 

"In response to an evolving security landscape, the Toronto Police Service is taking operational action to keep our communities safe by strengthening how we identify, prevent, and respond to terrorism and violent extremism."

"At a time of heightened tension, and in light of the firearm discharges targeting synagogues and the U.S. Consulate in Toronto and other violent, hate-motivated incidents around the world, the Toronto Police Service continues to take proactive action."

"The CTSU [Counter-Terrorism Security Unit] will strengthen our existing security partnerships with the RCMP, the OPP ([Ontario Provincial Police], and local and international law enforcement partners, to identify and disrupt potential threats impacting Toronto and the GTA [Greater Toronto Area]."

Toronto Police Service press release 

Toronto police investigate after shots were fired at the U.S. consulate in downtown Toronto on March 10. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

"In recent weeks, Jewish communities across the Greater Toronto Area have faced a dangerous escalation -- including gunfire targeting synagogues, extremist protests, and open displays of antisemitic incitement."

"The establishment of a dedicated Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and the deployment of Task Force Guardian are necessary and overdue steps."

"We welcome this action as a recognition that the current situation and threat levels require a stronger response, including enhanced policing measures."

Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs / UJA Federation of Greater Toronto 

At a border control checkpoint at "Little Gaza" on the University of Toronto campus, marshals inspect and control who can get into the fenced-off anti-Israel city. -- Joe Warmington/Toronto Sun torsun

 

Canada and Toronto specifically, along with the mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow, and Toronto Police chief Myron Demkiw have been featured in the international press for their oblivious attitude toward the threats, intimidation and harassment that the Toronto Jewish community has faced since the 7 October 2023 terrorist attacks from Gaza that constituted a mass atrocity of horrific dimensions. That monstrous event set off a firestorm of protests across Canada and particularly in Toronto, of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas groups organized by Palestinian student groups, calling the massacre, rapes, sadistic torture in that rampage of hate 'resistance' against 'oppressors'.

 

Mass protests where people turned out masked, wearing keffiyehs, screaming 'globalize the Intifada', threatening Jews in the community with a 'Final Solution', shouting 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', while telling the Jews to 'go back to Poland', ostensibly where the final solution could be concluded. All the while these hate-fests, accompanied by university campus blockades harassing Jewish students and university staff, saw no police action, no government at any level taking action. It was, in fact, Jews who were warned not to incite violence among the protesters by their Jewish presence.

 

Synagogues were shot at and firebombed, Jewish day schools shot up, Jewish-owned businesses vandalized and boycotted, and Jewish communities in Toronto harassed by Jew-hating mobs screaming invective. These aggravating, threatening nightmares continued for over two years and still manifest. Because no action has been taken to put a stop to these blatant violations of civic order, including mass street prayers blocking intersections, the ongoing 'protests' simply became bolder and more odious. One suspects it was the shots directed at the U.S. Consulate rather than the most recent shots at three area synagogues that spurred the Toronto Police Service to action.

 

The Palestine Youth Movement held a downtown rally from Yonge and Dundas Sts. to the Israeli Consulate on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, before shutting down the intersection to traffic. Photo by Caryma Sa'd /Special to the Toronto Sun

 

Certainly the ongoing pleading of the Jewish community for a cessation of the misery their lives as citizens of Toronto had become seemed to have no effect, nor that of the Jewish organizations representing their interests as Jewish Canadians entitled to safety and security under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It became crystal clear to the community and those representing them that there would be no remedial guidance from the federal government. It was clear enough that the Liberal government was more concerned over non-existent 'Islamophobia' than it was over rampant Muslim-charged antisemitism.

 

With the announcement of the creation of the new counterterrorism unit, came the dawning of an admission that what has been permitted to permeate the social order for far too long was intimidation bordering on psychic terror, that once this became normalized, as it did, it did not represent a giant leap toward physical violence and the terror imposed by Islamofascism. The additional revelation of the launching of the Task Force Guardian "to enhance police visibility in key locations including critical infrastructure, high-traffic public spaces, tourist attractions, and places of worship" is equally welcome.

 

That this will result in uniformed officers presenting with patrol rifles such as C8 carbines and other long guns is reassuring to the harried and fearful Jewish residents of Toronto; a motion long overdue to help remedy the damage done to the city's reputation, much less to the group psyche of a targeted minority under vicious duress. 

A Toronto police officer with a C8 carbine.  Supplied/Toronto Police Service

 

"The presence of these officers is intended to deter potential acts of violence and ensure officers are positioned to respond quickly if needed", stated police. Police Chief Myron Demkiw added that Torontonians will be seeing Toronto police officers carrying patrol rifles, such as has been the case in recent years in large European cities, in reflection of a mass, global move by fundamentalist Islamists in their global jihad fuelled by states like the Islamic Republic of Iran, by huge organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and by enablers like oil-rich Qatar.  

"Today's announcement is not in response to a single specific threat."

"We have found that public safety threats often fall below the threshold of terrorism, but pose no less of a danger and still require serious and special attention and criminal investigations."

Chief Superintendent Katherine Stephenson, Toronto Police Service