Antisemitism in Canada -- a National Crisis

2025 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents

"Antisemitic conspiracy theories were disseminated with such frequency in 2025 that it is easier to summarize the totality of the accusations made against Jewish Canadians by simply stating that they were made the scapegoats for all the world's problems."

Antisemitism has become so ubiquitous in our society that the word Jew is now commonly used as a slur to disparage and malign non-Jews. In contemporary Canada, Jewishness itself has become derogatory."

Richard Robertson, Director of Research and Advocacy, B'nai Brith Canada  

The annual audit produced by B'nai Brith Canada through its League for Human Rights documents 6,800 antisemitism incidents across Canada. That would be the equivalent of 18.6 documented incidents occurring each and every day. Needless to say that number would report only those incidents brought to the attention of authorities, or in this instance, B'nai Brith. Not everyone experiencing the scourge of an antisemitic attack will report a verbal assault in person or online. It has become too commonplace, and Jewish resilience shrugs and carries on.

 

The number that was recorded and released in the audit represents the highest volume since the League began its audit production in 1982. Before October 7, 2023's Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel, antisemitism was confined to the underground, when civil society would not countenance it. By 2025, however the incidence of antisemitic slurs had increased by 145.6 percent since 2022. Antisemitism, noted the report, had become so widespread that it appears to grow on its own momentum, no longer linked to events such as the war in Iran.

 

Members of Montreal's Jewish community gathered on April 22, 2026, to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the Israeli state's founding. (Olivia O'Malley/CTV News)

 

"We need to protect Canadians from the dangers that are rapidly increasing and emerging from digital spaces. Whether they are being fuelled by foreign-based entities or by foreign corporations, that shouldn't matter."

"Canada must regulate its online realm and must protect Canadians from the dangers presently existing within it."

Richard Robertson, B'nai Brith Canada 

Pro-Palestinian supporters set up across the street from the Israel Independence Day celebration on April 22, 2026. (Olivia O'Malley/CTV News)

 

The level of documented antisemitic incidents declined somewhat in both Quebec and Alberta in 2025. However, Ontario. the Prairies, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia saw significant increases in the number of antisemitic incidents. Most incidents occurred online, representing 92 percent of those reported, and appears to be part of a continuing trend. Year over year, the prevalence of online incidents of antisemitism have crept ever upward.

 

Listing recommendations for each level of government, the report called for a federal Royal Commission to be struck on antisemitism. Government at the federal level should establish a national antisemitism emergency task force -- should view violent antisemitic attacks as domestic terrorism and -- deploy added national security resources in the protection of Jewish institutions. 

 

As for the provinces and territories, the report recommends the immediate funding of security protection for Jewish institutions and the establishment of a special prosecution unit tasked specifically to address hate crimes The report recommended that municipalities ban events that incite hate and intimidation, exercise zero tolerance for intimidation expressed in public spaces, and for the prioritization of protecting Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions.

 

More than fifty Toronto police officers receive a morning briefing Sunday April 5 at Sheppard Plaza in North York before ensuring any anti-Israel or pro-Israel protesters remain out of residential neighbourhood streets. (Photo by Ellin Bessner/The CJN)

 

"What we need in Canada is a multi-level approach to fighting antisemitism. This is a national crisis. We need task forces."

"We need consolidated efforts to provide ... the immediate relief that is required, such as security infrastructure, funding and policing."

"But we also need legislative change. And this is something that no government in this country can do alone."

Richard Robertson, B'nai Brith 

The report contains a section on "the demonization of Zionism". What the report does not do is make a record of the apparent lack of interest expressed by various levels of government throughout the country at the viral and all-too-obvious 'protests' against Israel's actions in taking military steps to defend itself from the never-ending perniciously violent actions of Palestinians -- organized terror groups, and ordinary Palestinian civilians as well who have been incited by their governments in the West Bank and Gaza to value martyrdom in the cause of obliterating the Jewish State from the Middle East.

 

A lack of interest in the face of threats against Canadian Jews, the constant vilification of Jewish Canadian institutions by Muslim groups for their support of Israel, the clear civil disruptions that offend Canadian law, a tolerance for hate manifested by repeated statements of globalizing the Intifada, of a 'Final Solution' as coded, but not too-subtle messages of violence against Jews that most municipal, provincial and the federal government tolerate, while decrying antisemitism and linking it to the evil of 'Islamophobia'; a meaningless sop when it is abundantly clear that Islamists within Canadian society are the fount of the avalanche of antisemitic rhetoric and venom of today.  

"It is not OK to subject a minority in this country to unprecedented levels of hate because of the actions of a foreign government."

"The numbers speak for themselves. This is a national crisis, and we have not seen a response sufficient to the moment."

"We need a whole-of government approach. We need the same response to tackling antisemitism that we've seen from our federal government when it comes to other crises in this country."

Richard Robertson, B'nai Brith 

Aleph Bet Judaica, seen after a rock was thrown at its window on Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026. (Courtesy Photographer)

 

The Sting of the I.R.G.C. 'Mosquito Boats'

"The Islamic Republican Guard Corps navy works more like a guerrilla force at sea."

"It is focused on asymmetrical warfare, especially in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz."

"So instead of relying on big warships and classic naval battles, it depends on hit-and-run attacks."

Saeid Golkar, Guards expert, political science professor, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

 

"When it is very bumpy, they [armed forces onboard] cannot shoot."

"[They are also ill-equipped to go head to head with a ​warship, and would likely suffer] very heavy casualties [​in any direct assault on one]."

"Even if they tried to saturate the ship’s defences by attacking from multiple directions, they would be extremely vulnerable to the air support that would be called in."

"It is going to be ​much harder to eliminate ⁠the small boat threat than it was to destroy Iran’s larger naval vessels, which were big targets that were relatively easy to find and track and, at most, only had a limited ability to defend themselves from air attack." 

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist, defence intelligence company Janes 

The IRGC speed boats are fast, light, and easily replaceable. NurPhoto via Getty Images

It all began when recreational boats were mounted with rocket-propelled grenades or machine guns, when Iran first began using small boats that were fast, maneuverable, and deadly when patrolling the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Those recreational craft underwent a  transformation when a range of specially designed small boats, along with miniature submarines and marine drones were built to the IRGC specifications, over the years. That 'mosquito fleet' of small boats has become a real and present threat in the Strait as a consequence of the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

 

The flotilla of small, fast boats whose purpose by the IRGC has been to harass local and international shipping through the Gulf, has turned now to threatening and firing upon global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the recent face-off between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran -- or what's left of it, aside from the IRGC. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is separate and apart from the regular Navy of Iran, which had been struck a cataclysmic blow in the opening days of the aerial bombardment. 

 

Over 90 percent of Iran's navy's fleet was destroyed, according to U.S. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They all, including the country's major warships, were sunk and sit now on the ocean's bottom. At the same time, an estimated 50 percent of the fast attack boats belonging to the Guards were sunk. Estimates of the total number of these small ships prior to the U.S. sinking of the fleet ranged from hundreds to thousands. They are still not now in short supply. 

 

Arrival of new shipment of IRGC fastboats. Photo via Mehdi H

 

The size of the boats make them mostly invisible on satellite images from where they're moored alongside piers, where the  excavation of deep caves along the rocky coastline shelters them, prepared for deployment at a moment's notice. During the current conflict, at least 20 vessels were attacked by the 'mosquito fleet', according to the International Maritime Agency. Analysts consider the attacks to have been by drones fired from mobile launchers on land.

 

As for the small boat arsenal which poses a major threat to commercial shipping both in the Gulf and the Strait, "It remains a disruptive force. You never quite knew what they were up to and what their intentions were", commented Admiral Gary Roughead, retired chief of U.S. Naval Operations. "The IRGC navy has always believed that it is at the forefront of the confrontation with the Great Satan", added specialist on the Guards navy, Farzin Nadimi from the Washington Institute think tank.

 

According to experts, these small boats can reach speeds of over 100 knots. Larger, more sophisticated warships were also recently developed by the Guards, and they too were targeted when the U.S. bombardments focused on bombing Iran's naval fleet as well as its fleet of warplanes. The largest drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri, a converted container ship able to launch anti-ship missiles, was also hit by U.S. air strikes.

 

It is the swarms of small boats that pose an ongoing threat to commercial vessels which have no defences against such attacks. U.S. warships, on the other hand, can counter a potential swam of small boats with their high-caliber cannons and additional weaponry.  

 

60 percent of IRGC fast boats still threaten shipping lanes: WSJ

 

A Pontificate of Peace

"How can we understand that fighters have been operating freely for over two weeks in the same area, attacking village after village, without any effective response from the security forces?... The population feels abandoned to its fate, exposed to massacres while official speeches multiply without any visible action on the ground." 

barnabasaid.org, January 27, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"On Jan. 1, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) "released an image of one of the Christian villages in Adamawa State burning, alongside a statement saying that all Christians in Nigeria are legitimate targets, and they have an opportunity to 'spare their blood' by converting to Islam or paying the jizyah tax to ISWAP."

dailypost.ng, January 1, 2026, Nigeria.

 "Iran has an open secret. Persecuting Christians is a booming business in the Muslim-majority nation, and the country is earning large sums of money from arresting Christ followers." — 

persecution.org, January 22, 2026.

"ADF uses abduction, forced conversion to Islam, gang rape, and child soldier recruitment as a deliberate strategy to terrorize and reduce the Christian population in eastern Congo." — 

persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

"According to a Jan. 22 report, in 2025, the Islamic-linked Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) intensified their terror against Christian communities by deliberately targeting children. Militants raid Christian villages, kill parents in front of their children, and abduct boys and girls. Captured children are taken to ADF base camps where they are forced to convert to Islam or be killed." 

Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute 

On January 2, the Allied Democratic Forces, which is linked to the Islamic State, attacked three villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Christian-majority nation, killing at least 14. Since December 2024, Islamic State terrorists have claimed the murder of more than 800 Christians in northeastern DRC. Pictured: Members of the Congolese Red Cross bury the bodies of victims of a massacre in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at Musigiko cemetery in Bukavu on February 20, 2025. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Following his 11-day trip to Africa, Pope Leo XIV returned to the Vatican to continue his condemnation of the Israel-U.S. conflict in Iran. His Africa trip consisted of visits to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, and while there he continued his vocal activism against war, specifically the conflict taking place in Iran. He let it be known he has no intention of pulling back his moral outrage over conflict and the death toll it takes on the lives of the populations involved. 

 

He waxed eloquently in just condemnation against cupidity, human greed and deliberate oblivion to the human wreckage that war brings through political tyranny, corruption, neo-colonialism, inequality and the extraction of natural resources destroying environmental landscapes. If one was not aware this was the Pope speaking to his 1.4 worldwide followers and beyond, his censorious rebukes could have been mistaken for Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in a fully woke rejection of world affairs.

 

Pope Leo XIV's trip did not include Nigeria, where Christians are under constant threat, nor the Democratic Republic of Congo where Islamist terrorist groups focus on slaughtering Christians who practise a religion offensive to Islam. What Pope Leo did do, was bring to the Vatican library a new initiative in opening an Islamic prayer room. For whose use it has not been clarified beyond the convenience of 'visiting Muslim scholars', but the move did attract some censure from some within the orthodox Catholic clergy.

 

Within the hallowed halls of the Vatican Apostolic Library, a repository of human knowledge that has stood since the mid-15th century, a quiet and unprecedented decision has ignited a firestorm that spans faith, diplomacy, and realpolitik. The library’s administration, under Vice Prefect Fr. Giacomo Cardinali, has allocated a dedicated room for Muslim prayers, a move that has simultaneously been celebrated as a gesture of intellectual openness and condemned as a betrayal of Catholic identity. Catholic Stand

 

The "quiet pope" spoke with moral passion in Cameroon at a "handful of tyrants" and "masters of war" whose exploits have "ravaged" the world while they "pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy,  yet a lifetime is often not enough to rebuild." Pope Leo let it also be known that it was "not in my interest" to debate the president [Trump]; censure is as censure does. 

"I think unquestionably [Leos papacy] has grown in recent weeks']."

"I think Leo remains the Quiet American, but he is also the lion pope who has found his roar."

Vatican watcher and  biographer of Pope Francis, Austen Ivereigh

 

"The perceived change in tone is due to the escalation of events -- the bombings in Iran, the African trip, the head-on-clash -- which have forced [his] words to become more explicit."

"But the vision was already right there, right beneath the surface."

"[Leo's] dilemma lies between diplomacy and prophecy, and it's the same as Francis, who at a certain point surrendered to the idea that he was the last moral voice of global value standing."

"I believe Leo feels the same and is finding his bearings." 

Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary of the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education  

Israel and the United States have taken on the obligation of ensuring that a theocratic fundamentalist totalitarian Islamist state not gain nuclear armaments with which to threaten the world community. They have, in a tandem of cooperation, decided to respond to the appeal of ordinary Iranians groaning under the persecution of a controlling military doing the bidding of medieval-minded theocrats that threaten the well-being of a population harnessed to a regime whose sole purpose is Islamist conquest. 

 

It is notable that Pope Leo made no public statements that might be taken as regret that the regime he defends has subjected its people to extraordinarily harsh judgments resulting in capital punishment where the Islamic Republic makes use of construction cranes to slowly hang prisoners sentenced to death, to ensure their fate becomes familiar to a public thus warned that the regime will tolerate no level of protest from its citizens. 

 

Several months ago mass protests against the harsh misrule of that ancient country by its ruling ayatollahs saw tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered as punishment, many more imprisoned. Hundreds of Iranians are put to death annually. Women are raped in prisons prior to their executions following trials finding them guilty of such inconsequential 'crimes' as defying regime authorities and calling for its downfall. Drug traffickers are routinely sentenced to death in a country whose regime believes people who interfere with government edicts are disposable.

Below are the 10 most dangerous African countries to be a Christian in 2024:

Rank	Country	Score
1	Somalia	93
2	Libya	91
3	Eritrea	89
4	Nigeria	88
5	Sudan	87
6	Mali	79
7	Algeria	79
8	Burkina Faso	75
9	Mauritania	72
10	Morocco	71

Pope Leo does not appear to have troubled himself over the African countries where Christian lives are threatened, where Islam rules. He appears not to have made any overtures to Islamic leaders in these countries to plead for the lives of Black African Christians where, in fact, Christian belief is on the rise even as it is increasingly threatened by hostile Black African Islamists. So when will the Holy See 'notice' that deadly persecution and break its silence?

 

Global Christian Relief

 

Standing United Against Antisemitism...Heartwarming...And, Then?

"Antisemitism in Canada has risen sharply in recent years, as demonstrated in hate crime statistics and the lived experiences of Jews across the country. These experiences are traumatic in themselves, while often reopening deep wounds rooted in the collective memory of the Holocaust and other historical forms of oppression."

"This pernicious form of hate has existed throughout Canada’s history, from exclusionary immigration policies and formal professional restrictions in the past, to contemporary forms of hate on Canadian streets, communities and online, often driven by conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns from around the world."

"In the 1960s, a special committee on hate propaganda recognized the then relatively small and uncoordinated dissemination of hateful materials as a clear and present danger to the functioning of a democratic society. In response, Parliament enacted criminal prohibitions on hate propaganda that remain in place to this day."

"While these prohibitions remain a critical guardrail against rising hate, the means by which hatred is spread has evolved, and Canada faces new challenges that demand new solutions."

"The committee believes that hate cannot simply be legislated away and that education is the main tool to combat hate. General awareness-raising for Canadians and educating Canada’s youth about past and present forms of antisemitism are essential to our social cohesion."

"Online spaces are saturated with hate and misinformation that fuel radicalization. Antisemitism in these spaces ranges from shockingly explicit hate material to insidious and subtle forms of manipulation. These flawed media and information systems are pervasive, and too often play a critical role in shaping the minds of young people."

"At the same time, the committee heard that antisemitism is growing in various workplaces, with many witnesses highlighting medical professions and academia with particular concern. While Jewish communities share commonalities, they are not all the same, and antisemitism is experienced differently by different people, including based on how antisemitism intersects with other forms of prejudice, such as sexism."

"Antisemitism remains a clear and present danger to Canada’s free and democratic society. As several witnesses noted, historically antisemitism has often served as the prelude to other forms of hate. The committee is keenly aware of the similarities between antisemitism, sexism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, as well as the ways in which individuals can face intersectional discrimination. These prejudices undermine the social fabric of our democracy. Moreover, the possibility that these divisions can be amplified and exploited by foreign adversaries is a threat that Canada must take seriously."

Senate of Canada, Standing United Against Antisemitism 

 

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Canadian Human Rights Commission joins people across Canada and around the world in honouring the six million Jewish lives taken during the Holocaust. Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which alone claimed the lives of over one million Jewish people.

We call on everyone in Canada, to stand united today — and every day — against antisemitism.

We also remember the many others targeted by Nazi persecution, including ethnic Poles, Roma and Sinti communities, Soviet civilians, 2SLGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, and political and religious dissidents.

We must never forget or deny the scale of the Holocaust, or how these horrors were allowed to happen. They were the result of deliberate state actions that normalized dehumanization, exclusion, violence and hateful rhetoric.

Canadian Human Rights Commission  

 

While conflating hate-phobias newly skyrocketing in Canada, none of which are comparable to the rate of antisemitism newly reborn out of the ashes of the Canadian past, its embers re-ignited by the last several decades of immigration, migrants and refugee intake of people from North Africa and the Middle East, bringing with them their cultural/religious traditions of Jew-hate, the Senate investigation into Canadian antisemitism on steroids fails to make a connection between the rise of Jew-hate and the presence of Muslims cultivating it. The very same committee that feels it logical to lump anti-LGBTQ attitudes and 'Islamophobia' together with antisemitism.

 

In so doing the Senate has been singing from the hymnal of the governing Liberal party, which is functionally incapable of expressing its 'regret' at the rise of antisemitism in Canada, without pairing it with a revulsion against 'Islamophobia'. Islam has earned the kind of phobia it claims is expressed against its 'religion of peace' by distinguishing itself as the single most prevalent source of terrorism worldwide. A terrorism that has stalked communities and countries as organized jihadi groups whose names, such as the Islamic State in its many guises, taking over from al-Qaeda taught the world what human butchery in the name of  'peace' through conquest is.

 

It took over17 months for fifteen members of the Senate to interview 44 witnesses respecting Canadian incidents of Jew hate that have spiked in Canada as they have elsewhere since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel of 7 October, 2023 when thousands of Palestinians, including members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, and Hamas, accompanied by ordinary Palestinian civilians flooded into Israel on an organized, planned and pre-practised barbaric splurge of mass rape, bestiality and slaughter. 

 

Palestinian student groups have been in the forefront of organizing mass anti-Israel rallies throughout Canadian cities, of organizing university pro-Palestinian camps, of organizing marches through Jewish communities to shout 'Final Solution', 'From the River to the Sea', 'Go back to Poland!', and 'Globalize the Intifada', yet the clever minds of the Senators have been unable to put two-and-two together, unless it's the 2+2 that links antisemitism with 'Islamophobia'. In so doing, they echo the very sentiments of the federal government, and from there most provincial and municipal authorities and police services taking their cue from above. 

"The committee is keenly aware of the similarities between antisemitism, sexism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, as well as the ways in which individuals can face intersectional discrimination."  

The 73-page report does go so far as to mention 'young Canadians' radicalized by 'social media', implicating 'malicious foreign actors'. But never do they outright use the revelatory words 'Muslims' or 'Islam'. To do so would be to invite condemnation as 'Islamophobes', and we cannot have that, now can we? Canada, they recommend, must "develop and support digital literacy and social media education initiatives". To change the indoctrinated minds of those nursed on the stereotypes of those accursed Jews who have assaulted the rights of Palestinians by resurrecting their Jewish state on Judean ancestral geography.

 

They could have studied a special report out in 2025 by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism for an accurate and realistic analysis that they themselves shirked at examining, lest they arrive at a similar conclusion: "For decades, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is also an adherent, have managed to embed themselves at all levels of Canadian society. These organizations and their radical ideologies have significant carryover effects, most notably within the academic space."  

"They [Muslim Brotherhood] basically aim to be the gatekeepers to the Muslim communities, that whenever politicians, governments or the media try to get the Muslim voice ... they would go through them."

Lorenzo Vidino, expert on Muslim Brotherhood, 2015 report to the Senate  

Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

 

 

Known For the Company They Keep

"At no point has Canada's mandate included training members of the Azov Battalion."

"We have reinforced our policy to prevent any recurrence and remain firmly opposed to Nazism, racism, and all forms of extremism while promoting human rights, and the rule of law in all international engagements."

Canada's Defence Minister David McGuinty 

 

"In Ukraine, the Azov Battalion has recruited foreign fighters motivated by white supremacy and neo-Nazi beliefs, including many from the West, to join its ranks and receive training, indoctrination and instruction in irregular warfare."

Soufan Center

A member of the Azov Brigade (far right) takes a break during Canadian military leadership training at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Quebec. The training ran from Jan. 13 to Feb. 5, 2026. Photo by SUPPLIED

 

It would appear that a member of the Azov Brigade had been in training at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Quebec from January 13 to February 5, 2026 for leadership training, according to Canadian military personnel who had made contact with an Ottawa journalist specializing in military affairs. The Azov soldier's presence raised objections by Canadian Forces personnel who immediately on realizing the situation, relayed their objections to Canadian military officials. Their objections were ignored.

 

According to Kened Sadiku, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence, Ukraine had been told explicitly not to forward members of the Azov Brigade to Canadian military training. Despite which, while identifying the presence of  the Azov soldier among the non-commissioned member leadership training program, authorities in the Canadian Forces allowed the man to continue his training.  "Given that fewer than seven days remained in the course and the individual had effectively completed the training, it was determined that the individual would be permitted to graduate."

 

A new report from an American university says far-right extremists in Ukraine’s military have bragged they received training from the Canadian Forces and other NATO nations. Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV /GETTY

 

Because of its links to the far-right and neo-Nazis, the United States Congress in 2018 banned the use of U.S. funds in providing arms, training and other assistance to the Azov Brigade. Then-U.S. President Biden in 2024 lifted the ban for Azov, considered highly effective on the battlefield, defending Ukraine from President Putin's 'special military operation'.  In recognition of the unit's far-right associations, however, the Canadian Forces had a strict policy distancing itself from the Azov Brigade.

 

DND spokesperson Nick Drescher Brown a year ago noted that First Corps Azov was an established unit incorporated within the National Guard of Ukraine under the Ministry of the Interior. "It is important to note that such meetings [as when Azov personnel met with Canadian military personnel for a "friendly and open dialogue"] do not constitute endorsement of a particular individual or organization's position or values". Previously, Canadian military officers and senior DND personnel warned of Azov's neo-Nazi links. 

 

Canadian links to Azov had "dogged us for years", noted Lt. Col. Andrew Salloum, in 2022. "It's true that Azov was brought into the NGU [National Guard of Ukraine], but we don't train them because they are fanatics and we don't share their values."  Canada's Joint Task Force Ukraine produced a briefing on the Azov in 2017 that acknowledged its links to Nazi ideology. "Multiple members of Azov have described themselves as Nazis", warned the Canadian officers in their briefing.

 

In 2020 in Ukraine, it was reported that Canadian military personnel trained both members of the Azov unit and at least one Ukrainian soldier wearing the crest of a Nazi SS unit from the Second World War. Despite that the Azov Battalion was formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military, the battalion is known to have cultivated a relationship with members of the Atomwaffen Division, a U.S.-based neo-Nazi terrorist network. 

 

A news broadcast by German ZDF station showed soldiers of the Ukraine Azov Battalion with Nazi symbols on their helmets. Photo by Files /ZDF station

 

"This  unit has a history of affiliations with the far right and Nazi [elements]. What doesn't the Canadian military understand about that?"

"It's not Russian propaganda, far from it. These people are neo-Nazis."

"There is an element of the ultra-right in Ukraine and it's absurd to ignore it."

Efraim Zuroff, Israeli historian 

Academic Rigour in Canada

"None of those men, or those who served with them, would now be eligible to teach at the university named in honour of their sacrifice."

"DEI has gone too far for too long."

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney 

 

"In a 2025 study, the Aristotle Foundation examined 489 job postings issued by ten Canadian universities and found just a dozen that did not contain some element saying that candidates would be prioritized based on their race, gender or sexual identity."

"Despite this, it's still somewhat rare for a university to explicitly turn away candidates based on identarian characteristics."

"In the Aristotle Foundation study, only16 of the 489 jobs they analyzed 'discriminated against candidates based on natural, uncontrolled factors or group identity'." 

Tristin Hopper, Journalist, National Post

Aristotle Foundation

 

All University of Toronto job postings and 96 percent of Dalhousie’s mentioned or implied a candidate’s “contribution to DEI” was an asset.

McGill and the University of Saskatchewan required all applicants to complete a DEI survey.

Nearly two-thirds of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) and 55 percent of the University of Manitoba’s job postings required candidates to submit a DEI statement or essay.                Aristotle Foundation

 

The sole university in Newfoundland, founded post-World War I in St.John's in memory of the contribution made by Newfoundlanders that was outsized to their population when fully one percent of the province's males died during the First World War -- giving birth to Memorial University, which now has a policy, sponsored by the Canadian federal government, of offering academic positions in favour of LGBTQ, women, Indigenous populations given priority to members of the 'white community' regardless of academic merit.

 

Founded as a 'living memorial', job postings while containing a reminder to applicants that the school was founded on the premise of honouring white-male sacrifices defending democracy to ensure that their "cause and sacrifice might not be forgotten", while denying positions to white-male Newfoundlanders presents a conundrum of mixed messages. At the present time, five job postings come complete with itemized restrictions that effectively shut the door to 'privileged' white males. Those five jobs are exclusively limited to "women, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, Indigenous peoples, racialized persons and those with disabilities".

 

(L-R) Muna-Udbi Ali, Assistant Professor, Black Studies in Geography and Environment, Faculty of Environment and Urban Change, York University; Cornel Grey, Assistant Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Western University; and Stephanie Latty, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University.

 

These five-year postings in the hard sciences for the most part, include research positions for computational biochemistry, musculoskeletal health and 'AI-driven navigation for Arctic and harsh environments'. 'Indigenous knowledge, youth and digital technology' and 'community health and substance use', make up the last two of the postings. Universities now throughout Canada post academic positions that emphasize an 'equity' component meant to advantage some identity groups over others; the favoured from the disfavoured.

 

The Canada Research Chairs Program funds all of these screened positions, a $311-million federal program that financially supports roughly 2,000 academic posts at universities across the nation. Since 2021 the funding expresses strict targets on "equity, diversity and inclusion". At the least, 22.9 percent of all academic positions funded by the program must favour "racialized" individuals, 4.9 percent Indigenous people, 7.5 percent those with disabilities, and 50.9 percent either women or trans individuals. This, in a province where 87.4 percent of the population is of European stock in comparison to 69.8 country-wide.

 

 

Those looking to find work at Canadian public universities based on their qualifications alone might be hard-pressed as a recent study found that 98% of job postings had diversity, equity and inclusion requirements. Public universities now overwhelmingly mandate DEI policies for academic jobs across Canada.  True North

 

New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) Webinar on best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

"NFRF expects applicants to clearly demonstrate their strong commitment to EDI in their applications and in the implementation of their research projects, if funded."

"This webinar accompanies the “Best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion in research practice and design” guide to support NFRF applicants and reviewers in achieving greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their research practice and design".

"Applicants and research administrators are encouraged to attend the EDI webinars to learn more about how to integrate EDI into a research project. These webinars apply to all NFRF competitions, including special calls."

Canada.ca

Canada Research Coordinating Committee

New Frontiers in Research Fund

Fired for Cause, not Discriminatory

"When he used his title in a letter supporting a friend's, client's, or potential client's immigration application, [Kalisa] did so in an effort to increase the chances that it would be approved."

"If it was approved, and the client or potential client became able to travel to Canada to view properties, [Kalisa] could gain a personal and business advantage, whether in the short or long term."

It seems unlikely to me that that trend would continue for 13 years ... if the grievor was merely confirming to those concerned that their applications were  being processed."

"I find that it is more likely than not that he shared additional information not available to the public about the status of the applications in question."

Labour Tribunal

Photo: Bohao Zhao

 A recently published online February decision of the federal labour tribunal confirmed the firing in 2017 of a longtime Canada Border Services Agency employee, while Placide Kalisa, who was contesting  his dismissal, characterized it as discriminatory, given his ethnicity. He plans to contest his firing confirmation by filing discrimination lawsuits against the CBSA and  his former union which had refused to represent his grievance against his firing.

Placide Kalisa was found, for 13 years of his employment with the federal border services, to have accessed government databases improperly, passing confidential information on to immigration applicants, among them some who would become his clients as an after-work real estate agent. Kalisa was a senior program officer, his job was to recommend whether the agency could safely remove inadmissible foreign nationals to certain countries. 

 

Deeply connected to the Rwandan community in Canada, Kalisa had emigrated decades earlier from Rwanda, and worked as a part-time real estate agent and manager. The tribunal had found that Kalisa had committed dozens pf "worrisome" unauthorized searches of  sensitive CBSA and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada databases from 2003 to his suspension in 2016. Some of those who benefited from his illegal intervention later became his real estate clients.

 

Canada Border Services Agency patch

In the space of two months, Kalisa had searched an IRCC database on 32 occasions after a Rwandan identified in the decision as "A.K." contacted him to ask why it was that his visa application had been denied.  Once he confirmed that A.K.'s background cleared any suspicion of having been involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Kalisa undertook an invitation letter for the man and his spouse, asking a colleague to sign in his stead. 

 

Kalisa was aware that A.K.'s purpose in coming to Canada was to acquire a condominium, and his invitation letter would support the visa applicant persuasively. Indeed, Kalisa had admitted he had written invitation letters and had conducted database searches for some seven individuals at the very least; each letter identified him as a CBSA employee which his agency title made clear.

 

While Kalisa denied wrongdoing throughout the grievance process, the tribunal dismissed his explanations for his actions, terming his testimony "implausible or unpersuasive". Kalisa, who required a top-secret security clearance for his CBSA work, had somehow forgotten to inform his employer that one of his friends happened to be a suspected criminal. The Rwandan embassy had given Kalisa a list of suspected war criminals with his friend's name on it.

 

Placide Kalisa, Realtor

Because Kalisa said he was certain his friend was not a war criminal, he failed to disclose his relationship, he explained to an unimpressed tribunal. "It was not for [Kalisa] to decide whether the embassy was right or wrong to include D.N.'s name on a list of suspected war criminals ... He was obligated to inform his manager of his association with D.N. He did not", the tribunal wrote. 

 

A series of trips that Kalisa took to Rwanda booked by D.N. led the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to begin an investigation that motivated CBSA to look into the work activities of its employee, in 2014. Two years on, CBSA reviewed Kalisa's security clearance, and his unauthorized searches in CBSA and IRCC databases were revealed, leading to his suspension and finally, his firing. 

"Since 2015, database usage -- including all adds/moves/changes/deletes -- are captured, logged, and stored to a repository which is accessible for internal auditing functions."

"Any new or updated systems are required to record to this system for auditing purposes."

Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson Rebecca Purdy