The 'Unnoticed' Presence of Islamist Terror Groups in Canada

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

"Those allegations [accusations of paramilitary group Kata'ib Hezbollah linked to the IRGC] include two attacks here in Canada; the March 10 shooting at the United States consulate in Toronto and an attack against a Canadian synagogue."

"He [Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi] also allegedly said he was running multiple teams and sought help carrying out further attacks against Jewish and other targets in Canada and the United States." 

"There is no justification for the delay [in placing the group with Canada's terrorist list]."

"Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats."

"Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil." 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Parliamentary opposition

Counter-rally against the Al-Quds day event in Toronto  The Hub

 

The Liberal government of Canada -- under both prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney -- has failed to stem the duress under which Canadian Jews have found themselves over the past three years, assailed verbally and physically, threatened and slandered by 'pro-Palestinian' groups in Canadian society led by Palestinian student groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and funded by Qatar. Led by the fundamentalist Islamist focus on jihad. This is a jihad that penetrates Western society through sanctimoniously disingenuous diplomacy that government cannot see through, and the violent jihad of the terrorist battlefield. 

 

While moderate Islamic governments in the Middle East recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots and associates for the threat they represent not only to the West but to their own governance and security, and have taken steps to outlaw it, the West is amenable to its presence, its infiltration through ingratiating itself as a reasonable, moderate representative of Islam to be respected and heeded as a portal to understanding and welcoming the presence of inordinate numbers of Muslims through immigration, refugee intake and migrant presence. 

 

The little-recognized presence of terrorist groups within Western society working to undermine democracy and to silence critics and opponents present the other side of penetrative jihad. These groups, like the members of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps whose presence in Canada affront and concern Canadian Iranians who fled their brutal dictatorial rule in Iran, operate with impunity, with little-to-no 'notice' taken of the menace they represent, by Canada's Liberal government.

 

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out to Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree through a letter, that American authorities arrested Mohammad Baqer Saad Daewood Al-Saadi, senior commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah, accused of coordinating dozens of attempted and completed terrorist attacks in Europe and North America. 

 

Founded in 2007, Kata'ib Hezbollah, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, has some 7,000 to 10,000 members. They operate primarily in Iraq with a purported presence in Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. They were listed in 2009 as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Mr. Poilievre asked the Minister of Safety to investigate whether operatives for the group have established networks in Canada. To further investigate linkages between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime. 

 

Further, that it be disclosed the number of operatives connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies that have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed from Canada. Previously Minister Anandasangaree, pressed by the opposition why the government had deported only one Iranian official from among the dozens known to be present in Canada, the minister cited a requirement to follow due process, to explain the delay. The reality is that of 24 individuals identified as former IRGC officials, one only has been deported.

 

Iran-Inspired Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto    The Hub

 

The Liberals have failed to enforce Canada’s terrorist laws with the urgency and strength Canadians expect. Parliament did not list terrorist entities merely to put their names on a government website. Canadians expect their laws to be enforced to the fullest extent: terrorist assets frozen and seized, financing networks dismantled, and operatives stopped at the border or removed from the country. Yet Canadians have seen little evidence of serious enforcement against the IRGC and other listed terrorist groups threatening our people, our communities and our national interests. A terrorist listing is only as strong as the action that follows it.

Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats. Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil.

A year-long Global News investigation reported that upwards of 700 Iranian regime-linked associates were operating in Canada and threatening the lives of Canadians. The RCMP subsequently acknowledged receiving reports of foreign interference committed by, or at the direction of, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Canadians deserve to know who these individuals are, how they entered Canada and what your government is doing to remove those who pose a threat.

The IRGC was finally listed as a terrorist entity only after years of pressure from Conservatives. Even now, your government has been unable to tell Canadians how many IRGC operatives have been identified, denied entry or removed from the country.

Listing the parent organization means little if its commanders, proxies, financiers and hired criminals remain free to operate here.

You must therefore:

• Immediately list Kata’ib Hezbollah as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code;
• Investigate whether its members, operatives, facilitators or financial networks are operating in Canada;
• Disclose how many individuals connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed;
• Investigate and disclose any known links between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime in Canada; and
• Explain what action Canadian authorities are taking in response to the alleged Kata’ib Hezbollah-directed attacks in Toronto.

Canada must be a safe haven for Canadians, not for the terrorists, agents and proxies sent to silence the victims of the Iranian regime.

Canadians must be free to worship without fear of gunfire. Iranian Canadians must be free to oppose the regime without facing its enforcers here at home. All Canadians deserve a government that stops terrorists before they attack rather than making excuses after the damage is done.

Conservative Party of Canada  

Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate by the U.S. Consulate during a rally for Al-Quds Day in Toronto, on Saturday, March 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

Isolated and Alone -- Ostracized for Being Jewish

• In Canada, between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, law enforcement arrested six minors (under the age of 18) for terrorism-related offences (Section 83 Canadian Criminal Code offence or placed them on a terrorism peace bond, Section 810.011, Canadian Criminal Code).
• Radicalization is the process by which individuals adopt an overtly ideological message and belief system that encourages extreme views and actions.
• Radical thinking is not illegal and freedom of speech is a fundamental right in Canada. Radicalization becomes a threat to national security when people advocate or engage in violence as a means of promoting or furthering their ideology.                                                     Royal Canadian Mounted Police

In its 2018 annual report, the Committee noted that the national security and intelligence community identified terrorism as the primary threat to national security. The government also stated that individuals or groups inspired by Salafi-jihadi ideology posed the greatest terrorist threat to Canada. This assessment has evolved based on a number of trends and events. These include the liberation of Daesh-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria, the subsequent detention of Canadian extremist travellers (also known as foreign fighters) in Syria, attacks against Canadians by extremist individuals and organizations, and the rise of ideologically motivated violent extremism.

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Annual Report 2020 

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

 

Canada's National Police and Intelligence agencies are well aware of what constitutes terrorism and foreign interventions in Canada for the purpose of influencing Canadian society in the belief that the perpetrators of threats to national security and to the social contract of equality and security in Canadian citizenship are in reality, merely religious groups whose motivations and actions are deeply misunderstood. That they are, in reality, only appealing for recognition of their right to practise their religious devotions and those living abroad in traditionally explosive areas of the world seek freedom from oppression, justifying their violence as 'liberators' of oppressed people.

 

Rocks were thrown through the front door windows of Pride of Israel synagogue in North York in June. A second North York synagogue had its windows broken half an hour later. (Alexis Raymon/CBC)

 

Canada's intelligence agencies can go before the Parliament of Canada and attest to their findings, giving ample notice to the government currently in power to enable reaction in view of the alarm, authorizing the national police and the intelligence arms to take action, while placing policing agencies at the provincial and municipal levels on alert, so that when actual events take place that are identifiably counter to Canadian laws, its system of justice, that pose a threat to Canadian citizens and group unity, remedial action can be taken to neutralize such threats.

 

So far, for almost two years, those Canadian authorities who have been given ample notice, who have witnessed public events taking place that imperil citizens, that flout the rule of law, that cause major disruptions, that are responsible for property damage, that threaten harm to an identifiable Canadian ethnic/religious group, that destabilize academic institutions, that cause destructive violence on houses of worship, schools, community centers, hospitals, estranging communities from one another, have taken no action whatever to put a stop to these uncommonly strident threats and actions.

 

Demonstrators protest a sale of 'Palestinian' land held in a Thornhill synagogue in 2024. Source: CBC

 

While Canadian Jews have suffered the indignities of harassment -- violation of their community institutions, defacing of their synagogues, shots fired at Jewish primary schools, threatening marches through their communities, vandalizing of Jewish-owned businesses -- no actions by authorities at any level have been taken to counter these criminal acts, leaving the Jewish community to arrange for their own security to enable children at parochial schools to be safe, and Jews attending religious services to have security from the constant threats.

 

At any time that complaints arise from within the Jewish community to their municipal, provincial or federal governments, statements are issued of support for the community and condemnation of antisemitism, but the responsibility of governments to act to ensure that these travesties of public life not continue are shrugged off, ostensibly balanced against the constitutional right of 'free speech'. Denigrating others, threatening an identifiable group with death protected in the name of free speech is a massive dereliction of duty in a civilized country that prides itself on democratic order.

 

Even when police escorting the many 'protest' marches throughout the streets of Canada's cities as the 'demonstrators' demonstrate their contempt for law and order, while shouting imprecations at Israel and Jews, uttering coded messages well understood to signify death, either of Israel or Jews, as language like 'Intifada', 'Go back to Poland', 'Final Solution', and 'From the river to the sea', ring out -- while Israel, the place where Palestinian terrorists invaded in their thousands to leave a bloody trail of 1,200 dead children, women and men is accused of 'genocide' against Palestinians.

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather along the route of the United Jewish Appeal’s annual Walk With Israel march in Toronto on May 25. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press)

 

Palestinian public relations has indeed succeeded in 'globalizing the Intifada', but not without the casual assistance of Canada's Liberal government which never misses an opportunity to decry the equal sins of 'Antisemitism' and 'Islamophobia', while Islamists entitle themselves to pray en masse in the streets, cutting off both pedestrian and traffic lanes in a demonstration of passive-aggressive conquest. And because there are no repercussions either to the marches and the threats, or the implied ownership of the streets, those demonstrating feel encouraged to reach ever greater heights of upheaval.

 

But it is not just governments of Canada which have stood by and supported these events by their very inaction. It is the neighbours, colleagues, friends and acquaintances of the greater Jewish community everywhere throughout Canada who have failed in sufficient numbers to stand with the Jewish community, to stand up against the travesties of the social contract of mutual respect and civility and dignity of the person that seems most inexplicable to the Jewish community, leaving it effectively isolated and alone.