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

 

The Passions Unleashed by Dominating Hatred

"[The Al Quds Day rally has] long been a venue for antisemitism, hatred, intimidation and the glorification of terrorism."

"While the judge cited Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when we talk about rights we need to be clear that every person has the right to safety and security."

"We need to be clear that no one in Canada has the right to incite violence or free licence to intimidate and hate."

"I won't stop working to put an end to the hatred and division that runs too rampant on Canada's streets." "I won't stop working to protect the greatest province in the greatest country in the world."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford 

 

"The Attorney General has known for at least a year that the Al Quds rally would take place around this time. The Attorney General relies on statements made by protest organizers that date back to 2016. The province of Ontario did not pass any laws or regulations to deal with this event. It did not invoke the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.9."

"Even allowing for rapidly moving current events, the Attorney General should not have come to court mere hours before the rally was set to start. There was no possibility of cross-examination on any of the affidavits and the oral argument was necessarily truncated. Such a compressed timetable puts the court in a difficult position."

"There is no evidence that participants at last year’s rally incited hatred or engaged in hate speech. There is no evidence before me of any criminality arising out of this rally in the past, much less evidence that could satisfy me that there is a ‘strong case’ that there will be criminal activity this year."

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Centa 

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

 

"It was a political show by Ford. He doesn't need any court order. He's a premier and he has a duty, he has power and full authority to implement the law."

"If Ford, [Prime Minister] Mark Carney, Toronto police, [Toronto] Mayor [Olivia] Chow, they don't want to do their job, we the people ... have the duty to stand."

Salmon Sima, Iranian refugee, Canadian activist  

The Premier of Ontario tasked his attorney general to seek a court injunction against the annually ritualized Al Quds Day taking place in Toronto. The injunction application stated: "There is a serious risk of violence arising from or occurring at the rally", including mischief, intimidation and in the process ignoring Criminal Code hate laws that include public incitement of hatred, or wilful promotion of antisemitism. Rally organizers along with the Al-Quds Committee, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Lebanese4Palestine and the Canada-banned terrorist group Samidoun linked with the PFLP were sued by the Province.

Al-Quds Day is a creation of the  Islamic Republic of Iran, dating from the 1979 revolution when the Palestinian 'cause' was taken up by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, the contested ancient city of Judean ancestral heritage claimed by the nascent state of Arabic 'Palestine' as their capital, championed by the Iranian regime, became the purpose of the annual rally, a disguised scheme to invalidate Israel's claim to the city and to portray Israel as an interloper, not the rightful claimant through ancient indigeneity. 

Wherever Islamists have settled in the West they subscribe to this historical revisionism and mount such an infamous rally in world capitals.

On Saturday, 14 March, in Toronto, an estimated 4,500 people turned out to the pro-Palestinian rally with a double purpose this year, a protest against the U.S.-Israel bombardment of the Islamic Republic, that very regime that two months earlier slaughtered tens of thousands of Iranian protesters who marched for the end of the regime in cities across Iran, only to be met with armed police action shooting protesters to death, arresting untold numbers to be tortured in Iran's hated prisons. 

 

This is the country that has the Middle East and the West on edge over their nuclear program and medium-to-long-range missiles.

 

A counter-protest also took place outside the U.S. Consulate in Toronto Saturday. (Mercedes Gaztambide/CBC)

 

A counter-rally was staged by Iranian Canadians opposed to the Islamic theocracy that has transformed their country of origin into a pariah in the Middle East and abroad for its broad range of human rights crimes, its well-known support for terrorism and its control of terrorist groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territories. Both supporters of Israel, Canadians of Jewish extraction carrying Israeli flags and Iranian Canadians carrying the original flag of Iran under its dynastic Shahs were present to wave their Canadian flags in allegiance to the country which under the Liberal government appears to be signalling that allegiance is now misplaced.

 

Mere days following shots being fired at the U.S. Consulate at University Avenue and Armour Street, the Al-Quds rally attendees made their presence known. They stood on the south side of Armoury Street, holding up Palestinian flags and calling for an end to the war in Iran. On the opposite, north side, counter-demonstrators waved Israeli, pre-Revolutionary Iranian and Trump 2028 flags, along with Canadian flags. 

 

The Al-Quds crowd held up large banners with the insignia of the Islamic Republic of Iran. On this occasion, Iranian regime flags outnumbered those of the Palestinian flags, mourners carried portraits of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and protesters urged support of retaliatory attacks on Israel from the Islamic Republic that has always outwardly threatened to destroy the Jewish state. 

 

This display of pure, unadulterated hatred for Israel's right of existence, inflamed by the support of terror against 'colonialism' and 'unjust wars', aiming directly at Israel's right to defend itself from existential threats represents the sole purpose of such events. And Iranian Canadians will have none of it, knowing all too well that it is that state theocratic regime that has destroyed their country.

Unit: Hate Crime Unit

Case #: 2026-538606

Published: Sunday, March 15, 2026, 10:32 AM

The Toronto Police Service is making the public aware of two arrests made at the Al-Quds Day demonstration. 

On Saturday, March 14, 2026, the Al-Quds Day demonstration took place in the University Avenue and Armoury Street area. In addition to those attending the Al-Quds Day demonstration, counter-demonstrators were also present. During two unrelated incidents, two men were arrested. 

It is alleged that:

• the accused, a male participating in the counter-demonstration, engaged with the victim, a participant in the Al-Quds demonstration, who was holding a stick with an Islamic Republic of Iran flag attached
• the accused began swinging his arms and fists at the victim, breaking the stick and causing pieces of it to strike the victim in the head

Mostafa Shabanian Bashmandoost, 39, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with:

1. Assault
2. Criminal Harassment
3. Theft Under $5000
4. Possession of Property Obtained by Crime Under $5000
5. Public Incitement of Hatred

He is scheduled to appear in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre, 2201 Finch Avenue West, on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 10 a.m., in room 105.

These investigations are being treated as suspected hate-motivated offences.

 

Farshid McVandifar, 56, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with:

1. Mischief – Damage Property Under $5000
2. Assault

He is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice, 10 Armoury Street, on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, at 11 a.m., in room 203.

It is further alleged that:

• the second accused, a male participating in the counter demonstration, followed the victim, a participant of the Al-Quds demonstration, who was wearing an Islamic Republic of Iran flag on their back
• the accused spat on the victim and ripped the flag off their back
• the accused returned into the crowd and was later located among the counter demonstration group
• the accused was then observed to be lighting an Islamic Republic of Iran flag on fire and wearing Islamic Republic of Iran flags attached to the soles of his shoes.

As usual, when police attend to these events, it is those who are victimized, threatened through the intimidation of double-speak that are driven to respond with action that reflects their outrage at the malice directed against those who subscribe to liberty and the defence of  human rights, who are held accountable for disturbances, rarely those who mount such radicalized pure-hate events whose purpose is achieved through the police applied courtesy of enablement... 

Toronto police said Thursday they planned to increase their presence in the area of the rally. (Mercedes Gaztambide/CBC)