So two-and-a-half years after Hamas’s slaughter in southern Israel, what do we have in the way of concrete action? Carney mentioned new legislation, presumably referring to Bill C-9 on hate speech, but that’s hardly a game changer, even as it activates freedom-of-speech concerns. Critics, including the Conservatives, argue compellingly that it adds little of value to the Criminal Code that isn’t already in there just waiting, in theory, to be enforced.
What most still seem to be missing is that even when laws are enforced, it often goes nowhere. Pick a well-publicized incident of anti-Israel attacks since Oct. 7, 2023 where charges have been laid, and chances are very good those charges have been dropped.
There was the “Indigo 11,” the gang of weekend revolutionaries who vandalized a location of Heather Reisman’s bookstore chain in November 2023, accusing her of “funding genocide.” Two of those charged pleaded guilty to mischief and received absolute discharges — i.e., they won’t have a criminal record. All the rest of the charges were dropped.
That same month, Calgary police tried charging a protestor for chanting “from the river to the sea,” as a public-disturbance charge, with a “hate motivation” attached. The Crown declined to proceed.
In September 2024, three anti-Israel activists were arrested and charged for harassing then immigration minister Marc Miller’s office in Montreal. The Crown dropped the charges.
In November 2024, anti-Israel protesters refused Ottawa police instructions to stay on the sidewalk near the Human Rights Monument, as opposed to blocking Elgin Street. Five people were charged with mischief, obstructing police and participating in an unlawful protest. All those charges were dropped.
Remember the folks who disrupted the Giller Prize book awards ceremony that same month, claiming title sponsor Scotiabank “funds genocide”? Three people were charged with “obstruct(ing), interrupt(ing) or interfer(ing) with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property,” as well as “use of a forged document.” The Crown then withdrew all charges.
Readers may recall an ugly scene a few weeks later at Toronto’s Eaton Centre outside a Zara store, where various goons harassed staff and appeared to scuffle physically with police. A 34-year-old man was charged with unlawful assembly, interfering with property and assaulting a peace officer. That case was dropped.
In October 2025, a protest on behalf of the Gaza-supporting “freedom flotilla” blocked a major downtown Toronto intersection for hours, resulting in nine arrests for unlawful assembly, obstructing a peace officer and common nuisance. Six weeks later, the Crown dropped the charges “for lack of public interest based on the need to be judicious with respect to the use of court resources.”
(As always, the definition of “public interest” in a Canadian courtroom is entirely up to the lawyers in attendance.)
Anti-Israel protesters will surely have noticed these outcomes, and could only have been emboldened.
The Legal Support Committee, which aids protesters arrested under the Palestinian flag in Toronto, recently offered left-wing online news outlet The Grind some remarkable statistics: Of 154 people criminally charged between October 2023 and January this year in Toronto, 96 cases have been resolved. In 94 cases the charges were dropped or stayed, or the accused received absolute discharges. (That’s similar to a count provided by Toronto Police: 165 arrests representing 309 charges, though it doesn’t maintain a tally of case outcomes.)
The Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism (ALCCA) has been keeping track of such cases as well. The only convictions it notes that are relevant to this discussion are those of Omar Elkhodary, who assaulted a woman putting up posters of child hostages taken by Hamas, and received a five-month conditional sentence followed by a year of probation; and Razaali Bahadur, who got a year in jail for inciting hatred against Jews, to wit, bellowing at children through a megaphone that their parents had “raped and murdered (Palestinian) children.”
A Toronto Police spokesperson underscored for The Grind that just because the Crown doesn’t proceed with charges does not mean there weren’t grounds for arrest. But when the prosecution rate is this low, surely it’s stretching that point nearly to breaking: If the Crown’s not willing to proceed with protest-related charges, are those things really illegal? Should people be arrested for them in the first place? Arresting someone isn’t just supposed to be a way to defuse a tense situation at a protest.
And of course, some of the most disturbing incidents since October 7 haven’t led to any charges at all. Marching through a Jewish neighbourhood in protest over Israel’s assault on Gaza, for example, is about as nakedly antisemitic as you can get — an unambiguous statement that Canadian Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions purely by dint of being Jewish. Not only do Toronto Police not think it’s their job to stop that from happening; they escort those marches through the Jewish neighbourhoods.
On Wednesday, the federal government committed $10 million “to help Jewish institutions strengthen security at gathering spaces such as schools, daycares, camps and places of worship.” That’s better than nothing. -
(Sidebar: it IS nothing and you know it.)
But it’s profoundly disturbing, and a national scandal, that playing defence — bollards outside schools, bulletproof windows and doors, even more security — is the only plausible idea anyone in charge seems to have.
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