Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow

“I unequivocally condemn this disgusting antisemitic act and the repeated vandalism of Kehillat Shaarei Torah temple. The Toronto Police Service is investigating and the Hate Crime Unit has been on scene. I support the Toronto Police in quickly apprehending whoever is responsible and will provide whatever resources are necessary. My office is in contact with police throughout this investigation and I understand they will release more information as it becomes available.

The City has several initiatives to help keep Jewish communities safe. My budget provides tens of millions towards visible police presence and service in Jewish communities. We have created policies to protect safe access to religious and cultural institutions and invested in anti-hate public education campaigns. Jewish Torontonians deserve to live in peace and security, we will never tolerate vandalism, violence or the intimidation of our Jewish neighbours.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow Webpage 

"The city has a real problem with antisemitism and Jew hatred. It does...and that lands on Mayor Chow's desk."

"It's really regrettable that she's not able to attend a debate, have a conversation with a community in Toronto that is deeply hurting about a topic like antisemitism." 

Mayoral candidate Councillor Brad Bradford 

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow appeared at the National Council Canadian Muslims gala on Nov. 1, 2025 (Screenshot image via X.com)

 

"Here in Toronto, a global city, we feel the pain of what happens around the world."

"The genocide in Gaza impact[s] us all. A common bond of shared humanity is tested."

"I will speak out anywhere when children anywhere are feeling the pain and violence and hunger."

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, at the National Council of Canadian Muslims

"No international court or legal body has made a binding or final ruling that a genocide is taking place. Making such inaccurate and misleading statements, while representing all Torontonians, sends a harmful and divisive message."

"Toronto deserves leaders who treat every community with respect and act with impartiality. At a time when the mayor should be working to mend divisions and ease tensions, she has instead chosen to inflame them."

"The City’s own Code of Conduct makes it clear that elected officials must act with integrity and impartiality and that their actions must withstand the closest public scrutiny."

"When a Mayor presents a legally disputed claim as fact, it crosses the line from leadership to bias."

B'nai Brith Canada

Toronto is in the throes of a campaign for mayor of Canada's largest city. So far,the incumbent, Olivia Chow, as the current office holder, is in the lead and may yet be confirmed to continue to hold her office in a renewed mandate. Three frontrunners have been identified for the October 26 mayoral race in a massive ballot of 50 names in total. Aside from Mayor Chow, her top challengers are Brad Bradford and Chris Alexander. A recent debate focusing on antisemitism which has risen to alarming proportions particularly in Toronto, presented as a perfect opportunity for Mayor Chow to answer to and rebut accusations that she has fuelled a distinct aura of Jew-hate in the city.

 

While she has often issued declarations of condemnation when Toronto synagogues and Jewish schools have been shot at, defaced and congregants harassed as they entered their places of worship, her words are meaningless when she fails to react in any concrete manner to ensure that civic law is upheld and that the 
Toronto Police Service is called upon to ensure that Toronto's Jewish neighbourhoods not continue to see hordes of keffiyeh-clad, masked anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups mock and threaten Jewish residents.

 

Invited to a mayoral debate on antisemitism and the precarious security of Toronto's Jewish community, she refused attendance. When pressed, she said she does not take part in candidate events when her campaign had not yet been official launched. Which it was, the day after the debate took place. Irrespective of whether this debate was linked to the mayoral campaign, Mayor Chow should recognize the need to address an issue that has been ongoing for three years, of crowds of Jew-baiters setting up encampments at universities, of Muslims in large groups taking over streets for mass prayers.

 

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

 

The travesties of anti-Jewish groups standing before Jewish-owned restaurants and harassing those entering, of other crowds shouting anti-Jewish invective in front of Jewish old-age homes, in front of a Jewish hospital that treats all patients, being permitted these anti-social and threatening actions in the name of 'free speech' even when shouting "Go back to Poland", or infamously "Final Solution", and "From the River to the Sea", clearly enough hate propaganda inciting to violence and nothing is done to uphold the law, a reflection of the mayor's disinterest in her obligations to all her constituents.

 

By The Toronto Police Service's own numbers, Jews were targets of 82 percent of religious-motivated hate crimes in 2025, for an ethnic/religious minority representing a mere three percent of the population. Despite which, this mayor saw her way clear to inciting even greater verbal assaults against the Jewish community by her rhetoric demonizing the Jewish state, and in one fell swoop, calling down even greater threats against Canadian Jews in Toronto.

 

She is a disgrace to her office, for choosing the inflammatory language she uses toward satisfying a larger voting demographic that clearly identifies Jews in Toronto being the default for Israel. Canada deserves better, and so does Toronto. Above all, the Jewish community which has their roots in this country going back centuries and considers Canada their home, deserve better than to have Jewish-owned businesses vandalized. When municipal authorities see it in their political interest to identify a victim for the baying Jew-haters in society, that society identifies itself as a human-rights failure.

 

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow speaks to media on March 8, 2025. Prof. Yang Meng writes that a speech made by Chow in November, in which she drew parallels between the Japanese invasion of China during WWII and the situation in Gaza, was hurtful to both Jewish and Chinese people. Photo by Christopher Katsarov / The Canadian Press

 

"The Mayor of Canada’s largest city, stood with us and spoke the truth: that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, [that] truth matters. Mayor’s Chow’s words tonight were not about politics — they were about acknowledging the genocide in Gaza, and the path forward."

"It is an acknowledgment that has important policy implications, as we all know, because as we also all know, there are far too many who have not made this acknowledgment."

"Speaking the truth is the only way to be decent right now."

"There is still much wrong here in Toronto. And we’ve seen terrible things happen to shut down peaceful protests to stand against the genocide in Toronto over the past few years."

National Council of Canadian Muslims

 

"Such language distorts fact and law, and it legitimizes the hostility and intimidation that Jewish Torontonians are already facing in record numbers."

"By echoing that narrative, Mayor Chow lends support to those spreading malicious libels and undermines public confidence in her commitment to the safety, dignity, and inclusion of all Torontonians."

"The Jewish community expects the mayor to make this right by addressing the harm caused and taking immediate action to restore trust and ensure our safety."

Noah Shack, CEO,  Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"There has been some trauma from this [Yom Kippur eve attack on Sons of Jacob Synagogue, Belleville, Ontario]. But we're going to pick up the pieces and we're going to start over and we're going to carry on."

"We will not be stopped by this person, or anyone else."

"We always have police protection. Every synagogue in North America on the high holidays has police protection. We've been doing it for years."

"Whenever there's a large gathering of Jews in a synagogue, there's police protection. That's just a sign of the times."

"For Jews, it's kind of like, who's going in the bad book? Who will not live through this year?"

"I guess we were all in the good book [congregants present during the attack], because we survived." 

Norman Weddum, president, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

"When you're Jewish, you look to the history of your people."

"The people who came here were Holocaust survivors. They escaped Czarist Russia."

"They came to make a better life in this country, just as every Jewish community across this country." 

Shima Viggoda, vice-president, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

"We're resilient, that's why we keep going. We have to fight."

"There was a time when we couldn't have services and we didn't have the people."

"But again, we built ourselves up, and we are standing on our feet now."

Mary Cohen, Sons of Jacob Synagogue board member

Police stand in front of the Son of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario Ontario on Monday Sept. 21, 2026. Ian MacAlpine - The Canadian Press

 

The small congregation of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario at sundown, Sunday had gathered for Yom Kippur services only to hear gunfire erupt outside. First thoughts were that the sounds were anything but shots; a vehicle backfiring, firecrackers, but no.  When it was fully understood that shots were being fired at the synagogue the doors were locked and everyone looked for shelter as bullets flew over the heads of those sheltering on the floor. 

 

The member of the Belleville Police Service, Corporal Jeffrey Smith, seated in an unmarked vehicle outside the synagogue heard someone shout at him "You're going to die for the Jews!" before he was shot twice, in the neck and back. He emerged though wounded, from the vehicle and engaged with the attacker, as shots rang back and forth until two minutes on another constable appeared and his subsequent shots fully disarmed the shooter, a discharged soldier from the Canadian Armed Forces who had armed himself with a shotgun fully intending to enter the synagogue and murder as many there as he could.

 

That shooter whose plan had gone awry, almost killed Constable Smith, now in recovery though remaining in critical condition, while none of the Jewish congregants were harmed physically. The terrorist attacker, taken to Kingston General Hospital as was Corporal Smith, died the following day. The carnage he  hoped to carry out in a bloody shoot-out at a place of worship during the most holy day in the Judaic religious calendar was not to be. And the heroic action of a severely wounded police officer saved many lives, while endangering his own.

 

In Canada from 2023 to 2026, dozens of reports of gunfire, arson, window breaking, threats and vandalism have taken place at synagogues, parochial schools, community centres, Jewish-owned businesses and Jewish neighbourhoods, with expressions of condolences from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, but little-to-no effort made to enact real solutions through laws already in existence against the promotion of hate in ethnic communities.

 

The Sons of Jacob Synagogue is shown in Belleville, Ontario on Monday Sept. 21, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sharif Hassan

 

"The rabbi had just started to call us into the sanctuary. We were stepping inside, and we heard this loud bang, and we all stopped. It sounded like someone was banging the window or the door."

"We knew this was going to happen. We’ve been saying as Jews that we’re very concerned with the rise of antisemitism. What did you think was going to happen? People weren’t taking it seriously."

"Some people suggested we should go to the basement, others said we should go out the back door. At the same time, you’re just frozen because you don’t know what’s going on or what to do. Eventually the shots stopped."

"This guy’s a hero. I can tell you the gunman was coming for us inside, and he was trying to take out our armed protection first. We’re praying for [Police Constable Jeffrey Smith’s] recovery."

Doug Warren, 56, Kol Nidre services, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

The tiny Jewish community in Belleville has existed for a century and a half. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe found their way to the town in the late 1800s, located halfway between the major cities of Toronto and Montreal. In 1905, religious ceremonies were held at a rooming house in service to Jewish workers; representing the earliest appearance of what would become in time the Sons of Jacob congregation. The synagogue was finally built and open for services in 1956, on a residential street astride the small Jewish community when sufficient funding had been raised for the project.

 

Some 55 families comprised the congregation which by then had opened its own Hebrew school, and services were planned by a rabbi; a shochet to ensure ritual kashrut was employed, and the synagogue became a hub for fundraising through organized bazaars dances, lectures  -- where it hosted area  marriages and Bar Mitzvah ceremonies. The congregation dwindled in time as the community's younger generation left to pursue their futures in larger cities. The synagogue no longer had its own rabbi, but yearly for that solemn occasion, raised the funds required to fly in an Israeli rabbi to officiate. 

 

The congregants throughout the years had their random experiences with local  antisemitism, with Jewish children attending public schools exposed to it from within the general population. In 1925, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland who became a local prominent businessman, found a large cross on fire on his front lawn one morning. Now, recovering from the most recent traumatic event, synagogue leaders plan to reopen its doors shortly and carry on the traditions of their forefathers in this small Ontario town. 

 

Police Officers at the scene of a shooting where a police officer was shot outside a Yom Kippur gathering at Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, September 21, 2026.

(photo credit: REUTERS/PATRICK DOYLE)

 

"We’re still in a state of shock. How could this happen, especially in Belleville? It’s insulting on top of it all."

"It’s bad enough when you read it in the news, but when you hear about it from somebody directly affected that you know, it was very distracting. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, so you think back on how you can make yourself better and how you’re going to improve and move on. It’s a very contemplative day."

"How sick is it that you need armed police to enter your place of worship? But it’s a fact of life."

Debbie Fitzerman, president, Kingston Jewish Council 

 

"This is what we’ve been experiencing for the last, at least three years, but definitely has been compounded since October seventh." 

"Most of the coverage about Israel is negative and spreading lies and libels about Israel and Jews, and people are getting radicalized because of it."

"I’d like to see Hamas people being called terrorists, not combatants or warriors. I’d like to see true accounts of the humanitarian efforts that are being waged and have been waged for the benefit of the Palestinian people by the Israeli army, and not only unfortunate statements that some very right-wing members of the Israeli government have uttered, which do not represent the philosophy or the policies of the Israeli government or the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]."

"The Jewish people have survived thousands of years with similar opposition and similar attacks and we’re still here. This is one of the miracles of the Jewish people is that we’re survivors. We’re not going to let anybody take our traditions away from us."

"What starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews. We are the canary in the coal mine. We’re the first ones to be hated and vilified, but then it extends to others and the ball keeps rolling until everybody is finding a scapegoat that’s not them and pointing fingers at others. That’s how society in a democracy disappears and disintegrates."

Rabbi Erin Polansky, Beth Israel Congregation, Kingston

  

"[You need to] see through ... every university in the so-called Global North [as selling] the possibility of future comfort at the cost of participating in the genocidal and ecocidal death march of the status quo."

"[The university administrator delegitimizes action on campus] that even remotely threatens to disrupt campus life."

"Students become] cash cows [where the purpose of education is to drive the economy since the institution's] primary function [is] to serve the extracative settler colonial project of so-called Canada."

"[It is the students alone who are] the only legitimate political actor in these negotiations."

"[Canada's law and order must be objected to as the student body] refuses the insistence that safety and protection necessitate policing and criminalization."

Concordia University student handbook

 

 

This is a university, an institute of higher education whose focus is -- should be -- entirely in stimulating and guiding young minds to question and discuss, learn to interpret, nurture a desire to research and to gain reliable data by enquiring minds taught to discern truth and reality from false information, propaganda and conspiracy theories. That students are immersed in studies learning how introspection and judgement can carry them into fields of professional endeavour meant to enlighten and to mature questing minds is indisputable. What is under dispute is their enforced exposure to ideological values in direct conflict with those of the prevailing society, its laws, culture, social contract and politics.

 

The university can claim itself innocent of the factions within its hallowed halls of academia, of students, primarily a foreign infiltration that influences the minds of the vulnerable among the student body, that preach a mission distinct from and averse to that of the university's own, but it is a feeble attempt at disassociation. Hesitation to act, on the premise of respecting free speech, while tolerating a situation of obvious denial of the values of an academic institution and that of the wider society bespeaks a cowering cowardice in the administration of the university. 

 

The 2026/27 student union-produced handbook for students is clear in its goal; to transform student minds from their focus on gaining an education to focus instead on an entirely corrupted form of student activism whose function is to popularize propaganda obviously inimical to a graduating student steeped in counter-culture and foreign influences designed to recruit minds toward a view of human rights and history that is warped and entirely in contrast to that considered the norm in Western societies. Anarchy is an incomplete description of the process; it is wedded jointly to Islamist jihad and extreme Marxist theory.   

"The Quiet Revolution-era promise of a Quebeois welfare state and shared prosperity for all is now more or less a thing of the past, abandoned in favour of xenophobic rhetoric and the so-called 'defence of Quebecois and western culture and values'."

"Ni Canada, Ni Quebec." 

Concordia Student Handbook  

 

 

"The handbook is put out by the Concordia Student Union, not the university. The CSU is an independent, student-led organization. It is controlled by its membership — meaning undergraduate students at Concordia — and governed, like other student associations in Quebec, by the Act respecting the accreditation and financing of students’ associations (chapter A-3.01), which ensures that these associations are fully independent of university administrations."

"We have highlighted with the CSU the issues, including the lack of inclusivity, in their handbook. Calls to violate the Code are not acceptable. All violations of the Code are being dealt with under our policies."

"We believe that the CSU publication is very far from promoting the full participation of students in their activities, as one would expect from such a handbook. Concordia is welcoming to all students and this publication does not represent the university."

Vannina Maestracci, spokesperson, Concordia University  

Concordia's student handbook paid for by fees extracted willingly or not from all students, is in fact a manifesto disparaging the West and Canada in particular, while passionately advocating for Palestinian terrorism to be viewed as a noble reaction to a powerful military's 'occupation' of disputed land which has produced an ever-evolving and revolving multitude of violent terrorists dedicated to a democratic nation's destruction because it is a Jewish nation.

 

The handbook promotes direct action, disparages both police and the utility of elections in a democracy. Its purpose is to mobilize entrants to a new world order, one dedicated to the destruction of the prevailing world order.

 

"Made for students by students" the Student Handbook 2026-27 is a 'survival guide' for nihilistic action. Advising students that Canada's government is focused on minorities whom it unfairly torments with threats of disentitlement and expulsion. The plight of migrants reflects that "money rules the land, that you'll be blamed for the political and economic failures of the government, and that your immigration status can be revoked at any time, resulting in your deportation, especially if you protest in solidarity with Palestine."

 

Concordia students are directly recruited to mobilize on behalf of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons despite their terrorist status. In last year's handbook its calendar was devoid of any Canadian holidays, but Nakba Day -- May 15, 1948, when Israel vanquished the combined armies of Egypt Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, after Israel had declared its independence as a Jewish state reborn on its ancestral footprint -- was featured. 

 

"[The university should be governed] by and for the people."

"It's clear that a board [of governors] composed of the wealthy and powerful serves the interests of investors and not Concordia's workers or students." "[Mark Carney should be censored for evoking Canada's] glorified settler colonial past."

"[The Liberal government passed a] massive anti-immigration bill giving the state powers to abandon due legal process and to cancel immigration status for migrants at will."

Concordia Student Handbook

A large group of protesters at Concordia University, October 2025 (Aatefeh Padidar/CBC)

"[It was a hate-motivated crime, Sean Ward had the] means, the motive and the mechanisms [to launch a larger attack]."

"The loss of life and the irreversible damage that could have been rippled through our community for generations cannot be overstated."

"[The attack was an] exclusive threat to our Jewish community." 

Belleville Police Service Chief Murray Rodd 

 

 

Belleville Ontario's chief of police recounted that the attacker of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue had shouted "You are going to die for the Jews", as he shot at the police constable who was seated on watch in an unmarked vehicle in front of the synagogue as a precautionary measure against violence being perpetrated on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. A day that represents the most sombre day of the Jewish religious calendar. A video had captured the sound of gunfire exchanges between 29-year-old Ward and two police officers.

 

In his intention to kill members of the Jewish community on Sunday evening, during the holiest day in Judaism, the attacker first attempted to put Constable Jeff Smith out of reactive commission by shooting him to death. He had earlier reconnoitered the street, driving by the vehicle that the constable sat within vigilantly. When Ward drove back onto the street and approached the unmarked vehicle he emerged and aimed at Constable Smith's neck. There were two shots, resulting in two injuries.

 

Ward, explained Chief Rodd, had a shotgun and a "significant amount" of ammunition. His reconnaissance around the synagogue reflected his intention to commit a violent crime that would result in mass bloodshed. His intention being to enter the synagogue unobstructed, after shooting Constable Smith, to use that shotgun on the 25 congregants assembled for prayer on that holiest of days. And while Constable Smith made note of the suspect, there was nothing initially suspicious that would alert him to the danger, that he was prey to an armed stalker.

 

"He was then ambushed on a second pass. That's when the shooting started", explained Chief Rodd. Constable Smith, although critically wounded, emerged from the vehicle to pursue the gunman. A second constable arrived moments later, Constable Mike McCurdy, who also opened fire on Ward, helping to incapacitate him and in the process denying him the opportunity to enter the synagogue and commit his planned mass atrocity. 

 

Officials with the Special Investigations Unit are seen exiting an SIU vehicle on Victoria Avenue on the morning of Monday, Sept 21, not far from the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville. Investigators are looking into a gunfire exchange on Sunday evening involving a Belleville Police officer and a man outside the synagogue. Both men were critically injured and transported to Kingston General Hospital. DEREK BALDWIN/Belleville Intelligencer 

 

Ward, shot and critically injured, died in hospital a day later.  Constable Smith taken to Kingston General Hospital in critical condition, had sustained "multiple gunshot wounds to his head and his body, and continues to receive treatment for significant injuries. He is expected to undergo multiple surgeries related to serious head trauma. While his recovery will be lengthy and challenging, he is making progress every day", advised Chief Rodd. Constable McCurdy was uninjured.

 

The Department of National Defence confirmed that a man with Ward's name had served for five years in an Alberta detachment of the Canadian Armed Forces. He was discharged on a code of conduct charge having refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine. COVID, he claimed on social media, was a plot to kill non-Jews through a Jewish conspiracy. Ward was a resident of Quinte West, 18 kilometres west of Belleville, where he lived with his mother. Confirmation that Ward had been radicalized while serving in the military was not available through the RCMP's integrated national enforcement team. 

"It's one thing to say hate has no place here in our province and in our country, but we already know that. We have to go further and faster."

"We have to have a clarion call that there must be consequences for people that behave in this manner, that do not subscribe to the values of who we are."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner 

 

"[The Belleville Police Force has a lengthy relationship with the local Jewish community, providing security] whenever they considered it necessary."

"I guess one of the messages to my colleagues around the province and the country is, it is clearly time that we all be proactive."

Belleville Police Chief Murray Rodd 

Getty Images

"You must be aware that new leads will not magically appear without active effort from the RCMP and other law enforcement authorities."

"The stance you have taken is illogical and unacceptable to the families. How can the minister for public safety allow the criminals behind the largest terrorist act in Canadian history to go unpunished and for the families to go without justice?"

"[The families want more information on] the nature of scrutiny and oversight your office has had over the investigation over the years."

Sudha Berry, Toronto

 

"Family members were provided with an update concerning an individual (widely referred to as Mr. X) who had come to the attention of investigators. Over time, while an individual was identified, no definitive link to the events under investigation could be established."

"Today, while there are no other persons of interest or suspects under consideration, the investigation remains open. If new or credible information comes forward, it will be investigated. The RCMP has always endeavoured to seek justice for the victims of Air India and that commitment stands." 

RCMP statement 

The Berry family is seen in this portrait taken on May 1, 1985. It's the last photo the family has of Sharad, third from left, who would be killed in the Air India Flight 182 bombing just one month later. (Submitted by Sujata Berry)

 

The RCMP sent a letter on September 12 to "The families of the Victims of Air India Flight 182, 1985"; an invitation to attend a meeting that was planned to "provide an update on the current status of the Air India Flight 182 investigation, including an outline of future steps, stating that "We recognize that this continues to be a deeply personal and difficult experience, and we are committed to keeping you informed and supported." During that meeting the families were informed that no further leads have appeared that might assist the federal force in its pursuit of answers to the deadly terrorist attack.

 

That admission and what it implied, that the investigation was as good as shut down, drove the families to request an urgent meeting with Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree. The news that the investigation was now inactive failed to sit well with Canadian Hindus of Indian extraction who had lost relatives on that fateful flight when 329 people died on June 12, 1985 when a bomb exploded in flight, destroying Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland.

 

A memorial for the Air India bombing is seen in Vancouver in June 2025. The families of the victims say the RCMP has told them the investigation into the bombing is inactive. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

The families, given that unexpected turn of events that capped a long investigation by the federal policing agency which was rife with errors and misadventures, felt abandoned. That the RCMP had decided to surrender any further investigations into an attack that was the deadly work of Sikh Canadians connected to the Babbar Khalsa group that demanded an independent Khalistan be carved out of the Punjab region in India was shockingly unacceptable. The group has terrorist status in India and with good reason. 

 

That the Minister of Public Safety had issued a statement to the media that the investigation remained open, in contradiction to the RCMP's statement of closure, attracted the attention of Toronto resident Sudha Berry whose 15-year-old brother had been one of the Air India's victims. Travelling from Canada to India via London, Air India Flight 182 exploded off the coast of Ireland when a suitcase bomb exploded killing all on board. Another bomb, also produced in British Columbia by the Sikh Kalistani group, meant for another Air India flight, blew up at Narita Airport in Tokyo leading to the death of two baggage handlers.

 

Two men linked to the Babbar Khalsa in British Columbia were initially charged with the crime in 2000, but court proceedings in 2005 with insufficient evidence on hand saw them acquitted. Inderjit Singh Reyat, a third suspect, was subsequently convicted of manslaughter in connection with both bombings. He is no longer in prison. Other suspects were identified both during the trial and inquiry, but never charged. It was a generally felt impressionthat the RCMP had bungled the investigation. The worst terrorist plot executed in Canada has never resulted in those responsible facing justice for the atrocity they planned and carried out.

 

Two reporters look over the remains of Air India Flight 182 on June 16, 2004, that were reconstructed by investigators in January 2003. (Chuck Stoody/The Canadian Press)

 

Placatingly, Minister Anandasangaree's office responded to the families' concerns and a further media probe and enquiry, by stating that the investigation remains open, and "should new, credible information or evidence come forward, it will be assessed and investigated and may lead to further investigative steps".   

"Given your [Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree] connections to the community, your previous meetings with the families at the anniversaries and your personal expressions of sympathy, we had expected you to do much better than your predecessors."

"You now have an opportunity to show your leadership and change the trajectory of the investigation."

Sudha Berry for Families of Air India Victims

"On Yom Kippur I went to a synagogue service in Toronto and was met by protesters trying to taunt and intimidate me from entering the building."

"My late father was an Austrian Jew who survived the Holocaust in Romania. And came to Canada as a refugee."

"This year I got an Austrian passport, in case Canada becomes unsafe for me as a Jew. I fear that moment is approaching, here in Canada and elsewhere."

"Jewish Canadians are living in a parallel world. Where police stand guard with guns outside synagogues. And Jewish schools, religious sites and businesses are targeted with bullets."

"And most Canadians have no awareness or understanding." 

Neil Herland, CBC National Radio News reader

An image from Neil Herland's video shows protesters outside the Meridian Arts Centre in Toronto. Photo by @NEILNews/X

 

When attempting to enter a building in Toronto on Monday to attend Yom Kippur service, CBC National Radio News reader Neil Herland spoke of his traumatic experience, a day after a lone gunman attempted to enter the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario with a shotgun. An event that saw an on-duty police constable with the Belleville Police Service shot by the gunman, who despite his severe injury, shot back to deter the terrorist from his goal of killing Jewish worshippers. 

 

The ongoing situation of mobs of Israel-haters descending on Jewish neighbourhoods to harass and threaten the community, and to gather around synagogues to chant invective and threats was to have been addressed by the Toronto Police Service in their solemn promise to maintain vigilance of such situations and disallow them, under the letter of the law, from their death threats against Canadian Jews in Toronto. They appear to have lapsed from that mission.

 

Mr. Herland took videos of a group of people blowing horns and waving Palestinian flags in front of the building where the Song Shul holds annual events at the Meridian Arts Centre, for the purpose of marking the High Holy Days of Judaism, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The group's shouts from the video included "Palestine will be free". As the news reader walks through he crowd. one of the 'protesters' shouts, shoving a megaphone at his face "You're going to hell!"

 

As he turns to  glance behind him, two individuals hoist a placard upon which is printed "Where's Your Humanity"? One shouts "Zionist alert", through a megaphone. The cantor spoke at the service of his nephew having been murdered in Ukraine in a suspected hate crime on Rosh Hashanah. The guest speaker was an Australian-born university lecturer from Israel, Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. A complaint had been submitted by a Canadian group called Just Peace Advocates to demand that Regev be barred from entering Canada.

 

Coincidentally, in Belleville, Ontario where the Sunday night attempt to enter the Sons of Jacob Synagogue took place, an active group calling themselves Belleville Justice and Peace assembles every Sunday afternoon with public demonstrations of its Palestinian advocacy. Local Belleville resident Shahid Mahmood one of its members, had been detained by Israeli authorities in May when he had been a participant in the Global Sumud Flotilla. Interesting how all these Jew-hating groups fulminating against the presence of Jews, tend to label their groups with that iconic word "Peace".

 

"Try this in Florida, and you go to prison for five years. Proud to have sponsored the bill to make that happen." U.S. Congressman Randy Fine.  Still from video, Neil Herland

 

Tellingly, it is Neil Herland's employer in Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, paid for by public funding, that is one of the many media outlets in the country that hews to a puzzling but firm decision to describe terrorists as 'militants', or any other word that evades just exactly what they are. Moreover, the CBC uses propaganda straight from the terrorist group Hamas to describe the situation in Gaza, rarely resorting to the use of information from Israeli authorities. 

 

As a supposedly neutral source of objective news, the CBC displays an obvious preference for Palestinian 'victimhood' under cruel Israeli 'occupation', somehow managing to overlook inconsequential details such as Palestinian leadership's devotion to 'pay for slay' and encouragement of Palestinians of all ages to regard Jews in Israel as their mortal enemy toward whose presence they must commit to jihad and self-martyrdom in the cause of 'liberating' Judean ancestral land from the grip of modern Israel. 

"Jewish people must be able to worship safely. To live free, open, proud Jewish Lives."

"Canada's government will do everything in our power to support law enforcement in ensuring that the perpetrator is held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."

"My thoughts are with the injured officer and his family, and the entire Jewish community."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"This vile antisemitic violence in Canada must end, and this Liberal government must act now to protect our people."

"Jewish Canadians must once again be able to live in their communities and pray in their places of worship without fear of being shot at or attacked."

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre 

Sons of Jacob Synagogue, Belleville, Ontario

 

Of the two political leaders' statements with respect to the latest violent attack on a synagogue in Ontario, that of the prime minister of Canada is one of studied sanctimony. This is a prime minister who cannot mouth 'antisemitism' without pairing it with 'Islamophobia'. One descriptive is a reality, the second is a mockery. It is not Jews who worldwide commit terrorist acts -- against Western symbols and non-Muslims but jihad-infested Muslims who are also creating mortal carnage among their own. Under this Liberal government the gates of Canada were flung wide open to welcome largely unvetted migrants, refugees and immigrants from cultures reflecting Islamic values incapable of ever accommodating themselves to Democratic and human rights laws.

 

On Sunday evening in Belleville, Ontario, at the cusp of the arrival of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement...Yom Kippur, congregants in the Sons of Jacob Synagogue became suddenly alert to the sounds of gunfire. Outside, on the street near the  synagogue, sat a Belleville police officer in an unmarked vehicle, on protective duty at the synagogue. Approached by a man with a shotgun, Constable Jeffrey Smith was shot and seriously injured. Nonetheless, he returned fire and with the assistance of another officer who soon arrived detained the attacker from his intent to enter the synagogue.

 

A barrage of shots rang out, many hitting the synagogue, before the attacker was subdued. His goal was obvious, to murder Jews at prayer during the most sacred day of the year for Jews. His injuries were critical. Both the assailant who was identified as a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces in Alberta, and Constable Smith were taken to Kingston General Hospital. Constable Smith will survive his ordeal, the would-be terrorist succumbed to his wounds and in this way 'justice was done'.

 

Politicians declare their horror at the violent event and thoughts of the possible outcome with scores of people dead. In Toronto, Mayor Olivia Chow expressed her insincere sympathy: "My thoughts are with the Jewish community and the injured officer in Belleville. The Jewish community will see an increased police presence as we take precautions to keep people safe." This is a mayor who refused to take part in a discussion on rampant antisemitism in Toronto. 

"Jewish Torontonians should not need police presence to observe Yom Kippur, or to simply live their day-to-day lives."

"As long as we contend with rising antisemitism and hate, we will spare no expense keeping the community safe."

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow 

These hypocritical words of comforting empathy from a mayor of all the people who has somehow found herself unable to support the Jewish community, preferring the company of Muslim associations where she obligingly mouths condemnation of Israel for its 'genocidal' actions in Gaza, effectively smearing the Toronto Jewish community even further at a time of rancid, growing antisemitism expressed in threats and covert vandalization of Jewish businesses, houses of prayer, children's schools and old-age homes.

 

On the board of Allies for a Strong Canada, dedicated to mobilizing non-Jewish Canadians in an effort to fight antisemitism in Canada, Laryssa Waler expressed her goal to have decision-makers and policy leaders understand that "it's not the responsibility of the Jewish community to solve antisemitism". The plain fact is that Jews in Canada have been abandoned by their governments at all levels, who are all too aware of the weight of the voting bloc of Canada's new Muslim demographic, as opposed to the infinitely smaller Jewish presence of far longer presence.

Police vehicles on scene after a shooting near a Belleville synagogue on Sept. 20, 2026. CITYNEWS/Bert Dandy

 

"Jewish people can't make non-Jews not hate them. They can't be nicer. They can't be more giving. They can't be more polite. It's on us not to hate them and to defend them and to say loudly 'We live in Canada. You can't hate another group of people."

"In Canada, we would not tolerate any other community being shot at, being harassed. We would lose our collective minds if a Catholic girls' school was shot at three times."

"Are Canadians going to continue to be tolerant of other Canadians being shot at, harassed and made victims of violence for the crime of their religion?"

Laryssa Waler, board member, Allies for a Strong Canada