"I feel like we're losing that connection of community and kids in the day of the internet, where sometimes the internet is the parent. And so, if there's anything that comes out of this and the incidents of 2026, I hope it is a willingness to have a very serious conversation about that."

"Before Tumbler Ridge, we may [have said], 'Were they actually going to do it?'  And now, we don't have the luxury of that thought process any more. To me, that is a heart-breaking state that our country is in, that has to be our state of mind now."

"In the past, we've been a little naive as a society and thought, 'Oh, you know, kids'. Or maybe just dismissed things when we should have taken them a little bit more seriously. And I think those days are gone now."

"Only the two students know if they were actually going to follow through, and I think that's what we really need to know. That's what our community wants to know and I'm sure in Manitoba they're thinking the same thing. They want to know: 'Were you going to really do this and why?'"

Mayor David Mitchell, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia

 

"[Rivers residents are] still processing [and dealing with the shock]."

"[It's] the world that we live in. It's very different now. There's a lot of hate and emotions that people don't know how to deal with."

"I've always kind of thought the internet somehow makes it worse. But then now the internet was a blessing to us that they could solve a problem before it really happened."

Mayor Heather Lamb, Riverdale Municipality, Rivers, Manitoba

 

"[The Rivers teen] was actively discussing and planning to harm other students at the Rivers Collegiate."

"Police located detailed handwritten plans, imitation weapons, roughly made imitation pipe bomb and assault rifle, electronic devices including cellphone and laptop and clothing with hate symbols and concerning comments."

Cpl. Melanie Roussel, Manitoba RCMP 

Bridgewater police arrested the 15-year-old on Tuesday. (Gareth Hampshire/CBC

In Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia a scant few months ago, an 18-year-old transgender youth went on a gun rampage through a school he had once attended. For the previous several years, the youth identified as female. When he entered the Tumbler Ridge school he was dressed as a woman, and was referred to after arrest for murder as 'she'. Before entering the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, the killer had turned his attention to his mother and a younger half-brother. After shooting them to death, he went on to the school to kill another six people, five students and a teacher, before he was finally stopped.

 

Now, two teens, one in Nova Scotia, the second in Manitoba, have been revealed to have discussed between them over the internet a similar plot to kill. They never advanced to the final stages of their scheme, however. They were arrested in mid-March. It seems that a 15-year-old girl who attended Parkview Education Centre in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, in online contact with a 14-year-old boy at Rivers Collegiate in Rivers, Manitoba had plotted to attack their schools with a view to killing other students.

 

Park View Education Centre is located in Bridgewater, N.S. It is a public senior high school that has about 900 students. (Cris Monetta/CBC)

 

Bridgewater Mayor David Mitchell spoke of children with mental health problems, compounded by malign influences they find on the internet, and that in his opinion there is an imperative at the national level for a conversation about these issues afflicting youth in Canadian communities, while emphasizing the importance at the present time of allowing the justice system to make its determination with respect to the two teens. 

 

The 15-year-old girl from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia was charged with conspiracy to murder and uttering death threats. Police noted that "hate crime and other possible offences are currently under investigation". As for the 14-year-old boy in Manitoba, he has been charged with uttering threats. The RCMP in Manitoba stated that additional charges may be forthcoming at the conclusion of their investigation. 

 

A 15-year-old from Nova Scotia and a 14-year-old from Manitoba are facing charges after police allege they planned simultaneous attacks at their schools in Bridgewater, N.S., and Rivers, Man. Police say they were alerted by the FBI and Interpol about online conversations between two teens.   CBC

 

It was revealed back in February that tech giant OpenAI had disclosed to police that the ChatGPT account of the mass shooter with eight deaths on his head, had been disabled in June. "Violent activity" on his account alerted the tech company's program investigators to the content of the account which they transmitted to the company's legal department for the potential of violent criminal intent. The legal department in turn had advised their head office administration to contact police, but those making the final decisions decided not to.  

"You put little hints out and hope that people are going to pick  up those hints. Sometimes the seeding is so that it does get thwarted and you do get attention and intervention. So, it's like a cry for  help."

"A lot of times people have nobody in their life. They don't belong to a group and the need to belong is such a fundamental human motivator that they find people who have similar ideology, or maybe sometimes they come into these groups without holding that ideology but wanting to belong to a group. We always do that-- we adapt to the group's norms. And the group norms here are nefarious and problematic. So, it doesn't surprise me that we see this from Nova Scotia to Manitoba."

"It was missed with Tumbler Ridge -- a huge miss. Tumbler Ridge was a large mistake."

"In about a third of the cases, there is a bully. There's a real interest in guns, violence and prior school shootings. So, they become a little bit obsessed and become experts in this type of violence."

"It's almost like a bravado; it's almost like a need to belong. You sh-t talk, then you're part of this disenfranchised group. But at least, you're part of the group, and that happens a lot."

Criminologist Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in Youth Mental Health and Violence Prevention, University of Ottawa 

 

"The Jewish community is increasingly asking a fundamental question: if imagery portraying Jews as vermin and celebrating the elimination of the Jewish state does not meet the threshold for hate propaganda laws, what does."

"As synagogues are shattered by gunfire and extremists march through largely Jewish neighbourhoods, it's clear that the status quo is not only unacceptable -- it's a growing threat to innocent life in our city." 

Joint letter: Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B'nai Brith Canada, United Jewish Appeal

 

"At protests at Bathurst & Sheppard, extremists openly made threats of violence, glorified terrorism, and depicted Jews as subhuman -- yet no arrests have been announced. After multiple attacks on our community, many are asking why the law is not being enforced."

"We're calling on the Toronto Police Service to investigate and lay charges, declare assemblies unlawful when there are activities that promote and incite hate, and make the necessary and critical changes to protect our city."

Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs 

Toronto Al-Quds Day demonstration   World Socialist Web Site

 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford last week made an attempt to stop an Al-Quds Day rally, originally a creation by the Islamic Republic of Iran, to claim the ancient Judean city of Jerusalem an Arab Palestinian city and the Temple Mount, the retaining walls of the biblical Temple of Solomon dating back to the 10thC BCE, the Islamic Noble Sanctuary where the Prophet Mohammed was said to have flown up to heaven mounted on a horse. 'Quds', the Arabic word for Jerusalem.

 

The ceremonial day is meant to convey Islamic ownership of Jerusalem, as much to deny Israel its rightful place on its own ancestral heritage territory. A blatant global religious intifada, in very fact. Characterizing the rally for Al Quds Day as an event that 'glorifies violence' and 'celebrates terrorism', the Premier's effort was for naught when a court rejected his request for an injunction, permitting the event to proceed, one its organizers described as a 'pro-Palestinian' rally.  

"These kinds of things make our community fearful, so we would love to see restrictions on things like promoting designated terrorist organizations and terrorism inside of Canada."

"I think there is a recognition of the challenges that we face at this particular moment in time that are increasing in terms of threats from terrorism."

"[The Jewish community remains] in the midst of an unprecedented tidal wave of antisemitism." 

Dylan Hanley, vice-president public affairs, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"We'd like to see the criminalization of the glorification of terror."

"We'd like to see additional Criminal Code offences that make it more difficult for terrorist organizations to operate in Canada after they are listed as terrorist entities."

Rich Robertson, research manager, B'nai Brith Canada  

Anti-Israel demonstrators hosting Nazi-era signage savaging Jewish personas featuring a caricature of an emaciated Orthodox Jew exiting a cave asking if "Iran has stopped" yet, a drawing of a caricatured Jewish man crying "Help us, Daddy!" into a walkie-talkie faced with an American flag as missiles rain down -- another of rats creeping in and out of a hole in the shape of the Star of David were flaunted in Toronto last week, in a disgusting display of racist denigration of the Jewish community. Joseph Goebbels would be proud of his propagandist inheritors.

 

Protesters display antisemitic posters demonizing Jews during protest at Bathurst St./Sheppard Ave. West in North York on March 15. (Images courtesy of @l3v1at4an on X)

 

Jews in Canada are asking the federal government to consider enacting criminal laws that specifically target terror glorification and acts that promote or encourage terrorism. A dramatic -- and to Jews in Canada -- horrifyingly familiar scenario of an ongoing rancid rise in antisemitic incidents that call out for government attention and  appropriate remedial action. Shootings of synagogues, anti-Israel protests that applaud the Hamas October 7, 2023 barbaric atrocities in southern Israel, calling for Israel's destruction, a 'final solution', to 'globalize the intifada'. 

 

Organized marches led by Palestinian student groups in Canadian universities that march through Jewish neighbourhoods, jeering, intimidating, threatening residents. These are groups that not only focus on preying on the Jewish community, but that also go out of their way to become public nuisances, blocking highways, mounting protests in front of hospitals and diplomatic missions. And blocking access to public traffic by kneeling en masse in public street prayers as a sign of  Islamic conquest.

 

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

"Week after week, for far too long, hateful protesters have been allowed to publicly spew antisemitic vitriol on this street corner [Bathurst and Sheppard]."

"The line has been crossed repeatedly. Toronto police must lay charges, the Crown must prosecute, and the courts must make clear that promoting antisemitism on our streets carries serious consequences."

Michael Levitt, CEO, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center  

According to Toronto police, an online statement assured it was "aware of antisemitic signs displayed at a demonstration this weekend at Bathurst and Sheppard" (the heart of the Jewish community in Toronto). "Hate Crime Unit investigators are consulting with the Ministry of the Attorney General regarding promotion of hatred offences under the Criminal Code." Yet, despite considerable police resources tasked to security of the Jewish community, the threats and the violence continue, as evidenced by recent synagogue shootings and another at the U.S. Consulate.

 

Toronto Police

 

Police Chief Warren Driechel Greg Southam/Postmedia

"[I see my recent trip to Israel] as valuable, among multiple learning experiences I will have in this role." 

"I remain focused on my longstanding and ongoing commitment to dialogue, learning and connection across communities and across boundaries."

"In mid-February, I joined police Chiefs from Canada and the United States, on a visit to Israel where we met police and community leaders in several cities. I spent time with police officers from Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze faiths representing a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I also met with Muslim community leaders who shared openly about their concerns and their reasons for working with police."

"These officers and community leaders operate in an environment that demands extraordinary vigilance - managing crime, counter terrorism, supporting community and crisis response all amid extreme complexity. Police to police we were able to talk about the toll this work takes on the people who do it. We talked about building trust in communities where there is little trust. We were able to get a glimpse of the undertaking required to police in complex environments. "

"I am grateful for what I was able to learn and share with those we visited and among my North American peers. These missions offer a great deal of insight and valuable perspective. I am grateful for the continued leadership and support of the Edmonton Police Commission who have supported me in this."

Edmonton Police Service Chief Warren Driechel 

Sharif Hasan Abdulahi is accused of hitting Const. Mike Chernyk with a car and stabbing him multiple times before driving a U-Haul truck through downtown Edmonton and striking and injuring four people on Sept. 30, 2017. CTV News 

 

This professional development trip for the purpose of coming to grips with and intimately coming to an understanding of how the most terrorist-attack-prone nation in the world handles this reality of its existence is one that is conducted on an annual basis, when Chiefs of Police from around the world gather for an unusual type of conference, but one increasingly of concern globally as terror attacks have not abated but gathered steam. The professional organization for North American big-city police chiefs on this year's delegation paid for Chief Dreichel's seat on the tour, and it was approved by the Edmonton Police civilian oversight board. 

 

However, when news of the trip and Chief Dreichel's public comments on the value he took from his participation went public, Edmonton's Muslim community expressed its disapproval of this educational opportunity. No fewer than 26 Edmonton mosques and Muslim groups notified the police commission through a jointly-signed letter that they felt "profound disappointment and hurt".  Chief Dreichel's trip, they emphasized, was the cause of 'deep pain' for Edmonton's Muslim community, affected by the conflict in the Middle East.   

"My big takeaway was that what they're learning and what they're working on. How do they build that connection to all of their community, including the Muslim people that live within Israel."

"[Understanding the] historical, geopolitical context, and how that maybe shapes things that go on in our own community [was helpful]."

Chief Dreichel

 

"At a time when countless families in Edmonton are grieving the devastating violence unfolding in Gaza and the region more broadly, the decision by the chief of police to travel to Israel to meet with policing institutions demonstrates a serious failure of judgment toward the communities he is sworn to serve and protect."

"For many members of Edmonton's Muslim community, particularly those with family directly impacted by the ongoing genocide, this decision has caused great pain."

Edmonton Muslim community joint letter

 

"At a time of rising Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, and hate towards marginalized communities, the choice to make this trip is harmful and further alienates members of our community."

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack  

Chief Dreichel made it clear that the delegation met no one from the Israeli government, its military or intelligence networks. This was purely and simply a police gathering to discuss how societies that face the spectre of terrorism can best use tried-and-true methods of intelligence, communication, cooperation and methods of collaboration with specific smaller communities within the larger one, to find common ground in the interests of security for all concerned.

 

In Canada, as in Israel itself, it is the Jewish community that has been under siege for the years following the Hamas-led terrorist attack that took place in southern Israel, on the border with Gaza, on October 7, 2023. It is also a known fact that Muslim youth groups in Canada on the very day of the atrocities and the day following and other days ad infinitum organized public rallies, marches and protests in support of Hamas, characterizing the mass brutality of murder, rape, torture and abduction of Israeli civilians as an understandable reaction to 'occupation'.

 

An 'occupation' that would never be necessary had Palestinian leaders over the years not incited their populations to hate, resent and resist the very presence of the State of Israel, claiming the very ancestral territory Israel sits on as the property of Arab Palestinians for their state. A state that could have been theirs in 1948, and every year after, had they recognized the legitimacy of Israel's existence, had they not aspired to destroy the Jewish State to claim the geography it sits upon for a Palestinian state, 'from the river to the sea'.

 

Islamophobia is a symbol of the victimhood that Palestinians clasp close to their bosoms, as a grievance against those who believe that Jews, like the Arabs that surround them, are entitled to their sliver of land; a tiny proportion of land apportioned by the United Nations, representing a minuscule part of Judean indigenous heritage, as opposed to the huge areas 'occupied' by the Arab nations that repeatedly went to war with the nascent Israel and failed with each endeavour to dislodge it. Muslims in Canada replay that 80-year-old scenario.

 

Edmonton itself has had experiences with Islamist terrorist attacks. And during the Islamic State reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, Islamist stalwarts from Edmonton went off to join them in their atrocity-laden Caliphate drive. 

 

Israel's response to the mass murder that took place on October 7, 2023, was to do what any other country in the world would do, in total accordance with international norms; enter the geography that had enacted the mass atrocity to hunt down and dispose of the terrorists, which in this case was the governing body of Gaza. It is a conflict of mass proportions, one that Hamas is comfortable with sacrificing its own population to achieve its purpose; destroying Israel. 

 

The charges of 'apartheid' and 'genocide', while playing well to the Muslim ummah abroad, are both hyperbolic terms of propaganda, since Israel's population is itself 20% Muslim, along with a wide array of other groups, from Christians, B'hai, Druze, Kurds and Circassians holding citizenship. As for 'genocide', under the 'occupation', the Palestinian population in both territories grew exponentially in size. It has been Hamas that has fuelled a war that has claimed victims among the population it hides behind. 

 

Yellow police tape outside Edmonton's city hall after the building was evacuated on Jan. 23. Bezhani Sarvar, 28, was arrested and is facing a number of terrorism-related charges. (Emily Fitzpatrick/CBC)

 

"It was brutal, and a real shock to see firsthand, these glass doors and windows shattered, and glass laying all over the place."

"The most heartbreaking part of all? Most of the response was, not feeling surprised. They told me: 'We believed we were respected and admired, and we believed people wanted us here, and this is what it's come to."

"I believe that any one of our citizens, any one of our residents who is under pressure and beleaguered and targeted consistently deserves to have support and protection."

"I want to remind everyone that they're not alone. These are words I've said so many times now since October 7, 2023."

"I think the first and most important thing is that I've tried, and my colleagues have tried to be there, to show up, to show solidarity and to deliver a consistent message from October 7, all the way through."

"We are only one part of the solution, and we do need the other levels of government to step up and respond in a similar fashion. And they haven't always done it. They certainly haven't done it consistently."

Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca

Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca in Vaughan, Ontario.  Photo by Ernest Doroszuk,Toronto Sun 

 

The mayor of Vaughan, a suburb of the City of Toronto, spoke before a congregation of hundreds of Jewish residents in the wake of a targeted gunfire attack at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue. At the sanctuary podium the mayor explained what had happened to Jewish worshippers who had arrived that morning, not knowing that their synagogue had been sprayed by bullets in the earlier morning hours. 

 

This, at a time when another synagogue in Toronto, Shaarei Shomayim, was also that very same evening hit by bullets, following an earlier March 2nd attack on Toronto's Temple Emanu El synagogue. In the city of Vaughn with its 350,000 population, 15,000 identify as people of the Jewish faith. The city of Vaughn, in complete contrast to Toronto, had held a city hall vigil for the two Bibas family infants murdered in Hamas custody along with their mother. 

 

The Canadian flag flew at half-mast following the October 7 massacre in Israel. Mayor Del Duca's municipality was the first in the country to introduce a "Bubble Zone" bylaw that prohibits demonstrations from taking place within 100 metres of a place of worship, hospitals and daycare facilities. A result of two back-to-back "large scale" synagogue protests that took place in 2024, described by the mayor as "really ugly". 

 

People carry a Palestinian flag during a rally in front of City Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 9, 2023.   (photo credit: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo)

 

Mayor Del Duca sent a message to the federal government where he called for "more action coming from the federal government", giving special mention to former and present prime ministers of  Canada, Justin Trudeau and his successor Mark Carney, neither of whom have exerted themselves to use existing laws under the Criminal Code to take steps to ensure the safety and security of Canadian Jews against a flood of 'pro-Palestinian', 'pro-Hamas' organized hate fests threatening the existence of the state of Israel and by extension Jews everywhere as they called to 'globalize the Intifada' and for that infamous 'Final Solution'. 

 

The Canada of their birth, the Canada of not so long ago is no longer the Canada that people of Jewish origin who are Canadian citizens recognize and love. This very Liberal party that has governed the country for over a decade is responsible for an influx of immigrants, refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa bringing with them their customs and values, their history and religious devotion, their customs and laws utterly at variance with those of Canada itself. And among those customs is a rabid form of Jew-hate that festers and boils over into the wider Canadian society.

 

The Canadian government that engineered this wholesale change in the meaning of Canadian identity and values under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has chosen to abrogate its primary duties of equality and justice in the greater interests of garnering votes among a now-large demographic against a far more modest-in-number group that has been left to its own devices to shelter itself from raging discrimination, racism, threats and violence. The Canada so beloved of its Jewish population has vanished.

 

As anti-Israel protesters resort to antisemitic taunts and display blatantly antisemitic signs in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, police say they will “consult” the attorney general about potential “promotion of hatred” offences. Juno News

 

"I want to make it clear: this can't be the occasional social media post: but through your language through your internal meetings with law enforcement, with intelligence officials. You make it abundantly clear that this can't happen, and it's got to stop."

"And you give directions to your ministers, whether it's your minister of public safety or your minister of justice and the attorney general of Canada, whoever it happens to be."

"You have these discussions at cabinet and in caucus, and you make it crystal clear, including to your caucus members. And you tell us all the measures you're taking."

"I have yet to see that kind of forceful language or behaviour or policies being adopted. What I've heard, both informally and on the public record, is a lot of process talk."

"[Some Liberal Members of Parliament have] said absolutely outrageous things, and they are not in the least interested in protecting the Jewish community. A lot of officials on all levels [won't call out Jew-hatred in the] hope it all goes away [or that they are] too busy counting votes, rather than standing up for Canadian values."

"They seem to have lost the ability to make moral or ethical judgments."

"[It must be stated publicly that it's wrong to protest] fully masked, aggressive, and clearly trying to intimidate people, in an area that you happen to know is a largely Jewish neighbourhood. [A generation ago] this would not have been even questioned."

Vaughn Mayor Steven Del Duca 

"Tehran's bet appears to rest on a familiar asymmetry; its conviction that it can absorb more pain, for longer than the U.S. and its partners are willing to tolerate."

"The leadership likely calculates that sustained economic pressure, finite munitions stockpiles, and the political cost of mounting casualties will narrow Washington's and Israel's appetite for a protracted confrontation."

"Time, in this view, is not neutral -- it's a battleground."

"If Iran calibrates its retaliation carefully, and if it can maintain elite cohesion at home, it may be able to outlast the immediate storm."

"Survival, not victory, is the strategic objective." 

Ali Vaez, director, Iran Project, International Crisis Group, Washington 

 

"They thought Iran was weak and they're realizing that although Iran is weaker than two years ago, the country still has thousands of ballistic missiles and drones."

"Iran has no other option than to resist and sooner or later they will realize that they made a mistake."

Foad Izadi, professor of world studies, University of Tehran

 

"My sense is that the Islamic regime's bench is deeper than the White House or the Israelis may be assuming."

"If the regime has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of its people, we haven't seen defections, we haven't seen signs there is a splintering inside the regime."

"There is sufficient cohesion in the clerical-judicial authorities that even with the taking out of the Supreme Leader and the armed-forces commander, it doesn't mean we are going to see a collapse of the regime."

Jeffrey Feltman, former UN undersecretary general for  political affairs

 

 

With the air attacks launched by the U.S. and Israel on 28 February leading to the death on that first day, of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, at minimum an estimated 1,100 people had perished in the space of the first four days of attacks. Large numbers of government and military buildings were destroyed both in Tehran and around the country. In a strategic bid for survival the Islamic Republic counts itself prepared to absorb and withstand great pain, more, it estimates, than the U.S., Israel and Gulf states combined could absorb.

 

With that in mind the strategy was developed to overwhelm the Persian Gulf with drones and missiles for the explicit purpose of exacting maximum chaos, exhaust the defensive capabilities of the region along with its political will, while disrupting global energy markets in the hope that this can all be achieved before Iran exhausts its massive store of projectiles. Weakened before the onslaught both by an earlier June 2025 wave of attacks, as well as a nation-wide series of massive protests against the regime, a depleted leadership is left to fight a war despite its polarized population.

 

"Iran, unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war", stated Ari Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, reflecting his crucial role in Iran's process of decision making. President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, senior cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi and Ari Larijani represent the makeup of an interim council. After the decision was made to elevate the deceased Grand Ayatollah's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, and the revelation that he was seriously wounded at the time his father was killed, it is now believed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has assumed the power of control in Iran.

 

 

Iranian leadership had determined to institute centralization plans for decision-making called the 'mosaic' defence strategy which includes giving military commanders the power to independently reach decisions reflective of any given situation they encounter. It was undoubtedly they who adopted the strategy of attacking Gulf Arab countries that are allies of the United States who also depend on the U.S. for their own defence, alongside trade and financial agreements.

 

Iran was estimated to have roughly 2,000 ballistic missiles left in its arsenal following last year's joint assault by the U.S. and Israel. A much larger number of Shahed drones formed an additional portion of their stock of weaponry, and a steady stream of additional drones is being handed over to Iran by its ally Russia, who is also producing them, modified and based on the Iranian design. Russia, according to an analysis through Bloomberg Economics produces the drones at a  rate of several hundred daily.

 

Smoke rising near the Dubai International Airport after a drone attack overnight on Sunday  Reuters

 

"Over recent days we're seeing operations against the launchers, on the one hand, and strikes to cork up the tunnels out of which those launders and missiles are meant to emerge", explained Israel's security cabinet minister Eli Cohen through Israel Army Radio. The U.S. strikes have hit thousands of targets across Iran, while Iran responded with hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones. 

 

No sign of anti-government protests have re-emerged internally in the country to date, with Iranian civilians likely hoping that foreign outside intervention may succeed where their January mass protests failed, at a steep cost in lives when the regime cracked down with deadly fire, killing tens of thousands of protesters.  

 

Conflict across the Middle East continues to rage after the US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran, killing the country's supreme leader on 28 February.  Anadolu via Getty Images

"For the Islamic Republic as an entity, it's vital to project the uninterrupted functioning of the system."

"Decentralization is critical for Tehran. It ensures that in the absence of communication with the central government, the country can continue to function for security political and administrative purposes."

"After the June war, Iran made considerable efforts to expand its launcher capabilities. It's unclear how successful they have been. [The entrances and exits of these facilities -- underground] missile cities -- [are also vulnerable to attack]."

"Although Iranian teams have reportedly worked around the clock to reopen damaged gateways, such efforts require resources that may eventually be depleted. If I had to offer an estimate, I would say Iran may be capable of sustaining the current tempo of attacks for at least another three to four weeks."
Arman Mahmoudian, research fellow, Global and National Security Institute, University of South Florida 

"[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)

 

"These attacks are out of fear, out of desperation. One who is strong wouldn't bomb demonstrations at all. It's clear that it has failed."

"[The American leader underestimated Iran’s resolve.] He doesn't understand that the Iranian people are a brave nation, a strong nation, a determined nation."

"The more he presses, the stronger the nation's determination will become."

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council 

 

"The optics are devastating."

"Israel just bombed a Ramadan gathering dedicated to Jerusalem. Every government in the Muslim world will face domestic pressure to respond."

Gulf-based anonymous diplomat  

Blasts strike Tehran’s Al-Quds day rally amid escalating US-Israeli strikes   Daily Jang

 

Israel issued a warning to Iranians on a Farsi-language X account. That warning was clear; that people should not attend the annual Al Quds Day rally to which the Iranian regime had urged all Iranians to turn out to demonstrate their loyalty to the Republic and its aims, even and most particularly during a time of great tension and danger, with air strikes over Iran and Tehran's military and weapons-storage and nuclear plants struck by the U.S. and Israel on a daily basis. The warning urged Iranians to clear the area, shortly before a planned attack on Tehran's central square.

 

It is doubtful that many Iranians received the message, since the regime had shut down all internet communications. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian in a social media post urged Iranian citizens to "disappoint Iran's enemies by taking to the streets in greater numbers than ever before". When Iranians in January 'took to the streets' all across the nation, they numbered in the tens of thousands in city after city, and not at the behest of their government. Their impetus to rally and demonstrate, despite the inherent dangers was to protest against the government.

 

The risks they took, in a regime known to be dismissive of human rights and which had in the past attacked its own people when they peacefully assembled to protest against the anti-human rights excesses of the  regime, was not unknown to the courageous civilians who faced off against the Basij police who used live ammunition to fire on protesters. An estimated 30,000 of whom were killed, many tens of thousands wounded and countless others arrested and tortured as opponents of the regime.  

 

Shiite Muslims stand over the representation of US and Israeli flags with pictures of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu during an annual Al-Quds Day rally in Peshawar, Pakistan, on March 13. NDTV

 

Gathered on Friday, ostensibly to support Palestinian claims to statehood on ancient Judean ancestral land, and to chant calls for the destruction of Israel, Iranians faithful to the regime gathered in Ferdowski Square in Tehran for the annual state-organized rally. The yearly rally, meant to take place on the last Friday of Ramadan, takes place when Iran loyalists globally remain faithful to the call, and arrange for similar ceremonial al-Quds rallies to take place throughout Europe and North America.

 

This year Israel targeted the area, as warned, but that warning did nothing to stop the mass demonstration, attended by a smattering of senor government officials. The bombing of the square is part and parcel of Israel's decision to destroy the infrastructure and leadership of the Iranian theocratic regime. Despite the combined daily aerial bombardment of both Israel and the United States -- and in fact, because of it -- Iran has responded by launching widespread missile and drone attacks not only on Israel, but at neighbouring Gulf states. 

PBS News

 

The midday explosion that rocked the Ferdowski Square area where crowds chanted "Death to Israel", "Death to America", sent crowds scrambling. No reports of casualties were immediately given. Following the strike, footage from the scene saw people chanting "God is greatest" in the fervour of divine belief, even as smoke billowed high in the area. 

 

A second message was posted in Farsi by the Israeli military criticizing Iran for blocking people from seeing their pre-strike warning. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei who leads the Iranian judiciary, was giving an interview on state television while at the demonstration, as the strike took place. He stated that Iran, "under this rain [of] missiles will never withdraw", as his bodyguards protectively surrounded him. 

 

Black smoke rises following an explosion in Tehran, as Iranians take part in the Al-Quds Day rally, a commemoration in support of the Palestinian people held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. (Elaheh Asiabi/Fars News Agency/AFP/Getty)