New report IDs 111 groups involved in Canada’s antisemitism explosion

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OTTAWA — One-hundred and eleven organizations are behind Canada’s worrying spike in antisemitism since last October’s Hamas terror attacks, a new report suggests.

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And foremost in the report’s conclusions, released last week by Jerusalem-based think tank NGO Monitor, is a worrying lack of financial transparency with Canada’s nonprofits and charities, leading to groups subsisting on money from dubious or even illegal sources.

The report, entitled The NGO Network driving antisemitism in Canada, examines the intricate support and funding links between these groups, many instrumental in drumming up anti-Jewish and antisemitic sentiments in the country.

“What jumped out at us was this lack of transparency about funding for non-profits in Canada,” NGO Monitor’s Naftali Balanson told The Toronto Sun. 

“It’s really difficult to trace who is giving money.”

The report noted the opaque environment Canada has in terms of how nonprofits get their funding — with Balanson saying a similar study in the United States was only able to financially track around a third of the groups.

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“It wasn’t a lot, but we were still able to identify a certain amount of the funding.” he said.

“Canada was nowhere near close.”

Included in the report was a comprehensive diagram showing the funding and partnership links between these groups.

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Last year’s Hamas terror attacks in Israel unleashed an explosion of antisemitism here in Canada.

Emboldened by disinterested police and lawmakers, Canadian anti-Israel activists routinely hold marches, rallies and demonstrations in major cities, including at Jewish schools, neighbourhoods and community centres.

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Last year saw a 32% increase in hate crimes across Canada, with Jews the target of nearly three-quarters of all religiously-motivated hate — despite Jews making up less than 1% of Canada’s population.

Two people were arrested late last month in connection with shots fired at Toronto’s Bais Chaya Mushka elementary school during Yom Kippur, the second time gunmen targeted that school this year.

At the heart of this country’s anti-Israel movement, the report says, is Canada-based international terror group Samidoun — whose links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization are well-known and well-documented.

“A lot of difficult questions need to be asked about organizations that may have been raising funds for Samidoun, or partnering with them in significant ways,” Balanson said.

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The report describes Samidoun — named a terrorist entity by the federal government last month — as a “central node” in a broader network of anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations operating within Canada.

Among the most visible operations conducted by these groups were the anti-Israel encampments that began popping up at universities last spring, establishing “no-go” zones for Jewish students and faculty, as well as those whose beliefs didn’t align with the organizers.

“Some of those groups, we might not agree with them at all, but there’s quite legitimate activity,” he said.

“Some of it, though, is not legitimate.”

Other groups of concern identified by the report were the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) — an international socialist, anti-Zionist organization, which was a prominent voice in a number of university anti-Israel encampments in the United States.

Social media posts by PYM praised the Oct. 7 terror attacks, describing the murder of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians as a “legitimate resistance.”

The end result, Balanson said, are the creation of environments where Jews no longer feel safe.

“Those of us in Israel are facing a very real, physical threat — but so are Canadian and American Jews,” he said.

“That’s something we’re very concerned about.”

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