Daniel Robson: Canada has a language blind spot when it comes to anti-Jewish hatred

Courts in Quebec have recently sanctioned Jerando not for hate propaganda but for aggravated defamation and contempt of takedown injunctions. The signal is troubling: because the most incendiary incitement circulates in non-official languages, it escapes early complaint and structured monitoring. Victims of defamation can bring their own cases; Jewish communities subjected to vilification wait longer, and by then evidence has already decayed. Security agencies have warned that hostile states exploit diaspora information spaces to bend local grievances to geopolitical ends, including through foreign-language channels. That risk is mapped in Public Safety’s overview of hostile activities and in the Foreign Interference Commission’s final report (Vol. 4). Add the reality that platforms are now flooded with AI-polished propaganda amplifying pro-Iran narratives, and the case for upstream disruption is urgent. The policy fix should be national. Montreal’s Module des incidents et des crimes haineux (MICH) shows how a police service can try to prevent escalation, and the public guidance on how to report hate crimes and incidents is clear. But the operational gap is speed and language capacity. Major police services across the country should stand up foreign-language monitoring and rapid-triage units—in Arabic dialects (including Maghrebi), Farsi, and Turkish to start—in partnership with provincial Crown offices and coordinated with the RCMP, so flagged posts and live streams are translated, preserved, and evaluated in hours, not weeks. The goal is not to police opinion; it is to preserve volatile evidence and move quickly when criminal thresholds are met. Prosecution practice must match the Criminal Code we already have. When public incitement of hatred under s. 319(1) or counselling/advocating terrorism offences in general under s. 83.221 is plausibly met, the charge should be advanced up front, not saved for sentencing. Where violence or threats target religious property, s. 430(4.1) belongs as part of the official charging documents. And when other counts are used—assault, mischief—the hate motive should be put forward from the start, with s. 718.2(a)(i) recognized as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Cities also have a role. Municipal permitting should align with federal terrorist listings by prohibiting the display of the insignia of listed entities and chants advocating attacks on civilians, with real-time revocation for breaches. The Charter line here is well understood: protest is protected; incitement to violence is not. Montreal is a warning, not an outlier. If Canada treats anti-Jewish incitement in non-official languages as an evidentiary afterthought, we will keep responding to assaults and death threats instead of preventing them. Build the foreign-language triage capacity, align prosecution practice with the Code already on the books, and make permits reflect federal reality. Then measure progress publicly—time-to-triage and time-to-charge—across major cities. If we get this right, the country will spend less time watching hateful chants become attacks, and more time ensuring every Canadian can walk their own street in safety.