Here’s how Canada can prevent antisemitic extremism

The language problem But even a carefully drafted promotion offence will fail in practice if enforcement stays trapped in an English-and-French comfort zone. Some of the most explicit antisemitic vilification and extremist glorification in Canada circulates in Arabic and other diaspora languages—Urdu, Farsi, Punjabi—aimed at audiences immersed in foreign conflicts and transnational propaganda.4That structural vulnerability is mapped in “Canada has a language blind spot when it comes to anti-Jewish incitement”. If detection relies mainly on public complaints and English-language scanning, sophisticated propagandists migrate to linguistic and platform niches where Canadian authorities rarely look. The system ends up toughest on the least sophisticated offenders—and softest on those who understand the seams. A Canadian illustration—handled carefully, and without pretending any single figure is “the” cause—is the role of diaspora-facing digital influencers who circulate conspiratorial frames across language communities. Montreal-based online personality Hicham Jerando, a Moroccan-born Canadian citizen, has portrayed Jews as an invasive “occupier” class, claiming they seek to “seize” land in Morocco and elsewhere, while pairing conspiracy with insult and vilification. He has also praised Iran’s IRGC and glorified Hamas’s violence—yet continues to broadcast this incitement in foreign-language niches without meaningful accountability. The point here is not to pathologize communities, but to treat conspiracy-plus-glorification as a prevention problem when it targets a minority and normalizes harm. The most revealing part is the enforcement asymmetry. Quebec courts sanctioned Jerando for defamation and contempt—matters propelled by direct complaints from victims who could litigate—captured in reporting such as the Quebec damages coverage and the Quebec penalty report. Meanwhile, the more socially dangerous content has had a longer runway inside non-official-language niches. That is not a claim that any institution “approves” of the speech. It is a demonstration of how language can function as a shield: when incitement is harder to detect, translate, preserve, and prosecute, it can persist long enough to do real harm. Prevention must be prioritized Diaspora dynamics, therefore, require institutional maturity. The challenge is not to cast suspicion on whole communities. It is to distinguish legitimate protest from intimidation, and political grievance from early-stage radicalization cues—especially when imported conflicts are weaponized inside Canadian information spaces. Prevention doctrine has to be able to say, without flinching, that a small minority within some diaspora and newcomer populations—including naturalized Canadians—carry or adopt illiberal and extremist ideologies, and that those ideologies can express themselves as targeted hatred toward Jews. Treating that as an institutional design problem—triage rules, evidence standards, and earlier handoffs—avoids both naïveté and collective blame. It also means using international tools without outsourcing Canadian standards. Many subjects who could fall within the scope of a promotion offence did not begin their political trajectory in Canada. Some may have prior histories of supporting extremist organizations, being investigated abroad, or coordinating across jurisdictions. Canada already has mechanisms to seek corroborating information while preserving due process through the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The aim is not to “import” foreign decisions. It is to avoid assessing a suspect’s online activity here as if it exists in isolation—especially when trusted partners can corroborate a pattern of propaganda production or cross-border coordination that should inform Canadian risk assessments for bail, peace bonds, and sentencing. So what does “prevention” mean when radicalization cycles move faster than case-prioritization and reassessment? Canada has conceptual building blocks: the RCMP explicitly acknowledges the linkage between hate crime and violent extremism and stresses prevention alongside enforcement in its hate-crime overview. The gap is operationalization—multilingual capability, faster evidence capture, clearer handoff triggers, and disruption that treats a heightened hate environment as a security condition, not a communications problem. Canada cannot prevent every attack. But it can choose whether to keep treating antisemitic extremism as a late-stage file—something we condemn after it becomes violence. If we continue to manage weak signals as “not urgent,” we will eventually face the question other democracies face after tragedy: What did we notice early, and why did we decide it was not urgent enough?