Anticipating the presence of thousands of demonstrators in downtown Toronto this coming Sunday, police have advised parts of downtown streets would be blocked for Al-Quds Day—an annual event calling for an end to Israel.
Toronto Police Services and “municipal, provincial, and federal partners” will be monitoring events closely, including for any potential threats, according to Craig Young, the acting superintendent for emergency management and public order.
“We will continue to balance the right to protest with the need to maintain public order and public safety, as well as the safety of our members,” said Young at a press conference on March 21. He cautioned against interfering with police during large protests.
“Engaging in confrontations with law enforcement, obstructing police, or resorting to violence is not acceptable,” said Young. “And we will not hesitate to enforce the law.
“We appeal to everyone heading downtown this weekend to stay peaceful and respectful.”
Police will continue to keep demonstrators and counter-protesters separated, Young said.
“There is an interest… a need to keep the groups separated based on our experiences with counter-protests that we’ve witnessed over the past year and a half,” while maintaining everyone’s Charter rights, he told reporters.
Police always attempt to reach out to event organizers in advance, said Young, and while some oblige, engaging with police on what does and does not constitute lawful protest, other organizers “have adopted an adversarial stance and will not cooperate in any way with us.”
Superintendent Katherine Stephenson, who heads up the force’s intelligence services, said TPS officers would be “highly visible” over the weekend.
“I want to remind everyone that every reported instance of hate, including in demonstrations, will be investigated. This includes hate crimes, hate speech, hate signage, and flags of terrorist organizations designated by Public Safety Canada,” she told reporters.
While Stephenson spoke, a graphic appeared with a TPS statistic citing a total of 217 arrests and 596 charges laid in hate crime offences since Oct. 7, 2023.
The annual Al-Quds Day march and rally, which calls for an end to Israel and to rename Jerusalem, comes amid heightened unease this year for Toronto’s Jewish community following news this week that a suspect arrested for attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues and who faces terror-related charges was released on bail.
Stephenson said the force is doing its best “to educate the communities and also [provide] additional education to our officers,” about what constitutes a hate crime, including hate speech.
Concerns over possible hate speech at the upcoming demonstrations are amplified among Jewish groups this year after the event’s proponents, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was added to Canada’s list of terror groups in June 2024.
Named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem, Al-Quds Day is an annual protest coinciding with the end of Ramadan. It was started in 1979 by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to call for the destruction of Israel.
Organizers have called the assembly to meet outside the U.S. Consulate on University Avenue. Al-Quds Day marches are also scheduled for Calgary and Montreal over the next few days, along with a week of anti-Israel protests in Vancouver. (The latter has not been publicized as related to Al-Quds Day.)
Some of the previous Toronto rallies have included antisemitic rhetoric and images with a focus on Israel’s destruction, and have occasionally led to clashes between attendees and counter-protesters.
Toronto politicians seeking to stop it
Councillor James Pasternak, who represents a Toronto riding with a significant Jewish population, said the annual gathering was “known for inciting violence and antisemitism,” characterizing the demonstrations as hateful and unsafe.
“The Al-Quds Day march is not Charter protected,” wrote Pasternak in a statement March 11.
“Organizers of Al-Quds Day have in the past invited Holocaust deniers to speak, while other speakers call for violence against Jews and spread conspiracy theories to support such. Some speakers have demanded that Jews in Jerusalem be shot and called for the annihilation of Israel. Given the months of dangerous protests that have occurred throughout Toronto, it is anticipated that this year’s Al-Quds Day will be menacing.”
Pasternak expressed his concerns to the city manager ahead of the April 2024 event, in a discussion about managing demonstrations in the city.
A plan for city staff to develop a bylaw to manage protests outside on buildings such as community centres and synagogues has been stalled, for now, while the city conducts a further consultation. An online survey about how demonstrations should be handled is open until May 1. The city said the proposed “bubble zone” legislation will be presented to council in May, following the consultation, in a press release March 17.
This year, Pasternak and city councillor Brad Bradford called on city staff and TPS “to enforce the City of Toronto bylaws, the Criminal Code, and our rallies policies.” Pasternak again suggested the city’s legal department seek a court injunction against the event, “to ensure the safety” of Toronto residents.
In a separate statement, Bradford said the annual gathering “has become a platform for the glorification of hate and violence.”
“Participants have used this event to chant genocidal slogans, promote antisemitic rhetoric, and support terrorist organizations that advocate for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people,” wrote Bradford.
“These actions are not just controversial speech—they are calls for harm, they are violations of Canadian laws, and they pose a direct threat to public safety.”
The councillor for the Beaches area, in the city’s east end, said some participants at past Al-Quds Day rallies have crossed the line into hateful behaviour.
“There are serious concerns that this will happen again later this month,” he wrote. “Antisemitism in our city is at an all-time high, and the Jewish community is understandably concerned about the potential for increased violence.”
Concerns are nationwide
B’nai Brith Canada is urging the mayors of the four cities where Al-Quds Day marches are scheduled or expected to ban the event, said Richard Robertson, the organization’s director of research and advocacy. A letter-writing campaign has resulted in thousands of Canadians writing to elected city leaders in Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto about shutting down what Robertson says are annually the four biggest and “most virulent” protests.
“Our call this year to ban Al-Quds Day is not specifically a result of the listing of the IRGC [as a terror entity by Public Safety Canada],” said Robertson in an interview.
“It’s something that B’nai Brith Canada has believed strongly in for some time — that allowing a day where hate is continuously propagated, and where division is sown on our streets, is antithetical to our morals and values as a society, and that’s why we continued our call this year for municipalities to ban Al-Quds Day, and we’ll continue this call in the future.
“The idea that Canadians will take to the streets to promote the agenda of a sanctioned entity… an agenda associated with a listed terror entity… it should be of concern to all Canadians.”
The IRGC was listed as terror entity last June by Public Safety Canada.
“Canada will use all tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist activity of the IRGC, conducted both unilaterally and in knowing association with listed terrorist entities such as Hizballah and Hamas,” according to a media release issued by the agency.
Robertson says B’nai Brith has spoken with Toronto Police in advance of the march, but “we believe it’s incumbent that proactive measures are taken to prevent these protests from occurring in the first place.”
“We have full faith in the ability of law enforcement across the country, to monitor, and to manage Al-Quds Day rallies. However, those are Band-Aid solutions that will result in charges being laid after the fact. If there is any criminal or nefarious activity, we know for a fact based on our review historically of Al-Quds Day celebrations that these are rallies that are used to foment hate where hate speech and antisemitic rhetoric [is] front and centre in the discussion.”
Charter rights are not absolute, he says.
“It’s the position of B’nai Brith that the preventing of the annual hate-fest that is Al-Quds Day, especially given its links to [listed terror] entities [and the] sanctioned Islamic regime, would be well within the reasonable limitations that governments can impose upon citizens’ Charter rights here in Canada,” said Robertson.
Robertson noted that he hoped that the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), which has been responsible for the arrest of individuals on terror-related charges, would be working with local police at the Al-Quds rallies.
“We know that the INSET teams cooperate closely with law enforcement at all levels… it’s our hope that the INSET teams will monitor all Al-Quds Day rallies for the potential for there to be links between the Al-Quds Day rallies and national security threats.”
In Toronto, where symbols of terror entities such as Hezbollah flags have appeared at some protests post-Oct. 7, Robertson notes that city officials have yet to engage on the matter.
“It’s disappointing that the city [Toronto] seems to be wilfully blind to some of the developments surrounding the IRGC and surrounding Iran, and that that hasn’t served as an impetus for taking action against the upcoming Al-Quds Day protest.
“We’ve been trying to work specifically with the City of Toronto for a number of years” on the annual event, he said. “Unfortunately, we’ve never received a willingness from the city to truly confront the issue and bring an end to the Al-Quds Day hate fest.”
Toronto mayor Olivia Chow’s office was sent a request for comment by The CJN, which did not receive a reply by press time.
Requests for comment to the office of Ontario’s attorney general, Michael Kerzner, were also not returned before deadline for this story.
Montreal MP Anthony Housefather, a former special advisor on Jewish community relations, said he was calling on the city’s mayor and police to enforce the laws and quickly shut down any illegal activity, according to a report from the National Post.
Why is this rally different from other rallies?
Despite its own monitoring efforts, B’nai Brith Canada doesn’t encourage supporters of Israel to attend the Al-Quds Day rallies.
“Allow police, law enforcement, [and] other security officials to monitor and act appropriately as the situation needs,” he said, adding that B’nai Brith will also be monitoring Al-Quds Day.
“If there are instances of criminal activity… of hate speech or antisemitic activity taking place at any Al-Quds Day rally across the country, we will certainly be doing our due diligence in ensuring that those who are responsible for propagating hate on Canada’s streets are held accountable.”
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) decried 18 months of protests it says have “normalized dangerous rhetoric, incitement to violence, and glorification of terror.” But Al-Quds Day is not just another protest or demonstration, read CIJA’s statement.
“It is a state-sponsored, anti-Israel event, orchestrated annually by the Iranian regime to support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—a Canadian-listed terrorist organization—in its efforts to destabilize the Middle East and spread hatred against Israel, Jews, and Western democratic values around the world. It is unacceptable that an event threatening Canada’s core values of inclusion, diversity, and democracy continues to be tolerated.”
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) also called for police to “protect the safety of the Jewish community and to hold accountable anyone who engages in hateful or violent rhetoric at the demonstration.”
“True to form, in promoting this year’s Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto, the poster for the event is titled, ‘Palestine Resists… Zionism Ceases to Exist,’ clearly calling for the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people,” read the statement from FSWC. “It is a clear threat to Canadian Jews.”
