← What Is Happening Here | Canadaland Investigates
What Is Happening Here | Canadaland Investigates
(BONUS) 2026 Update: What Has Happened Since?
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Canadaland funded by you. I'm Jesse Brown and this is an update on what is happening here. It's been just over four months since we published the last episode of this series. At that time, in late December of 2025, Israel had recently entered into a ceasefire with Hamas and there were hopes that the unprecedented spike in in harm and discrimination to Canadian Jews was over, or at least on the wane. What you're going to hear today is an overview of the ways in which those hopes were realized and the ways in which they were let down. I'll also take a few minutes to update you on what has happened with this show itself. I asked listeners for support in order to finish funding this podcast and I also asked for help in order to carry the message of this show as far and wide as I could. I want to tell you about how that's been going. This episode will sound different than earlier episodes. There is a significant amount of information to convey about what has gone on these past few months. So today I'm just going to spend this time taking you through all of it and I'll spend a little bit of time talking about what to make of it all and what it all means to me. Thank you for returning. So I'll begin this update the same way that I began this series, by talking about the most clear and obvious examples of anti Jewish harm. Just days after publishing the final episode of this show, news broke that three men living in the suburbs of Toronto were accused of hunting women and Jews on the streets of Toronto as part of a hate plot. Toronto police were quoted saying that they had arrested three individuals for offenses targeting women and members of the Jewish community, attempted kidnapping with firearms, conspiracy to commit sexual assault, and other offenses informed by hate motivated extremism. One of those three men was accused of conspiring with isis. Now, the exact details of their plot are are known to me and other reporters, but legally cannot be shared because of a publication ban. In the time that has passed since our last episode was published, three more Canadian synagogues were sprayed with gunfire. All of them are located in and around Toronto. And all three of the attacks came shortly after February 28th when America and Israel attacked Iran. Other Canadian synagogues have been attacked. Shere Zedek in Winnipeg was vandalized with swastikas in January, and much more recently, the Sephardic Kehilla Centre in Toronto was approached by a violent individual during Shabbat services. The congregation was full. The attacker was stopped before he could enter, but not before committing an alleged assault of the Person who stopped him. On the first episode of the series, you heard a Jewish mother talk about what happened to her daughter who was targeted repeatedly for abuse and assault by schoolmates in in her school near Toronto in the Peel Region School Board. A very similar story was reported in March. A 15 year old Halifax boy named Joseph Rubin Schneider, who lives in a neighborhood with a large Muslim population, was pulled from his public school after being repeatedly physically assaulted by schoolmates who threw Nazi salutes at him, called him Jew boy and Joseph. One final update about physical threats to Canadian Jews. This is an update about what we learned about an earlier planned attack. You may remember me talking on this series about two teenagers in Ottawa who were arrested for planning some kind of ISIS connected terrorist assault on a very large gathering of Jews who gathered on Parliament Hill for a demonstration in October of 2024. Well, just a couple of weeks ago, one of those teenagers was convicted of trying to murder as many Jewish people as possible. Details of this planned attack were initially obscured from public view, but the Toronto Star fought for and was granted by the court the ability to report some of this. And what we learned was that this was not a theoretical plot or a case of youth being entrapped by police into saying things that they had no intention of doing. Two bottles of 100% acetone, 5 pounds of an oxidizer and 6,000 ball bearings. All of this was found in the convicted teenager's bedroom. His plan was to create three pressure cooker bombs. He would pack them with ball bearings to, quote, maximize the death and injury caused by each. And he also planned to strap one of the bombs to himself to detonate at the end of the attack. These details were of particular interest to me because present at that demonstration were my parents who went to Ottawa to stand with other Jews and call for the release of the hostages. That teenager's accomplice, also a minor, is yet to stand trial. He was reportedly released on Bailey. You've heard a number of stories about the impact of anti Zionism and anti Jewish discrimination on civil society. And there is more news to convey there. In March, the Chair of the McGill University Law faculty Advisory Board resigned due to anti Semitism at McGill University. The next day, Vanier College in Montreal canceled its annual Holocaust memorial and let Holocaust survivor Eva Cooper know that her services as a speaker would not be necessary because they considered this event to be a, quote, security risk. Later, after public outcry, they apologized. I spoke in detail on the series about a weekly protest in the Jewish neighborhood here in Toronto at Bathurst and Shepherd, I want to give you an update on what has happened to that recurring protest. As time went on after the ceasefire, the number of people in attendance at that demonstration got smaller and smaller. But the activities of the protesters who remained got more and more extreme. You heard about how they left the busy intersection of Bathurst and Shepherd and ventured into residential Jewish neighborhoods. That continued week after week until in mid March, one of the protesters, a man named Anas Sial, showed up with two posters which depicted Jews as hook nosed, naked, demonic creatures. These were images that you might have found in Nazi propaganda in the 1930s. Those graphic images, it seems, were understood by police as anti Jewish hatred in a way that dozens, maybe hundreds of signs of that protest in months previous did not, leading finally to an arrest for public incitement of hatred at a demonstration. The Chief of police let it be known the protesters would no longer be permitted to demonstrate in residential neighborhoods. This was welcome but frustrating news to the Jews who live there. On the one hand, their demands for adequate police protection were finally answered, but on the other hand, this revealed that it was always within police power to stop this from happening in the first place. While we're on the topic of policing, in April, the former head of homicide for the Toronto police, a man named Hank Idsinga, who happens to be the grandson of a Holocaust victim, came forward through the press to reveal his experience through the years. He said that there exists antisemitism at high ranks within the Toronto Police Service. He said that members of the public should be aware that if they call the police to report an antisemitic hate crime, there is a chance that they might be speaking to an antisemite. He also specifically said that high ranking antisemitic police in Toronto have been in charge of decision making about how to police anti Zionist protests. Finally, one last update on how the anti Zionist movement in Canada is shifting its goals and targets. In March, a coalition of anti Zionist advocacy groups, including BDS Ontario and Just Peace Advocates, launched a campaign against Canadian Jewish summer camps. Camps which they called supporters of a genocidal state. This was followed up in April with a campaign targeting Canadian Jewish Day schools. The anti Zionist groups are currently attempting to have the charitable status of these Jewish schools revoked by the Canadian government on the grounds that these schools allegedly break laws prohibiting charities from supporting or recruiting for foreign armies. As supposed evidence of these allegations, the anti Zionist groups point out that some Jewish students who graduated from these schools went on to serve in the idf. I'm going to update you now on news concerning the Canadian government's response to the crisis of antisemitism in Canada. Shortly after October 7, 2023, then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed a woman named Deborah Lyons to the position of Anti Semitism Czar. Her specific title was Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust remembrance and Combating antisemitism. Then on July 25th of 2025, Deborah Lyons resigned early from that job. She said that she left out of despair and frustration and because she was unable to get politicians to work with her or each other to combat hate. After she left, Canada's current Prime Minister Mark Kearney did not replace her and her post was left empty for seven months. As anti Semitic incidents continued at record levels this past February, Kearney eliminated the role entirely and announced that instead Canada will be forming a new advisory council not to combat antisemitism exclusively, but dedicated to rights, equality and inclusion. The Kearney government also announced new funding for increased security at synagogues and they received a report from Canada's Senate with a number of recommendations on how to combat antisemitism. It was noted by some in the press that this 73 page report from Canada's Senate does not once mention or refer to Islamism or Islamic fundamentalism as an anti Semitic threat at other levels of government. The Premier of Manitoba, Wab Kanu, used the term Epstein class in criticizing America's actions in Iran and later denied that this term carries any anti Semitic meaning. When authorities in Toronto held a news conference to talk about their response to the synagogue shootings, Toronto's Mayor Olivia Chao was conspicuously absent. Finally, the New Democratic Party, the NDP in March elected Avi Lewis as the new leader of their federal party. You heard Avi Lewis voice earlier in this series. He was dismissing concerns of antisemitism within the British Columbia NDP party and he was dismissing complaints by Jewish students. He called these Jews raising alarms about antisemitism, cartoonish narcissists and Jewish supremacists. When he took the stage for his first speech as leader of the federal ndp. This was a giant Palestinian flag and notably no Canadian flag behind him. According to a story from Blacklock's reporter shortly after becoming leader, he stated that the NDP must counter what Ivy Lewis described as a quote, incredibly active, powerful Jewish lobby in Canada. So that's an overview of the situation for Canadian Jews since late December 2025. Now it does seem, at least anecdotally that the street level and campus level anti Zionist protest movement has waned considerably. But as the numbers get smaller, as the wider public is less motivated to take to the streets against Israel. It does seem like the hardcore activists are less careful about sanitizing their message. And it also seems that going forward, the focus and the harm on Canadian Jews is going to be tethered to the actions of Israel. As anger against Israel waxes and wanes, so do the harms against Jews in Canada. When listeners first heard episodes of what is Happening Here, we did not have enough money to finish the series and I was asking for help to complete the funding. I'm very happy to say, and very grateful to say that we reached that objective. After that, I asked for help to fund an awareness campaign. My objective then and now has been to sound the alarm about the worsening situation in Canada to as many people as possible before one of these mass murder attempts against Canadian Jews becomes a actual mass murder. Beyond that, I wanted to get this show and its message to as many people as possible. Specifically, I feel that the voices that you've heard on what is happening here have the power to cut through the usual admonishment that antisemitism must be combated and resonate with different people on a different level. I want these things to be heard by people outside of Jewish circles, by younger people, by progressives, by students. I asked for your help with that and I was overwhelmed by the response. And because of that generosity, I've been able to dedicate a lot of time and effort towards spreading the word. I've been lucky enough to have been published by magazines including the Atlantic and Newsweek. I have been interviewed on television by CBS News, and I think at this point I've been interviewed on dozens of different podcasts and radio shows. Thanks to your help, we have reached millions of people with a message not about anti Semitism being bad, but about anti Zionism being hateful and destructive to Jews of Canada and everywhere. I have two observations about that experience that I'll share with you. One is that it has been far easier getting American media to pay attention to what is happening to Canadian Jews than Canadian media. After this series came out, a lawyer and anti Zionist activist named Dimitri Lascaris made a public call to a globalize the Intifada at Canadaland. That message was shared and endorsed by journalists and it's just one of many ways in which publishing this series has kicked up the dust once again and made myself and my company and my colleagues targets to people in this anti Zionist movement. But I want to end this update episode not by talking about the negatives, about what it has cost me and my colleagues to publish a show like This I want to talk instead about the positives. Maybe the best way to do that is to talk about a trip I took to New York City. I was not really looking forward to it. I flew into town early to get ahead of a massive historic blizzard that would soon hit New York City. And I had a schedule filled with interview after interview after interview up and down the island of Manhattan through the slush and snow. I knew it was going to be a grind, and I was just not expecting to have the most energizing and galvanizing and exciting few days that I can remember. What made this trip great were Jews. I had forgotten about the Jews of New York. In the course of 72 hours. I met with lefty quasi communist Jews at the Forward. I met with hawkish conservative Jews like Dan Senor and people from Tablet magazine. I met with wealthy Jews on the Upper west side, and I met with struggling young Jews in Queens. I took meetings in private equity firms and in taco shops. I spoke to academics and journalists and lawyers and writers and thinkers. And I spoke to the guy who owns the Comedy Cellar. I was on his podcast. And the whole experience brought rushing back to me my love for Jews and for being Jewish. I realized that I had been carrying it as sort of a burden since October 7, with all of the horrors and anxieties and fears and anger that that experience brought to me. But now, here I was in what is to me, the Jewish capital of the world, New York City, reconnecting with Jews with brilliant and funny and furious minded Jews. All of these Jewish brains from different perspectives, all working on the same problem. I mean, if you think that I speak too fast, you should spend some time with these people. Here in Canada, I have really been feeling our minority status. But in New York City, I found myself caught up in the energy, this inspirational energy of people who will not ever be beaten, who are collectively getting off of our back heels, getting out of a defensive crouch, and figuring out together, through argument and through our resources and through humor and everything else, that we still have how to push back. So look, it's true. The Yiddish phrase is correct. Schwertzeine yid. It's hard to be a Jew, but it's also joyful to be a Jew. It's purposeful to be a Jew. And it can be. It can be strong and empowering to be a Jew. I find myself doing this work and carrying this message by accident, but I'm lucky to be doing it. And I'll keep doing it for as long as there's fuel in my tank. As promised, I'm going to be touring Canadian universities this fall. Before that, I'm going to be speaking at the world's first symposium against anti Zionism. That's here in Toronto. And late at night on May 21 for Tikkun Leal Shavuot, I'll be speaking at the Marlene Meyerson Jewish Community center on the Upper west side of Manhattan. I'd like to keep going and do more and take what is happening here to more campuses in Canada than four. And I would like to take it to campuses in the US if you want to fund any of that or if you are connected in some way to a campus and you want to help, bring me in. Email me directly at Jesse J. Dashesanadaland.com For those of you who want to fund this, I will take you through that process and show you how you can get a charitable tax receipt when you do. That's it for now. Thank you for listening.