The Durham District School Board (DDSB), Ontario’s third-largest school board, recently circulated a 39-page internal guide on how to “support Muslim students, staff, and families” in combating “Islamophobia.” Produced in collaboration with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)—a group with alleged Muslim Brotherhood affiliations—the document marks another step in the accelerating penetration of Islamist-aligned ideology into Canada’s public education system.
Religious and political advocacy groups like the NCCM have no business indoctrinating young minds with propaganda. Their agenda has no place in public education.
The “Guide to Support Muslim Students, Staff, and Families” was distributed to all staff via an internal email from the board’s Communications Department on behalf of Jackie Leacock, Superintendent of Equitable Education, whose portfolio includes “anti-oppression.” A copy of the email was reviewed by Focus on Western Islamism (FWI). The NCCM also promoted the guide through its social media channels.
The document, co-developed with the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) and authored by the NCCM’s Education Team, is framed around the language of intersectionality, equity, and anti-oppression. It begins with a land acknowledgment, urges educators to use “culturally responsive” materials and to view student experiences through the lens of systemic “Islamophobia,” and directs staff and students to the NCCM’s online tool for reporting alleged “Islamophobic” incidents in schools. In sum, the document serves as a manual on how to stifle honest and open discussion about radical Islam in a school environment.
From Education to Indoctrination
A grassroots parent group, DDSB Concerned Parents, warned that the guide crosses the line from instruction to indoctrination, stating that families support learning about world religions, but reject participation in religious practices or graded belief-based content. It said that public education must remain “neutral, transparent, and accountable to every family.”
A parents’ rights group in Canada has condemned the use of materials produced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims in the Durham School district in Ontario. In a post on Facebook, the group asks calls on parents to document instances in which their children “were required to participate in a religious practice or was graded on belief content.”
(Facebook screenshot)
The parent group also called on the DDSB to “post the full guide on the DDSB website, bring it to a public board agenda, explain approvals and any costs, confirm that learning about religion is informational and optional with alternatives, and publish a privacy note for any third-party reporting tools.”
A DDSB educator, speaking on condition of anonymity, was more blunt. “Religious and political advocacy groups like the NCCM have no business indoctrinating young minds with propaganda. Their agenda has no place in public education,” the teacher told FWI.
The NCCM did not respond to an inquiry from FWI.
A Pattern Across Ontario
What is unfolding in Durham is not an isolated case. Over the past few years, the NCCM has embedded itself within multiple Ontario school boards, helping shape anti-Islamophobia frameworks, teacher training programs, and student outreach.
similar materials have been introduced in the Peel Region and Thames Valley districts in Ontario. Within the Toronto District School Board, NCCM staff contributed to training resources for educators and helped organize a conference for more than 400 Muslim student leaders drawn from 41 schools.
The NCCM receives significant taxpayer money to conduct their indoctrination courses. Earlier this year, the group received over C$450,000 from the federal government to hold a three-month ‘Pathways to Unity: Engaging Schools, Parents, and Communities Against Islamophobia’ program.
In recent years, the NCCM’s influence in K-12 education has expanded into crafting “anti-Palestinian racism” frameworks — billed as the “new Islamophobia” — that move well beyond combating discrimination and instead work to police legitimate political and security debate that undermine established Canadian principles and policies.
A June 2025 report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) has alleged that the NCCM has ideological and historical links to U.S.-based Islamist networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood ecosystem, including groups historically associated with Hamas. The Brotherhood itself is designated a terrorist organization in several Middle Eastern states, though not in Canada.
The NCCM has also faced repeated criticism for amplifying unverified hate crime allegations. In one widely publicized case, the group characterized an assault on a Muslim restaurant owner as “Islamophobic,” only for police to later confirm that hate was not an aggravating factor and no hate charges were laid. The NCCM did not retract its original accusations.
Normalizing Religious Activism in Education
Following the 10/7 Hamas attacks in Israel, Ontario’s public education system has increasingly become a staging ground not only for “anti-Islamophobia” campaigns but for the normalization of religious activism.
In October, the Waterloo Region District School Board promoted an “Islamic Apparel Store” through its staff portal during Islamic Heritage Month, featuring clothing emblazoned with slogans such as “One Ummah, One Love.”
In another case, Grade 4 students at a DDSB school were assigned a graded test on Islamic doctrine, causing a mother to withdraw her child from the class. The assignment required them to identify the Five Pillars of Islam, describe Muslim beliefs, and explain how they become “better Muslims by praying more and reading the Qur’an.”
The issue also extends into official curriculum. Ontario’s secondary school guidelines instruct teachers to frame jihad as a “spiritual struggle,” emphasizing “misconceptions” and “media portrayals,” while omitting the well-documented violent dimensions of jihadist movements carried out by ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, and others.
Interestingly, this framing closely mirrors a federal report on “Islamophobia” released earlier this year by Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia. In the report, jihad is defined exclusively as a personal “struggle,” while concerns about Islamist violence or entryism are attributed to right-wing media narratives and conspiracy theories. The report also ascribes Islamophobia to Canada’s “painful legacy of colonialism” and “racism, hate and discrimination.”
Meanwhile, the institutional infrastructure supporting Islamist-aligned education continues to expand. The Muslim Association of Canada — another Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organization — received degree-granting accreditation for its Canadian Islamic College in Mississauga. The college has been operational since September this year.
Ontario’s education system is being steadily repurposed as a vehicle for ideological conditioning. Under the protective language of equity and inclusion, Islamist groups are shaping curriculum, guiding teacher training, and influencing student identity formation. They are gradually normalizing radical narratives within institutions designed to be politically and religiously neutral, and little is being done to counter an ideological threat that would severely compromise North American security.
