Joe Adam George, the Middle East Forum’s research analyst for Islamist threats in Canada and a foreign policy and national security analyst with Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), spoke to a January 5 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Over the last decade, “permissive mass immigration policies under the liberal government led by Justin Trudeau” accelerated the spread of Islamism.
Radical Islam has been growing in Canada for over a half century. The Tablighi Jamaat organization, part of a global Islamic missionary movement, has been operating in Canada since the 1960s. Tablighi Jamaat was established to foster Muslim identity in Canada, but “it is a movement that shares its ideological underpinnings with the Taliban,” Afghanistan’s terror group that controls the country.
Since the mid-2010s, Hizb ut Tahrir, another Islamic fundamentalist political organization with global branches, has had a presence in Canada. Rejecting Western democratic norms, its stated ideology is to establish a global Islamic caliphate under Sharia. Recent immigration into Canada from the Middle East and North Africa brought with it more Islamic fundamentalism, in particular Saudi Wahhabism and the Salafist movement.
Over the last decade, “permissive mass immigration policies under the liberal government led by Justin Trudeau” accelerated the spread of Islamism when he permitted the entry of over 100,000 Syrian refugees fleeing civil war “who were not properly vetted.” Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated foreign terror groups, now use Canada as a hub for terror financing and transnational criminal activities.
Post-October 7, there has been an increase in two problems affecting Canada as well as the U.S., with which it shares a largely unguarded border: foreign interference in Western institutions from Qatar, Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB); and burgeoning youth radicalization. MB groups like Islamic Relief Canada fund raise in tandem with Palestinian Arab youth movements, thereby paving the way for Islamism to make inroads among susceptible Muslim youth.
Canada is “simply a means to an end” for Islamists whose ultimate goal is “to topple the United States and take over America,” which is considered “the great Satan” by the global Islamist movement. To comprehend the level of radicalization in Canada, compare the numbers of those who attempted to travel to Syria to join and fight for ISIS from Canada versus those who did so from the U.S. On a per capita basis, for every person from the U.S. trying to join ISIS in Syria, there were six from Canada. A “key driving factor” responsible for the increase in youth radicalization in Canada is ISIS’s online propaganda. Other notable factors are the disillusionment of youth regarding their economic prospects, and Canada’s liberal government policies that fail to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam. Instead of recognizing this threat, the government aligns with groups on the left who focus their energy on “far right extremism,” thus furthering Islamist goals in a “red-green alliance.” The government also patronizes Islamist groups by granting them funding that too often finds its way to terrorists in the Middle East.
Canada’s Muslim vote is powerful; its numbers are growing. In turn, the government creates a “permissive environment for vote bank politics, which is exacerbating the youth radicalization problem.” The symbiotic nature of the two leads to a dangerous cause and effect. “Because of Canada’s issues with vote bank politics, multiculturalism, and a strong culture of ‘wokeism’ and political correctness, it is far easier for Islamists to push their propaganda and engage with vulnerable youth.”
Canada is “simply a means to an end” for Islamists whose ultimate goal is “to topple the United States and take over America,” which is considered “the great Satan.”
Approximately two million Muslims in Canada comprise about 5 percent of the country’s total population—a number that wields influence over any party aiming to form a majority government. As the Jewish community in Canada only numbers approximately 600,000, it constitutes a small minority compared to the voting bloc of the Muslim community. The vote bank problem afflicts all levels of government—from municipal to federal—in key cities and in the provinces.
Amira Elghawaby, appointed by the Canadian government as the first “Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia,” was formerly communications officer for the Canadian branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR CANADA rebranded itself as the National Council of Canadian Muslims in the aftermath of the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2011 to “avoid any kind of scrutiny.”
The two sectors in Canada that Islamists target because of the ease over which they can wield influence are the government and the education system. The infiltration strategy is not only from Islamists holding official political positions from the top down, but also from the penetration of the education system by a grassroots push from the bottom up. Anemic school boards fail to challenge Islamists’ promotion of radical ideologies of anti-Israel Palestinian Arab racism in the curriculum, and they have caved to Islamist groups’ recent pressure to teach Islam in the classrooms.
In higher education, universities are rife with pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism. Islamist activists in academia generate papers advocating for “reviewing or downgrading our national security rules around terror designations or our anti-money laundering and terror financing regulations as well.” These academic papers are ultimately passed along to government offices, where they influence policymaking. Islamist activists in academia cloak their advocacy for terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah by repackaging them as “resistance movements.” To make it more palatable, they employ the leftist jargon of “social justice and human rights” to claim victimhood, citing “racism and Islamophobia.”
Whereas the U.S. requires its universities to disclose foreign funding, Canada has no such requirement. Post-October 7, funding to Canadian universities from Qatar, Turkey, and Iran has increased the influence of Islamic institutions within academia that are “essentially peddling” an anti-Israel, anti-Western, pro-Palestinian racism, and “Islamophobia” curriculum.
October 7 had a noticeable effect on the alliance between leftist groups and the Islamists in Canada’s education system. Prior to Hamas’s invasion of Israel, the two groups were at odds because of the left’s advocacy of LGBTQ and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in education. However, because of their shared hatred for Jews and Israel, the October 7 massacre brought the two groups back together.
Grassroots activism on the part of parents can counter “woke” school boards that push an anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian racism agenda. Finding common cause with like-minded communities will enable the formation of an alliance among Jews, Christians, Hindus, Chinese, Buddhists, and secular Muslims who object to the indoctrination plaguing their schools. Those concerned should create a critical mass of concerned citizens who can lobby elected officials to take a stand against this threat.
Canadians by and large “are only mildly patriotic,” which results in a “very weak sense of national identity.” Islamists fill that vacuum.
Leftist ideologues in government positions at the federal level, in trade unions, in school boards, and across the public and private sector are enabling Islamists to secure special privileges. These same ideologues advocate for spaces like Islamic prayer rooms and encourage Islamists to “share Islam and convert their fellow colleagues.”
Despite the law separating church and state, Islamists have mastered leveraging the environment by encouraging radical ideologies. Canadians by and large “are only mildly patriotic,” which results in a “very weak sense of national identity.” Islamists fill that vacuum by becoming “highly active in the political and social spheres.”
The success of Islamists “lies in their fluidity, in which they operate without any egos.” Each sector knows and sticks to its path of attack—the National Council of Canadian Muslims influences government policy, while the grassroots sector is “somebody else’s domain.” The sophistication of this strategy, in which Islamists “operate in a fluid nature,” is consistent with the MB’s stated modus operandi of a multiphased, bottom-up exploitation of Western freedoms. By doing so, the MB embeds its ideology through the gradual Islamization of society. Canadians, “or even for that matter, our security agencies,” fail to recognize the Islamist takeover hiding in plain sight.
