Two people were killed and four more were seriously injured after at least two people opened fire at a Toronto street festival on Saturday, police said.

At 8:12 p.m., Toronto Police responded to reports of active gunfire at 781 St. Clair Ave. West. At a news conference at about 11 p.m., police said that they no longer believed there was an active shooter.

Police said there was an exchange of gunfire between two people who were targeting each other, however, they could not say if the shooters were deceased or if all the people injured were involved in the altercation. There have been no arrests, but police don’t believe the public is at risk. Two guns were recovered at the scene.

“This is a very fluid and active matter,” Deputy Chief Frank Barredo said. Police “are not ruling out that there are additional shooters.”

NEW:

Deputy Chief Frank Barredo clarifies the shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair Festival was not an active shooter scenario, but rather individuals exchanging gunfire in the crowd.

📸 Jul 11, 2026#Toronto #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/FV42GaALyx

— Caryma Sa'd - Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) July 12, 2026

Barredo said police have identified three crime scenes in the area of St. Clair Avenue West and Arlington Avenue. He said he doesn’t know how many shots were fired.

A vendor at the festival told The Canadian Press that she saw a “huge wave” of people running after shots were fired.

“Everybody started getting frantic and then we stopped serving,” Patsy Gutierrez said.

Videos posted to social media show people running.

Valerie Rodriguez told the news outlet that people were screaming and running and she was told “to lay down onto the floor.”

“We got scared because we didn’t know exactly what was happening,” she said.

The Salsa on St. Clair festival was taking place between Winona Drive and Christie Street. The festival is 22 years old and celebrates Latin food and culture over the course of two days. Police said there were approximately 13,000 people at the festival at the time of the shooting.

“You can just image the chaos, the fear,” Barredo said.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow joined police at the press conference to thank first responders and send condolences to the families of the two people who died.

“I’m deeply disturbed and angry about this reckless, irresponsible act of violence, and right in the middle of a festival attended by children,” she said.

On Sunday the CN Tower said in a social media post that it would be dimming its lights at the start of every hour “in homage to the victims of the shooting that occurred during the ‘Salsa on St. Clair’ event.”

Tonight the #CNTower will dim at the top of every hour in honour of the victims of the shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair event / Ce soir, la #TourCN sera éteinte au début de chaque heure en hommage aux victimes de la fusillade survenue lors de l'événement « Salsa on St. Clair » pic.twitter.com/6jw7WVQdOe

— CN Tower / Tour CN (@TourCNTower) July 12, 2026

Organizers also announced that the final day of the event scheduled for Sunday had been cancelled, while the Toronto Police Association thanked officers for their response to the shooting as well as other recent incidents.

“It has been a violent weekend in our city with multiple shootings and homicides,” the group said in a post on X . “Each one has tasked our members from every unit and every division. Their dedication and professionalism can not go unnoticed, especially in cases where they ran towards danger to keep people safe. Last night’s street festival should have been a time of celebration, but when gunfire and chaos broke out, our members were there.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford decried the “senseless violence” of the mass shooting in an X post.

“I am devastated by the senseless violence at the Salsa on St. Clair Festival that has claimed two lives and injured others. My thoughts are with the victims, their families and everyone affected,” he wrote. “Thank you to Toronto Police and our first responders for responding to this horrific incident. The person responsible must be caught, brought to justice and spend the rest of their life behind bars.”

Police clear the area around the Salsa on St. Clair Festival following a shooting that left two people dead.

📸 Jul 11, 2026#Toronto #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/T3IB3Pm6dn

— Caryma Sa'd - Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) July 12, 2026

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the shooting took place just a short walk from her home.

“I am thinking of the two lives lost and others who were injured and traumatized by the violence this evening,” she wrote on X. “My family and I are safe, but I can’t imagine what the families of the victims are experiencing tonight. This is horrific. Please stay away from the area and stay home if you can.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote on X that his “prayers are with the families grieving their loved ones, those who are in critical condition, and everyone who has been affected by this horrific event.”

He thanked police officers and other first responders for their “courage and fast action” that prevented further tragedy.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on X that he was shocked to hear of the shooting.

“May the police find the monster responsible for this innocent loss of life,” he said in an X post .

Toronto Police asked the public to share any videos they have of the shooting and the aftermath to help their investigation.

Police also announced on Sunday morning an arrest and charges laid in a separate shooting incident that took place overnight near Polson Street and Cherry Street. It left two people injured and in hospital. Police said the injuries were not life-threatening.

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Sarah Lauren Semkowski was in Toronto and on Hinge when she noticed the conversations were going nowhere. Matches stalled in the app and rarely became dates.

So she stopped using it. “It’s kind of a waste of time to be paying for this app,” she said. Hinge is free to download, but the free tier caps users at a set number of likes a day. Unlimited likes and features, like seeing everyone who has liked you, come with a paid subscription, which run from about $17 to $50 a month.

Dating apps are losing users, and the industry is betting on artificial intelligence to stop the decline. AI can now write a dating profile, draft messages and generate profile photos.

Bumble’s annual revenue fell to $966 million in 2025, down from $1.07 billion the year prior. Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, has reported declining subscribers for more than a year. About 80 per cent of Gen Z and millennial users say they feel burned out by the dating apps, according to Forbes .

Dating app burnout

Burnout is the business model, says Treena Orchard, an associate professor in Health Studies at Western University, and the author of Sticky, Sexy, Sad, a 2024 book on dating apps. “Failure is built into the apps,” she said. “Because if you found someone that you really like right away, you’re going to stop using their product.”

Enter artificial intelligence. Bumble said in May it is dropping the swipe entirely along with its women-message-first rule, handing matchmaking to an AI assistant called Bee. Hinge added a tool that suggests opening lines to daters. Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has floated AI concierges that date other people’s concierges.

A Match and Kinsey Institute survey of more than 5,000 American singles last June found 26 per cent were using AI in their dating lives, a 333 per cent jump from the year before. There is no comparable Canadian survey.

Driving the trend, say dating professionals, is the generation that grew up on dating apps who are losing the skill of connecting in person.

“Social media makes people more awkward in person,” says Semkowski, 26, who spent five years on dating apps. Now a dating influencer, with almost a million followers on TikTok, and more than 250,000 on Instagram, where she posts as Sarah Lauren, she gives dating advice and talks about her own dating life.

“That human interaction has gotten lost,” she says. “You can be one thing behind a screen and it’s totally different with a conversation in person.”

Shannon Tebb is a matchmaker and dating coach who has run her Toronto practice, Shanny in the City , since 2010. She says singles are burned out by the dating apps and unsure of how to talk to someone in person. She, too, blames the phone, and the convenience it provides in daily life.

“Everything is so instantly at our fingertips,” Tebb said. “Instead of going to the grocery store, we can order Instacart. Instead of going to shop, we can go on Amazon and have it at our door. So there’s less chance of having that human experience, because a lot of times you’re sitting inside and isolating yourself.

“What’s happening right now is men aren’t approaching women,” Tebb said, because they fear rejection, while women wait to be approached. “So nobody’s doing anything.”

Semkowski agreed. “We’ve lost it with flirting. No one knows how to do that other than online.”

Going back to basics

AI is not the fix for that, said Orchard, the academic. “How is AI going to make the human experience more human? That’s so deceptive and that’s so creepy.” The apps, she said, “feed us this myth of hyper connectivity, but people are feeling lonely.”

And AI has yet to manufacture chemistry. “You have to get in front of someone, you have to feel their energy, you have to hear their voice. It’s not something that happens behind a screen,” said Tebb.

Science backs that up. Mahdi Roghanizad, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, studies what happens when a screen sits between two people. The part of the brain that processes social signals does not activate when people are not face to face, which can drop the accuracy of “reading” a stranger to chance, he wrote in an email to National Post.

“Our social brain evolved in a face-to-face environment and remains most effective in that exact form of communication,” Roghanizad said.

Curated dating profiles already let people present an idealized self. Using AI makes “it even easier for a (person) to move away from their real self,” he argued. And the mismatch surfaces at the first meeting in person.

Some dating app drop-outs are getting back to basics. Tebb said her clients are turning to book clubs, running groups and real-time meetups like organized coffee parties for the connections the apps did not deliver.

“It’s not a dead dating world,” added Semkowski, “but the effort needs to be put in.”

• Sex lives of Canadians: Not all happy couples are happy in the bedroom
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“Starting a separatist movement is like starting a war,” says Mark Milke, the founder and president of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. “You think you’d be home by Christmas and you’re still in the trenches four years later.”

That was Milke’s blunt assessment of the Alberta independence movement, shared over sushi in a downtown Calgary restaurant during Stampede week. (I was the one in full cowgirl regalia; he showed up dressed for “summer in the city.” Milke picked the restaurant, which explains why we were eating sushi and not beef.)

Milke understands Western anger; he just doesn’t believe separation from Canada is the answer.

“What’s the core problem in Confederation?” he asks rhetorically. “I would submit to you that the core problem of the last 50 or 60 years has been Quebec politicians, separatists or not.”

Milke — who voted against the Charlottetown Accord in Canada’s 1992 nation-wide referendum because he “didn’t like special status for Quebec” — traces much of the West’s frustration to decades of federal catering to Quebec nationalism. Quebec’s economic turn leftward after the 1960s, combined with constitutional wrangling and interventionist policies, dragged the national direction in ways that harmed resource-producing provinces. The pattern of accommodating Quebec at the expense of broader national interest has been damaging, he argues.

Business leaders in Alberta who once dismissed separation but now weigh it seriously aren’t “deplorables,” he adds. “I know people in this city that make billion-dollar decisions that will probably vote for separation.” Yet he cautions against the gamble. Nor, he suggests, should Alberta copy Quebec’s model of extracting special status.

Instead, Milke recommends the country should aim to be the “Switzerland of North America” — prosperous, open within its borders, and focused on genuine opportunity rather than managed outcomes or identity-based claims. Provinces should compete on excellence, not lobby for preferential treatment. Quebec’s model, sustained by transfers and special arrangements, is not one to emulate. “Subsidies from the federal government are not my definition of success,” he says plainly.

For Milke, the renewal of our nation lies in rediscovering older Canadian strengths: individual rights, rule of law, and merit. And he sees Alberta as often embodying the freedom-loving, responsible spirit that characterized much of pre-1960s Canada.

He draws inspiration from individuals who stood firm in difficult times, pointing to the Churchill statue on the grounds of the Government of Alberta’s McDougall Centre, across the street from our lunch spot, as one example; the statue was installed two years ago, as a pushback against cancel culture.

Yet Milke is no romantic. He acknowledges flaws in Canada’s past and present, including failures to live up to civil society ideals. But he rejects the notion that the only choices are the current trajectory or rupture. Renewal is possible if the country returns to principles that once made it distinctive: protecting the individual regardless of background, limiting arbitrary power, and measuring success by opportunity and outcomes rather than equity quotas or historical score-settling.

Born in Kelowna, B.C., in 1967 — a literal Centennial baby — Milke grew up in British Columbia with family roots forged in hardship. His grandparents on one side fled Soviet Russia, endured forced travel across Siberia and from Ukraine, and eventually built new lives in western Canada. That hard-won gratitude for Canada still shapes his outlook. His own parents lost their home and savings in the 1980s recession when interest rates soared. That lived experience shapes his wariness of policies that arbitrarily harm individuals and economies.

As someone who grew up on a family farm and watched my own parents navigate crushing interest rates, I find Milke’s personal grounding refreshing. There’s a quiet authenticity when he ties policy critique to real human costs rather than abstract ideology.

Milke’s career runs the gamut from radio host of a gospel show as a teenager, through to the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation and Fraser Institute, to platform design for Jason Kenney’s UCP campaign and time at the Canadian Energy Centre.

The Aristotle Foundation, launched by Milke in 2023, represents a broader mission: renewing civil, evidence-based public discourse by combining rigorous analysis with historical perspective. Its first major book, The 1867 Project: Why Canada Should Be Cherished — Not Cancelled , became an Amazon bestseller by arguing that Canada’s story contains real achievements worth building upon, not merely sins to atone for.

Milke has spent years gathering and reporting on data and statistics. But he insists “data alone” can’t resolve the present issues facing Canadians. Toxic ideas — combined with concentrated power in courts, bureaucracies, or activist institutions — demand historical context and a defence of classical liberal principles. “Western civilization, as we call it, and the accomplishments… (are) being torn out, dangerously so,” he says, by anti-reality thinking and grievance culture.

The Aristotle Foundation produces data-rich studies on a range of issues that includes corporate DEI practices, parliamentary representation, campus speech, and Indigenous policy outcomes. It pairs the research with books, essays, and historical arguments to counter dominant narratives. The foundation also commissions polls and hosts debates, including a recent one between Kenney (pro-federalist) and Keith Wilson (pro-separation) on the question of Alberta independence.

Milke knows the public square is noisy and tribal; that complacency battles raw emotion. Yet he believes focused, credible work can still cut through. The 1867 Project’s sales success and viral social media posts (including one amplified by Elon Musk) suggest an appetite for reasoned analysis.

The foundation is not exclusively a western Canadian institution. “I think Toronto and Calgary are the two biggest sources of support, followed by Vancouver,” Milke reports. “When we got started, our message immediately resonated in Ontario,” he adds. The foundation’s polling shows under-representation is not only a Western issue. “When people complain about under-representation, yes, I get it as a Westerner, but let’s not forget Ontario is under-represented,” he says. “If your basic principle is ridings should be more or less equal, you have to be intellectually honest.”

Alberta’s frustrations can be a catalyst for national improvement if channelled toward a better Confederation, not exit. Whether enough Canadians are listening remains an open question — though at least some of us are willing to debate it over lunch, cowboy hats optional.

• Interview: Danielle Smith explains why she trusts Mark Carney
• Donna Kennedy-Glans: Alberta vote isn’t about rage-quitting Canada — it’s about renewing Confederation

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Lawrence Bishnoi and his international criminal enterprise were the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice indictment on Tuesday. Bishnoi, a 33-year-old crime boss, is accused of running a criminal empire from a high-security jail in India and directing members to assassinate the pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C. in 2023. Read the transcript or watch the video to learn more about Bishnoi and how his gang spread in Canada.

A violent transnational gang behind an extortion crisis, alleged murder-for-hire plots, and violence against Canada’s Sikh community is now the target of the FBI.

Members of the Bishnoi gang were among the 37 alleged criminals charged on July 7 in a multi-year investigation into three India-based crime gangs in what law enforcement are calling ‘Operation Hard Ball’.

That includes new charges against their jailed leader, Lawrence Bishnoi.

It’s a complex web of murder, extortion, and a potential political assassination that’s tightened tensions between Canada and India.

So, who is Lawrence Bishnoi, the head of the gang at the centre of it all?

We spell it out.

Lawrence Bishnoi is a 33-year-old law school graduate, who’s been imprisoned in India since 2015.

“He’s basically run a transnational criminal empire from inside a high-security Indian prison, and that is something that should be reminiscent of Pablo Escobar,” said Robert Huish, an Associate Professor in International Development Studies at Dalhousie University.

He said the alleged crime boss’ criminal career started in the early 2010s.

“There was accusations of attempted murder, assault, and robbery, and those cases were involved, to his involvement in student politics,” Huish said.

“There’s a lot of political activism that goes with Bishnoi, so he’s done well to accumulate wealth through his gang,” Huish explained.

“He’s formed lots of connections with arms dealers, expanded criminal operations as a student at Panjab University, and then after he graduated, the violent activities and the boldness of political intimidation, in particular, became part of his brand.”

Law enforcement allege Bishnoi is the head of more than 1,000 gang members in Canada alone.

Canada declared them a terrorist entity in 2025, earning praise from B.C.’s premier, with David Eby saying in a social media video “People have been living in fear of extortion. This is an important move that could make our streets safer.”

The gang is accused of extorting and carrying out violent crimes, including shootings and kidnappings, targeting Canada’s Sikh community and business owners, mainly in B.C. but also Alberta and Ontario.

U.S. law enforcement and the RCMP allege gang members also targeted extortion victims’ family members, often focusing on ones in India.

Police allege in some cases, they would use corrupt law enforcement officials in India to help in extortion schemes.

“These groups are known to prey on the less fortunate to carry out the criminal activities,” said RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme on July 7 in Los Angeles during a press conference about Operation Hard Ball.

Duheme called the leaders of the three gangs “some of the most cruel and wide-reaching criminals, whose crimes range from kidnapping to extortion to murder to shootings to arson to drug trafficking and many others.”

He added law enforcement is “putting a stop to a significant flow of drugs and farms into Canada.”

Huish described the terror the Bishnoi gang has inflicted on Canadians in the Sikh community.

“They’re outside your house, they’re in your neighbourhood, they know who you are, they’re putting cars in flames, they’re shooting up houses,” he said.

On July 7, the FBI announced it was charging 37 individuals in three indictments for India-based organized crime rings, including Bishnoi’s.

At least 24 people were arrested in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

One indictment accuses Bishnoi of ordering the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., in 2023.

It also accuses Bishnoi’s longtime associate Satinderjeet Singh, known as Goldy Brar, with the FBI calling him the gang’s North American Leader.

He was among three people arrested in the Vancouver area.

“The gang used this assassination and other high-profile acts of violence to terrorize Sikh and other Indian communities, and they use acts of violence to legitimize and bolster widespread extortion schemes,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bilal Essayli, during the July 7 press conference.

In 2024, then Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian officials stationed in Canada of using the international crime ring to carry out attacks in Canada, including Nijjar’s murder.

The move hurt Canada’s relationship with the other nation.

This week, the RCMP told CBC News there was no evidence Indian officials were involved in the alleged crimes from this announcement.

But Huish says there should be questions about how Bishnoi has allegedly been able to run an international crime organization with thousands of members while locked up in a high-security prison in India.

“How in the world is a guy in maximum security prison in charge and operating this syndicate?” he said.

“It’s a cartel with such efficiency that needs to be questioned. What are Indian authorities doing about this, and will Indian authorities respect the charges that are being put forward by the FBI?”

But he added “in terms of pinning it on a politician, I think everyone’s taking the silver step to not jump into that situation.”

In Canada, the Bishnoi gang has tapped into Canada’s massive pool of temporary workers and foreign students to build an army of enforcers.

In late 2025, the RCMP linked the Bishnoi gang to violent extortions in Metro Vancouver and Brampton, Ont.

As of June 2026, the Canada Border Services Agency has opened almost 500 immigration investigations, issued 139 removal orders and enforced at least 80 deportations, all linked to individuals connected to the gang.

Huish said Canada has one of the largest Sikh immigrant communities in the world, and they’re on the radar of politicians and nationalists in India.

“The presence of that and the consciousness of Sikh separatism in India is huge,” he explained.

“There was a couple diplomats who said … there ought to be a third order preoccupation with many Indian politicians about their obsession with, worried about, Khalistan separation.”

He says if the FBI pursues murder charges for a crime carried out in Canada, it could get murky.

“If the order for Bishnoi to execute Mr. Singh occurred, and the court say, ah, that was there, and there’s any connections that involved people or property in.

Huish said because the Bishnoi gang is designated as a terrorist group, any Canadians who have dealings with the gang could be deemed to be associating with terrorist activities.

For now, it remains to be seen if police can dismantle the gang and round up the foot soldiers still in Canada.

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High-income families in Canada are paying a disproportionately large share of taxes, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute .

The report, which uses data from Statistics Canada’s Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M), shows that the top 20 per cent of income-earning families pay nearly two-thirds (65.3 per cent) of the country’s personal income taxes and more than half (58.3 per cent) of total taxes. This is more than their share of total family income in Canada, which is 49.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the bottom 20 per cent of income-earning families are estimated to pay 0.7 per cent of all federal and provincial personal income taxes and 1.7 per cent of total taxes in Canada, while earning 4.3 per cent of the total family income.

In other words, the share of total income received by this group is over six times larger than their share of income taxes paid, the report says.

The Fraser Institute defines the top 20 per cent of income-earning families as those with an income of above $270,472, while the bottom 20 per cent are those that have an income of less than $63,068.

The report’s authors say the vast difference in tax burden is in part due to the progressivity of Canada’s tax system, where the share of taxes paid typically increases as income rises.

For instance, they say the bottom 20 per cent of income-earning families pay a 2.7 per cent average income tax rate, while the top 20 per cent pay an average tax rate of 23.1 per cent.

They also note that the findings challenge a common misperception in Canada that top earners do not pay their share of taxes, and that increasing taxes on this income group is an effective way to generate additional government revenue.

“The idea that top earners don’t pay their ‘fair share’ of taxes ignores the evidence that these families pay a disproportionately large share of the total tax bill,” Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute, said in a news release.

In fact, the top 20 per cent was the only group that paid a higher share of income tax than share of income, and also the only group that paid a higher share of total taxes than their share of income (total taxes includes things like sales taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes and liquor taxes).

Quintile 2, which includes Canadians with an income of between $63,089 and $111,354, paid 6.5 per cent of total taxes, compared to their 9.3 per cent share of total income. Quintile 3 paid 12.7 per cent of total taxes with 14.6 per cent of total income and Quintile 4, with an income of $171,299 to $270,472, paid 20.8 per cent of total taxes compared to a 22.3 per cent share of total income.

Meanwhile, previous research has shown that tax increases on top earners can result in behavioural changes that reduce taxable income through tax planning, avoidance, or evasion, according to the report, which results in governments raising less revenue than anticipated.

The authors cite a 2019 study that used historical Canadian data to investigate responses to the federal government’s tax increase on high earners. It found that a one percentage point increase in the top personal income tax rate is associated with a reduction of taxable income of 0.5 per cent.

Raising taxes on high-income earners ignores these economic consequences, the report says.

The report also notes that tax increases reduce Canada’s competitiveness with other industrialized countries, particularly the United States. It says that increasing taxes on top earners makes Canada a less attractive place to live and to work for highly skilled people such as doctors, scientists, managers, and software engineers.

In conclusion, the report warns that if the federal government or certain provinces decide to further increase current tax rates on the top income earners, they are likely to yield less revenue than expected.

“Canadians should be aware that the country’s tax system is already progressive, and calls to raise taxes further on top earners can have unintended economic consequences,” Fuss said.

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In the emerging movement of non-Jews speaking out against rampant antisemitism in Canada, Fo Niemi and his coalition of Asian community groups in Montreal stand out as veterans.

When a city synagogue was firebombed last month, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) brought together a coalition of Asian communities – ranging from Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino – to denounce antisemitism and support the Jewish community.

These were, in his words, “small steps to heal, bond and build solidarity.”

Niemi, a co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit, said the goal was “to do something concrete. We don’t want to just talk. We want to build things that could be lasting, so it can be better evidence of how much we have in common.”

CRARR, whose mandate is to promote racial equality and combat racism, also held a multi-faith, multi-ethnic dedication service on June 30, to honour Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, killed while responding to a June 22 shooting in Côte-des-Neiges, and 68-year-old bystander Michel Moshe Mizrahi, who was killed in the same incident.

Niemi was the recipient of the Quebec Justice Award in 1995, the Queen’s Commemorative Silver Jubilee Medal in 2002 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. He has advised police and served on multiple boards including the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Canadian Bar Association’s racial equity committee. He has been honoured by the Indigenous Bar Association, the Chinese Neighbourhood Society, the National Association of Canadians of Origins from India, the Muslim Council of Montreal, and the Lord Redding Society (Montreal Jewish Bar Association).

Dave Gordon interviewed Niemi for the Post. Some excerpts:

On how CRARR got started in 1983:

We quickly realized that to deal with racism, we have to deal with the broader issues of, among other things, intolerance and hate-based violence. So eventually, within a short period of time, we made combating hate crime one of our priorities, to address hate in different forms.

Of course, at the heart of that is antisemitism. We also address hate based on race, and sexual orientation.

In 2004, the Jewish library in Montreal was burned, as a target of arson. One of the things we did was we brought together different voices from different backgrounds and communities to publicly denounce it. We call it ‘the common experience of the common humanity.’ I would say that it’s about bringing people of goodwill together.

As well, right after October 7th, when there was a rise in the violent targeting of Jewish institutions, schools, and synagogues. What brought together a group of 10 women from different backgrounds to speak out against that act of violence and hate, from a mother’s and grandmother’s perspective.

Now, we also try to work at the legislative and the policy level, to ensure that the laws and the policies work for people, and to provide what we call ‘effective protection.’ So that’s why we help people bring cases to the Human Rights Commission, and work with the Montreal Police Hate Crimes Unit, in order to make people understand more what the Hate Crimes Unit does, and how to access it, and how to work with police when people are victims of hate crimes.

On the group’s successes:

One of our most concrete achievements in dealing with hate-based homophobia, is the case of a gay male couple, bringing the case to the Human Rights Commission. And eventually, the Human Rights Tribunal issued the first decision about homophobic harassment.

Last August, Montreal City Council was about to adopt the first anti-racism policy, in which there was no mention of hate crimes or antisemitism.

So we brought together a few groups, black groups, Asian groups, to go public, to deplore the exclusion, and ask that hate crimes be explicitly mentioned as an urban safety issue, and to add antisemitism and Islamophobia into the policy. And it was adopted by city council. We hopefully change the policy and the legal landscape to provide greater legal protection and legal tools for people to seek justice.

On fighting antisemitism through common experience:

For example, the president of the Cambodian Community Centre (spoke in a talk about) what it means to be a victim of genocide. They understand the trauma that survivors and their descendants still experience. Out of that, there’s a discussion of maybe going to work more with the Jewish community to address the issue of genocide-related trauma, especially when it’s intergenerational.

So it’s more than just coming out to speak, but also coming out to speak and create opportunities and things to do together in the short and long term.

For the Vietnamese community, it’s about recalling how the Jewish community helped the boat people in the 70s, when people fled persecution in Vietnam. And for the Chinese community, what we’ve started to do is we’re looking at the commonality of both communities.

One of the things we found through our work dealing with heritage preservation is that in Chinatown in the 1880s and in 1890s up to the early 20th century, there was a synagogue in what is now Chinatown, and a lot of people in the Chinese community don’t know that. In the most marvellous experience of visiting the synagogue for everyone, it was the first time that they visited a synagogue. Can you believe it? Wow.

So coming together is not about just to denounce violence, but also to build bridges and create opportunities for long-term cooperation. This is how we can help send a message, and help reduce antisemitism and anti-Jewish stereotypes. We want to look at the human dimensions of it, and the shared experiences.

On what’s to come:

Montreal does not have any kind of infrastructure to celebrate Asian Heritage Month. So we hope that next year we’ll try to integrate some of our activities in such a way that we can address the common heritage of Jews and Asians.

In the Chinese community, we talk about the experience of the Chinese diplomat (Ho Feng-Shan) in Austria who gave visas to Austrian Jews, during the Second War to go to Shanghai. And we want to tell the story of also the Philippines at the time. They welcomed a lot of European Jews (during the Holocaust), as a way to escape. There’s a history of helping, and fighting intolerance. Hopefully that can be a very powerful educational tool, especially when you deal with real people in real communities today.

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Martin Sampson would like you to step outside next Saturday.

Don’t worry; he’s not challenging you to a fight. Sampson is the CEO of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association and one of the creators of a new initiative called Everyone Outdoors Together.

The plan is simple: On the third Saturday in July — the 18th this year, and not coincidentally National Parks Day — Canadians from every part of the country and all walks of life are invited to get out in the great outdoors (or even just the backyard) and enjoy it.

“Everyone Outdoors Together is about reclaiming connection to each other,” is how the website puts it , “creating a shared moment where millions of people in Canada pause, step outside, and witness something beautiful together. It’s a new ritual for a country that needs it, a reminder that our best moments happen when we’re present, outdoors, and together.”

The idea was born of a chance phone call last year between Sampson and Jennie McCaffrey, VP of Health and Education at B.C. Parks Foundation and PaRx. The first organization’s name is pretty self-explanatory, but PaRx — short for parks prescriptions — is an initiative to get doctors and other health-care professionals to literally prescribe time outdoors as a therapy to benefit their patients’ bodies and minds.

During the call, Sampson was on a paddleboard at his cottage in Lac-Sainte-Marie, north of Ottawa. McCaffrey, it turned out, was in a canoe on Alpha Lake Park in Whistler, B.C.

“That led us to think, what if we did something, which we originally named the Great Canadian Sunset Paddle, and the idea would simply be to get a bunch of people to enjoy the moment that we enjoyed during that conversation,” he says.

“And we realized that just doing a paddle would not be as inclusive as we would like. So, over time … we evolved the idea to simply, why don’t we imagine if all Canadians stepped outdoors and shared a sunset or evening or midnight sun moment with their friends and family, and the land and water we share. Imagine the platform that could create to talk about all the things that we really care about.”

Says McCaffrey: “We hope to recreate that same feeling for people right across Canada in any way that makes sense for them. And that’s what’s exciting too, is that it’s not about having to get out on a paddle board, it’s about just stepping outside your door or rolling outside your door or going for a run, or however you want to experience that moment outdoors.”

Samson refers to this year’s event as a soft launch, but he has big plans and high hopes. “By 2028 I would love this to be cemented in the Canadian cultural calendar as just something that people do that allows them to enjoy the outdoors with their friends and family,” he says. “I never let perfect get in the way of good enough, so we pushed it out there, and we’re getting an unbelievable response.”

The group has been reaching out to health groups, parks groups and more to drum up attention for the idea.

“I’ve always approached this program from the vision that we want to get to a place where nature is a social norm, and getting outside is a social norm,” says McCaffrey. “So the same way that we all brush our teeth, we all put a seat belt on when we get into the car, those were once not social norms. And so I imagine a day in the future that maybe this everyone outdoors together movement can inspire, where we’re as a society getting outside every single day in nature for our own health and for the health of the planet.”

Sampson says there have been ad hoc movements like this in the past, not least the recent pandemic, but he also points to the northeast blackout of 2003 as an event that, ironically, brought people together outside across Ontario.

“It was in equal parts terrifying, because we didn’t know what was happening at the time, but it was also one of the more enjoyable experiences of my adult life, which was just simply being out on a lawn chair with my community members, enjoying a beautiful summer evening,” he says.

“That was something that really did factor into my thinking as we were developing this idea: How do we create something similar without turning the power off?”

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The president of Canada’s biggest tech company says antisemitism has been “normalized under the thinnest veil of advocacy,” and many members of the Jewish community are thinking about their future in Canada.

Harley Finkelstein was confronted, again, by an aggressive protester at Montreal’s Startupfest on Wednesday, the third time in two years he has been aggressively challenged in public for his support of Israel.

Finkelstein was verbally attacked while talking with former UFC champion Georges St-Pierre on stage. An anti-Israel political activist burst in, went to the side of the stage and filmed Finkelstein while asking about the Gaza war. Finkelstein told the protester he was embarrassing himself, and he was escorted out.

Finkelstein discussed the event, and the current environment for Canada’s Jewish community, in an email interview with National Post:

Why do you think this has happened repeatedly at Startupfest?

It’s not about Startupfest. The festival is a celebration of entrepreneurship and one of the best things about the Canadian tech ecosystem. What’s changed is that visible Jews in public life have become targets, regardless of the venue or the topic. I’ve now been disrupted at a podcast about Jewish entrepreneurs, at the opening of a Jewish community centre, and at a fireside chat about building companies. None of those events had anything to do with politics. The only common thread is me, a proud Jew, on a stage.

Was (the same protester) behind both instances?

I don’t know who was behind it, and honestly, I’m not going to give any individual the profile they’re looking for. This is bigger than one person. What matters is the pattern, not the name.

Can you share more about your emotional reaction? Your parents?

My parents were sitting in the front row. My father (the son of Holocaust survivors) came to Canada in 1956 fleeing persecution in Hungary, because this country promised safety and the freedom to live openly as Jews. Watching their faces while a man screamed accusations at their son is something I won’t forget. Not because I was rattled. I wasn’t. But because they’ve seen this before, and they believed Canada was the place where their kids would never have to.

What does this tell us about antisemitism in Canada today?

That it has been normalized under the thinnest veil of advocacy. Jews are roughly one per cent of Canada’s population and account for about 70 per cent of religion-motivated hate crimes. Behaviour that would be instantly recognized as bigotry against any other community gets rationalized when Jews are the target. That’s the part that has to end. Naming it isn’t inflammatory. It’s necessary.

Are you seeing friends and relatives contemplating the ‘Plan B’ option of leaving Canada?

Yes, and that should alarm every Canadian. I know families having conversations around their kitchen tables that would have been unthinkable five years ago. The grandchildren of people who fled to Canada are now asking whether they should flee from it. My answer is no. I’m staying, I’m building, and I’m raising my kids here proudly and visibly. But the fact that the question is being asked at all is the indictment.

What did you make of Mark Carney’s acknowledgement, and his proposed solution?

Saying that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians was an important admission, and I give the prime minister real credit for naming it plainly. Bill C-9, which would make it a criminal offence to obstruct access to community centres and places of worship, addresses exactly what happened to me in Ottawa. But I’m an entrepreneur, so I judge everything the same way: not by the announcement, but by the execution and, most importantly, the impact. Councils and frameworks don’t protect anyone on their own. Enforcement does. Consequences do. The test isn’t whether the government describes the problem well. It’s whether a Jewish family feels safer walking into their community centre a year from now.

What does Canada need to do to stop it?

Three things. Name it without hedging: this is antisemitism, not a policy debate. Enforce the laws we already have, and the new ones, with real consequences, because right now people disrupt Jewish events knowing nothing will happen to them. And stop rationalizing it. Every time harassment gets excused as advocacy, it escalates. What we tolerate next will define us.

Anything else you want to add?

Only this: what gives me hope is the room. Hundreds of founders booed him down and cheered as he was walked out. They saw it for what it was, instantly. Most Canadians want no part of this hate.

National Post

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Ontario must pay social assistance benefits to a foreign migrant living illegally in Canada a tribunal has ruled in a case revealing that welfare intake workers did not conduct an immigration check of the applicant to avoid jeopardizing his ability to remain in Canada.

The Ontario Social Benefits Tribunal heard an appeal by the man who declared he had come to Canada in 1997 on a temporary work permit. Although his permit expired after four years, he never left.

He was able to support himself by working cash jobs until 2023 when he entered the homeless shelter system, he told the tribunal.

After he applied for welfare benefits last fall, the administrator of the provincial social assistance program called Ontario Works denied the man’s application because of his lack of immigration status in Canada, despite program staff trying to avoid flagging his immigration problem.

An Ontario Works intake case officer had not conducted an immigration search to ascertain the man’s benefits eligibility, the tribunal found, “to avoid possibly jeopardizing the appellant’s situation in Canada.”

The tribunal accepted the province’s position that the man “has no status in Canada and is here illegally” but heard the applicant’s arguments that the denial of benefits did not comply with provincial regulations.

At issue at the hearing was the specific wording of the Ontario Works Act, the law regulating provincial welfare benefits.

The act outlines the impact of an applicant’s immigration status on benefit eligibility and specifies three exclusionary classes: visitors, tourists and those with a deportation or enforceable removal order against them.

Tribunal adjudicator Eric Brown, based in Waterloo, Ont., heard dictionary definitions and interpretations accepted at previous hearings and ruled that tourists and visitors are people who have entered Canada for a short period of time or for a temporary purpose.

Brown said those definitions show the applicant reasonably fell outside the meaning of both tourist and visitor, “given the sheer length of time and the roots the appellant had established while in Canada.”

No evidence was presented at the tribunal that he had been ordered out of Canada by federal immigration authorities.

Brown then agreed with the applicant that legal immigration status in Canada is not a prerequisite for welfare under Ontario’s act, provided applicants didn’t fall under the three specifically named criteria.

He ruled the man’s denial of benefits to be “incorrect and rescinded” and declared him eligible to receive financial benefits.

The applicant is not identified in the decision, released in May, in accordance with the tribunal’s practice. The man’s lawyer, who works for a community legal clinic, did not respond to questions from National Post prior to publication deadline. A request for comment from the minister of Children, Community and Social Services was also not responded to before deadline.

Public opinion has tracked rising concern over immigration levels in Canada — to 30-year highs — driven largely by pressure on housing, health care and social supports, according to federal government data.

According to a 2025 poll conducted for Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, two thirds of Canadians agree “immigration has placed too much pressure on public services in Canada,”

The Social Benefits Tribunal is the body that adjudicates disagreements with the provincial government regarding social assistance payments for Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

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Former Alberta MLA Drew Barnes says that Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party caucus is far from united behind her agreement with Ottawa for a new West Coast oil pipeline.

Barnes, who served in the Alberta legislature from 2012 to 2023, sitting in the UCP caucus from 2017 to 2021, says he’s aware of multiple UCP MLAs who disagree with the premier’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Prime Minister Mark Carney on building a new pipeline.

Smith appeared alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney last Thursday in Calgary to announce a plan that would see a new pipeline built from Bruderheim, Alta., northeast of Edmonton, largely alongside the existing TMX pipeline, terminating at a port in B.C.’s Lower Mainland. Smith had previously expressed hopes for a route to the northwest coast, closer to Asian importers, but Carney announced earlier in the day with B.C.’s premier that he was leaving in place a tanker ban in that area imposed by the Liberal government in 2019.

Barnes said that Smith’s capitulation on her hope for a northern pipeline route, acquiescing to a lengthier southwestern one , was the “icing on the cake.”

The MOU also ties the new pipeline’s construction to an increase in Alberta’s industrial carbon tax and multi-billion-dollar subsidies for a massive carbon capture and storage hub in northeastern Alberta.

“Here we are with this MOU where we’re already taking the bigger tax hit and committing billions to this expensive luxury of carbon capture and storage, and now we find out that we’re not even getting the best pipeline route to northern B.C.,” Barnes said.

One member of Smith’s caucus, Red Deer MLA Jason Stephan, has publicly criticized the MOU, writing in an op-ed on the local conservative digital publication the Western Standard that the deal makes no business sense and doesn’t get Alberta out from under Ottawa’s thumb.

Barnes said he thinks there could be more than a dozen people in the UCP’s 47-member caucus who quietly agree with Stephan.

“I think there’s a significant percentage, a quarter to a third that would agree with (Stephan),” Barnes said Monday.

“Unfortunately, our system is designed that the leader sets the rules (and) direction, and it’s almost impossible to change that,” said Barnes.

First elected under the banner of the populist Wildrose Party, Barnes was one of five MLAs who stayed with the party when nine of their colleagues, led by then party leader Danielle Smith, crossed the floor in late 2014 to join the governing Progressive Conservatives.

In May 2021, Barnes and fellow MLA Todd Loewen were expelled from the UCP caucus for criticizing then-premier Jason Kenney’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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