Jewish groups want Ottawa to ban militia allegedly tied to Toronto shootings

U.S. prosecutors say a member of Kata’ib Hezbollah told an undercover officer that his people were behind recent shootings at a Toronto synagogue and the U.S. consulate. The pro-Iran Shia militia based in Iraq is not on Canada’s list of terrorist entities.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and the Canadian Families of Victims of October 7 want it added, along with Palestine Action Canada and Masar Badil, in a campaign launching Friday on the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.

None of the three is on the list, which Public Safety Canada last updated July 28.

One of the requests is already before the public safety minister after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote to Gary Anandasangaree on Aug. 2 asking him to recommend that Kata’ib Hezbollah be listed immediately. “Yet it is still not listed as a terrorist entity in Canada,” Poilievre wrote.

Listing is a Governor in Council decision, made on the public safety minister’s recommendation. Once a group is on the list, banks must freeze its money and it becomes a crime to knowingly handle its property, fund it, recruit for it or travel to join it.

Jacqui Rivers Vital, whose daughter Adi was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, said that Canadians need to realize that eight of their fellow citizens were among the dead.

“Terrorism doesn’t end when an attack is over,” she said in a news release. “It leaves families forever changed and ripples through entire communities long after the headlines have disappeared.”

Noah Shack, chief executive of CIJA, said in an interview that the campaign is meant to galvanize Canadians and press Ottawa to ensure terrorists and their proxies “find no safe haven here in Canada.”

“We’re seeing a convergence of terrorism, criminal actors here in Canada, a rise of hate-motivated attacks, foreign entities contracting out shootings and potentially arson attacks as well,” he said. “It’s not only individuals who are targeted in acts of terror, it’s our way of life as Canadians that’s under threat.”

The campaign describes Kata’ib Hezbollah as having claimed responsibility for attacks in Canada. It cites a Global News report that Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, arrested in May for allegedly directing attacks in Europe, told an undercover officer that his people were behind the Toronto synagogue and consulate shootings earlier this year.

A federal threat assessment obtained by Global News under the Access to Information Act said a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya had claimed responsibility for attacks in Europe, including an arson at a London synagogue. U.S. prosecutors allege that group is a front for Kata’ib Hezbollah.

Canadian authorities have not publicly linked the Toronto shootings to Iran, Global News reported.