Examining Antisemitism, Terrorism, and Online Extremism: Insights from Canada’s Senate Study

The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights is conducting a study on antisemitism in Canada, building on the House of Commons Justice Committee’s earlier work.

Recent testimony from ALCCA member Secure Canada CEO Sheryl Saperia and Centre for Countering Digital Hate Founder Imran Ahmed offered vital perspectives on terrorism, online hate, and extremism in Canada. Their opening statements are reproduced below.

Sheryl Saperia’s Opening Statement to Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights' Study on Antisemitism

October 27, 2025

Read Saperia’s opening statement below. You can also watch the video of her testimony on the Secure Canada website. (Note: Click the bottom-right corner of the video to unmute the sound.)

Thank you, esteemed Senators, for inviting me to testify on the issue of antisemitism.

It’s difficult to confine a subject of this scale and urgency to five minutes, so I will focus on how antisemitism fits within Secure Canada’s mission to combat terrorism and extremism, and to strengthen Canada’s national security and democracy.

Since Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, Canadian officials have disrupted roughly a dozen terrorism-related plots. We are profoundly grateful for their vigilance. Yet I can’t help but recall the IRA’s chilling remark after failing to assassinate Margaret Thatcher: “Today we were unlucky. But remember, we only have to be lucky once; you have to be lucky always.” That is the insidious calculus of terrorism.

Terrorism is the end product. It’s what grows when the conditions are right. If terrorism is the poisonous fruit, extremism is the soil that nourishes it – and that soil in Canada is becoming increasingly fertile.

What is feeding that soil? A central component of nearly every extremist ideology we see today – whether on the far right, the far left, or within Islamist movements – is antisemitism. Indeed, antisemitism has been found to be a key entry point for radicalizing, joining extremist groups, and mobilizing to violence.

Someone who runs a major deradicalization program in Ontario has told me that all of his clients – from neo-Nazi inspired to ISIS-inspired, and everything in between – walk into his office repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories. He also observed that distinct extremist ideologies are sometimes now blending together – Islamists quoting Hitler, or far-left activists embracing jihadist slogans. This fusion often has antisemitism at its core.

The Red–Green alliance is worth mentioning – the growing cooperation between far-left and Islamist movements united by hostility toward the West and hatred toward Jews and Israel, despite the glaring contradiction for the far left to be affiliating with misogynistic, homophobic, and theocratic Islamist ideologies.

Antisemitism defines Jews – and Israel – as the ultimate source of evil, however one defines evil.

For those on the far right, it could mean that Jews are blamed for promoting the immigration of non-white populations they claim threaten white dominance. This is not just a problem for Jews – it is a danger to all Canadians – as this ideology seeks to replace democracy with racial tyranny.

For those on the far left, Israel – the only Jewish state – is cast as the world’s greatest oppressor, a stand-in for Western civilization, liberal democracy, and capitalism. This is not just a problem for Jews – it is a danger to all Canadians – as this ideology seeks to tear down every liberal-democratic institution, erase merit, and divide citizens into perpetual categories of victim and oppressor.

For Islamists, Jews are blamed for everything the West has done that they perceive as hostile to Islam. This is not just a problem for Jews — it is a danger to all Canadians – as this ideology divides humanity into believers and infidels, and demands that all of society submit to their extremist interpretation of religion.

The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that when deviant behaviour becomes too widespread, society begins to recast it as normal or at least tolerable. Antisemitic and extremist rhetoric and conduct have grown so commonplace in Canada that they no longer provoke outrage. We must actively resist this instinct to normalize antisemitism.

Part of the paralysis we are seeing in Canada stems from fear: fear of criticizing extremism when it is cloaked in culture, identity, or religion. Yet diversity cannot mean moral neutrality.

Malek Bennabi, the Algerian philosopher, wrote that ideas and ideology decide the destiny – the life or death – of a nation. He argued that the development and prosperity of a people depend on the vitality of their moral and intellectual foundations.

So what are the Canadian convictions that bind us together? If our only values are diversity and tolerance, we will find ourselves forced to tolerate intolerance.

Without better civic literacy for all Canadian students and all newcomers to Canada, Canadians will become increasingly vulnerable to grievance politics, imported hatred, authoritarian ideas, and foreign propaganda.

The liberal-democratic bargain at the heart of Western civilization holds that everyone is free to live by their faith and culture, provided they uphold the democratic order that protects everyone’s rights. Today, many Canadians sense that this bargain is fraying – that peace, order, and good government are being replaced by disorder, confusion, and fear. Antisemitism is both a driver and a symptom of this decline.

We are living in a post-truth era – a battle of narratives. Secure Canada’s research shows that antisemitic, anti-Western, and anti-democratic narratives now move together. Confronting antisemitism is therefore not an act of special pleading — it is a fight for the physical, moral and civic health of Canada itself.

Imran Ahmed's Opening Statement to Senate Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (RIDR)’s Study on Antisemitism

October 27, 2025

Watch the video below or read Imran Ahmed’s full opening statement to the Senate Committee.

Thank you for the invitation to speak today. I'm the founder and chief executive of the center for counter digital hate headquartered in Washington DC with offices in London and Brussels.

Combatting online antisemitism is a cross-party issue here in Canada, as it is in the US, the EU and the UK. As allies our finest hour was defeating Nazism is antisemitic ideology, which led to the industrial slaughter of 6 million European Jews.

Today, those ancient lies have been breathed new life by modern technology, which systematically advantages hate and lies through distortive, perverse, platform design.

CCDH studies how antisemitism is produced, distributed, and amplified by algorithms on social media platforms.

These are not just random acts by users, but the direct result of choices made by major social media companies operating here in Canada and worldwide. And their effect is to drive many Jewish Canadians offline, feeling silenced and harassed.

A safe space for hate against Jews is a hostile environment for Jewish people.

Following the October the 7th Hamas attack antisemitic influences exploited these design features to push hateful content and gain millions of new followers.

This represents a systematic failure for companies to stop the shameful exploitation of tragedy for engagement and profit. What this shows once again is that social media platforms are irresponsible managers of our information ecosystem.

They do not enforce their own rules to protect users or address systemic problems that affect the prevalence of antisemitism. We've also seen algorithms drive a dangerous cross-fertilization of antisemitic narratives with other conspiracy theories, making antisemitism the hybridizing connective tissue of many modern hate movements.

The result has been the normalization of hate against Jews. We're especially concerned by polling we commissioned showing that 14-17 year-olds are the age cohort most likely to believe antisemitic conspiracy theories in the US and the UK. Social media platforms are an incredibly potent vector for antisemitism, spreading the lies to sustain it.

Antisemitic influencers are free to recruit, proselytize, fundraise and operationalize hate online. And despite years of warnings, there’s been insufficient action to stop it.

We cannot forget that online hate has offline consequences.

Social media companies' failure to act is a recognized factor in hate-motivated attacks around the world, from Pittsburgh to Christchurch.

Toxic communication is not simply an unavoidable occurrence in a digital town square, but rather a product of the social media business model that rewards it. It is troubling that social media companies remain largely untouchable and completely unaccountable in Canada.

To conclude, CCDH supports and thanks you for your inquiry into the state of antisemitism in Canada and urges the Committee and Canadian government to further investigate and act upon social media platforms' role in amplifying and distributing this harmful content.

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