A Toronto man has been charged with public incitement of hatred after police allege he held a “terrorist flag” during a demonstration last weekend.
Police say the 41-year-old man allegedly waved a flag of “an organization listed as a terrorist group by Public Safety Canada” while marching through the city’s downtown on Sunday.
Police have not confirmed what the flag depicted or what group it was associated with.
Speaking at a Toronto Police Services Board meeting Thursday, police Chief Myron Demkiw said he would “not be complicit in providing a platform to both acknowledge or promote the hateful ideology.”
Demkiw called the charge “unprecedented,” noting the “very high threshold” to charge anyone with a hate propaganda offence.
“We’re not putting up with this kind of hateful conduct,” he added at a news conference Thursday. “This type of allegation points to an extremist, hateful perspective that we do not welcome in the city.”
The man is set to appear in court in Toronto on Feb. 23.
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, vice president GTA of the Centre of Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), said she hopes the public incitement of charge is the “first of many laid” against people “promoting violence” against others in Canada.
“We hope that other police services will take note,” she said.
Anas Sial, the lead of the grassroots organization Action for Palestine, said one person’s alleged display of a terrorist organization’s flag shouldn’t be associated with Palestinian flags. Since police haven’t disclosed what the flag was, he says the organization can’t properly comment on it.
“If they’re not disclosing what it is, I don’t even know what they’re talking about,” said Sial. “There’s no correlation until we have further understanding of what it is and who this individual was,”
According to the force’s website, Toronto police consider a hate crime to be a criminal offence committed against a person or property motivated at least in part by the offender’s bias, prejudice or hate against an identifiable group. If a person is charged and convicted of that offence, a judge will take into consideration hate as an aggravating factor when imposing a sentence.
The chief said Toronto has seen more protests since the start of the Israel-Hamas war than any other city in Canada — 308 so far — and that those demonstrations have escalated recently.
Demonstrations prohibited on highway overpass
Demkiw also announced Thursday that demonstrations on the Avenue Road bridge over Highway 401 will now be prohibited as they pose a threat to public safety and have made many in the surrounding Jewish community feel intimidated.
When asked, the chief did not rule out the possibility of also limiting protests outside Jewish-owned businesses such as restaurants.
Demkiw said people who ignore the ban can expect to be arrested “if necessary” and any activities that take place on the bridge will be investigated “with a criminal lens.”
Kirzner-Roberts said CIJA is thankful to Toronto police and Demkiw for their decision to prohibit protests on Avenue Road bridge.
“These daily incidents from these protesters was, you know, making the Jewish feel community feel unsafe,” said Kirzner-Roberts.
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, left, is the vice president of the GTA for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Anas Sial, right, is an organizer with the group Action for Palestine. (Mark Bochsler and Tyler Cheese)
But one group that’s been actively protesting on the highway overpass for weeks says their intention is to raise awareness — not target Jewish Canadians.
Sial, of Action for Palestine, called the prohibition “an infringement of our Charter rights, our freedom of speech, our freedom to protest [and] our free to demonstration,” and says the group plans to take legal action against the police.
The group protested there weeks ago after Sial says a billboard company took down billboards on the violence in Gaza and refunded them.
“We’re trying to express our voice,” said Sial, adding he hopes police reconsider the decision and instead monitor the highway protests when they happen.
Hate crimes down in December from previous month
Demkiw also provided the board with the latest details on the force’s hate crime statistics, saying hate crime calls to Toronto police were down in December.
Demkiw said there were 10 reported hate crimes last month compared to 48 in November. The shift is the first to come after the force raised alarm about the sustained spike in calls starting Oct. 7.
He called the recent figures “good news” but warned antisemitic incidents are still a major concern, representing a majority of all hate crimes in 2023. There were 132 total incidents reported compared to 65 in 2022.
This year, there have been two antisemitic hate crimes reported so far, one of which was a suspected arson attack against a Jewish-owned deli store in North York. To date, the force has also received 145 reports from people using the recently launched hate graffiti web form, police said.
Suspected hate-motivated arson has ‘full attention’ of Toronto police, chief says
Toronto police’s hate crime unit is investigating a fire at a Jewish-owned grocery store on Wednesday that was also spray-painted with the words “Free Palestine.” Police Chief Myron Demkiw told reporters Thursday “no stone would be left unturned” as they look for suspects.
“Let me be clear and unequivocal, our commitment to keeping our city’s Jewish community safe is unwavering,” Demkiw said. “I will say this once again and as many times as necessary: violence and hate will not be tolerated.”
Demkiw and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met on Wednesday to discuss the recent and “alarming” increase in antisemitic incidents and what more can be done to keep Jewish Canadians safe. The meeting came after two Toronto councillors asked the federal government for help fighting antisemitism in Toronto.
“As partners, we’ll continue to do what is necessary to tackle hatred in all its forms,” Trudeau said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The number of reported hate crimes was up 42 per cent in 2023 from the previous year — 353 reports compared with 248, police said. From October to December, the force received an average of 190 hate-related calls, up from the average of 47 for all the months prior in 2023.
Demkiw notes the second highest increase was in reported LGBTQ+ hate crimes, going up from 40 in 2022 to 66 in 2023. There were also 35 reported anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate crimes last year compared to 12 the year prior, making it the third highest category.
From Oct. 7, 2023 to Jan. 10, 2024, the force said its arrested 54 people, resulting in 117 hate crime-related charges. The most common were mischief, assault and uttering threats.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
.png?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:*510w)
