A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo

With the war in Iran barely weeks old, violent actors in Canada’s largest city are already testing the political will and the police’s capacity to rein them in.

Based on what we’ve seen, it’s far from obvious if authorities are up to the challenge.

When congregants at two Orthodox synagogues arrived for Shabbat services on Saturday morning to find their places of worship had been sprayed with bullets overnight, politicians at all levels of government used all the usual platitudes about antisemitism having no place in Canada and these acts “not being the Canadian way.”

Some of them seemed genuinely surprised.

Police were reportedly searching for a connection between the two crimes, but seem to have missed the obvious fact that of the more than 100 synagogues in the Toronto area, only these two had appeared on a list of “Zionist institutions” produced by an obscure website whose other projects include doxing Canadians who have served in the IDF.

To those unschooled in the finer points of police work, that sounds like a lead.

The synagogue shootings followed a shooting attack earlier in the week at another synagogue. That incident happened shortly after the end of a Purim celebration.

Credit to the terrorists on their timing.

Last Tuesday morning’s shooting at Toronto’s American consulate seems to have been a turning point. That crime had diplomatic implications and forced the RCMP to get involved.

The fact that the attacks occurred at night make clear that the perpetrators are more interested in terrorizing than injuring. For now anyway.

Many rattled Canadians want to know why these attacks keep happening. The answer is an uncomfortable one: because we let it happen.

In 1998, Ward Elcock, who was then head of Canada’s spy agency, warned the country’s Senate that Canada should not “become, through inaction or otherwise, what might be called an unofficial state sponsor of terrorism.”

The warning was largely ignored.

According to a 2024 report by the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies, Canada is a “safe haven” for Hamas and Hezbollah. Funds have been raised via front charity groups, including IRFAN-Canada, which according to the Canada Revenue Agency, transferred C$14.6 million to Hamas-affiliated organizations between 2005 and 2009.

Currency exchanges have provided another means of laundering proceeds of crime and funding terror. While these businesses have an obligation to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, they are lightly regulated at best.

Hawala, a trust-based system used to transfer funds outside the formal banking system, allows criminal enterprises and rogue regimes to operate with impunity.

The Iranian regime is also active in Canada.

In addition to intimidating members of the Iranian diaspora, the ayatollahs’ regime has hired local criminal gangs to do its bidding. In 2024, two Canadians with ties to the Hells Angels were arrested as part of an Iranian murder for hire plot in Maryland.

Later that year, former Justice Minister and human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler was informed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of an Iranian plan to assassinate him.

Recent legislative changes have tightened financial crime laws. But the problem is largely one of enforcement rather than what’s on the books.

In addition to giving it a free hand to use Canada as a financing hub, the federal government has turned a blind eye to the Iranian regime’s direct activities in the country.

After dragging its feet for years, Canada finally designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization in 2024. But despite the best efforts of the Iranian diaspora and opposition politicians, the government has refused to do much to remove known IRGC agents from the country.

A velvet glove approach to criminal law enforcement provides further safe harbors for violent criminals.

With police forces embracing the “de-escalation” fad, and a Youth Criminal Justice Act that all but exempts those under 18 from punishment, criminal gangs have resorted to recruiting teenagers to do their dirty work.

Meanwhile, the judiciary in Ontario, which is home to roughly 40% of the country’s population, is so stretched that it throws out most criminal charges due to unreasonable delay.

On Wednesday the federal government announced that it would provide $10 million in funding to help support the security needs of Jewish institutions. It’s a necessary stopgap measure.

But if the new normal is for Jewish life in Canada to be conducted in hiding and behind fortifications, then perhaps former Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly was right after all in noting that Canada is “the most European of all non-European countries.”

Those looking for a root cause to the current epidemic of antisemitic violence need look no further than the infrastructure of terrorism that has flourished in their country for more than two decades.

As with Justin Trudeau’s last liberal government, it’s far from obvious the current Liberal government is willing to do anything about it.

Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.