Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar have established extensive network across Canada: report

The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that has declared “jihad against the Jews,” has established a vast network of charities and fundraising across Canada, a new think-tank report finds. “For decades, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is also an adherent, have managed to embed themselves at all levels of Canadian society,” the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) argues. Its latest report, “We Stand on Guard For Thee? The Growing Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Politics, Academia, and Civil Society in America,” was published Wednesday morning. The organization features Canada’s former justice minister Irwin Cotler on its board of directors. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Egyptian organization that believes in the establishment of an Islamic caliphate whose leaders have promoted antisemitic conspiracies. Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood. “This report is a wake-up call for all Canadians,” ISGAP board advisor Charles Asher Small told National Post in a written statement. Small called on the federal government to “designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and “immediately freeze public funding to suspect organizations.” “Our report exposes how federal agencies have become complicit in sustaining and legitimizing networks that promote antisemitic and anti-Israel ideologies under the guise of charity and social welfare,” Small wrote. “These entities are exploiting the very values of tolerance and pluralism that Canada holds dear, weaponizing public institutions against Jewish communities and undermining Canadian democracy itself.” The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, a Florida-based research group, highlighted several Canadian charities that have extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, alleging that they exploit Canadian laws to raise money for Muslim Brotherhood factions in the Middle East. Of particular concern to the think-tank is the Muslim Association of Canada, which describes itself as the “largest Muslim grassroots Canadian charitable organization.” In 2021, an audit conducted by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) found “the concept of the Muslim Brotherhood appeared” in the charity’s “governing documents.” The Muslim Association of Canada  disputed the characterization of its work, alleging it reflected a “systemic Islamophobia” bias and appealed the CRA audit. The CRA, in its original investigation, found enough grounds to revoke MAC’s charitable status. (The MAC remains a registered charity, according to the federal government’s database .) On Wednesday, it dismissed the ISGAP report. “This report is nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as ‘research,’ when in reality it’s a biased, unsubstantiated hit piece that relies solely on discredited allegations — allegations that were questioned by the Ontario Superior Court for their apparent bias and ultimately abandoned by the CRA in concluding its audit and reaching a resolution with MAC,” the organization told National Post in a statement on Wednesday. The federal investigation also revealed that “most prominent members, directors, and officials” of MAC were involved either with International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN-Canada) “or a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas in Canada.” IRFAN-Canada was designated a terror entity in 2014 for transferring nearly $15 million to Hamas, the Palestinian terror group behind the October 7 attacks on Israel. The Canadian government outlined in its decision that IRFAN-Canada exploited its “status as a charitable organization to fund Hamas.” A decade later, Canada’s public safety ministry secured a deportation order against a former female employee of IRFAN-Canada, stating her presence in the country was “inadmissible on security grounds.” Lorenzo Vidino, a terror finance researcher at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, has spent the last 25 years studying the Muslim Brotherhood. He co-published a report in January 2025, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the West? Evidence from a Canadian Tax Authority Investigation,” exploring the Muslim Association of Canada and sees as a window into how the Islamist group operates in North America and across Europe. “I think all Western countries have come to an understanding that the Brotherhood is a problematic group and I think the findings of all other countries apply also to Canada,” Vidino told National Post. “There’s a consensus across security services in general of the threats that the Brotherhood poses and the main one is an issue of social cohesion and integration. The Brotherhood has an ability to push within Muslim communities narratives that are highly divisive, that are polarizing,” he said. “It promotes values that are antithetical to those of Western constitutions when it comes to democracy, white it comes to women’s rights, when it comes to gay rights, when it comes to freedom of religion, when it comes to antisemitism.” Vidiono, author of the 2010 book “The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West,” said that while it the Islamist group, itself, “might not be directly engaged in terrorist activities, it promotes a narrative — it mainstreams a narrative — that lays the groundwork for jihadists groups to recruit. It creates this narrative of victimization: the narrative that Muslims are constantly under attack by the West with widespread Islamophobia.” The ISGAP report noted that the leading Canadian Muslim advocacy group, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, also has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization, which was originally known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN), was an outgrowth of a similarly-named U.S. group which, the publication alleges, is “a self-described Muslim Brotherhood front organization.” A 2003 affidavit from the former founder of the group, Sheema Khan, also acknowledged the relationship. ”This report does not serve Canadian interests. It amplifies foreign narratives designed to fuel Islamophobia and division within our society,” the Muslim Association of Canada added in its written statement. “Canadians should be concerned about foreign influence, particularly the foreign-funded industry of anti-Muslim hate that fuels reports like this. These authors should be ashamed of themselves for trafficking in Islamophobic tropes that endanger Canadian Muslims and  undermine social cohesion.” The report also explores efforts by Qatar, a small country in the Arabian Peninsula, to influence Canadian academia and fund local Islamic centres. Qatar offers safe passage and financing to Hamas leaders and has been a principal mediator between the Palestinian terror group and Israel to broker ceasefire talks. Concerns over the Emirati country’s foreign influence have gained momentum in America amid reporting that suggests Qatar has been the largest foreign donor to American universities since 1986, contributing more than $6 billion, mostly to elite colleges. The ISGAP paper details how Qatar gave McGill University in Montreal a $1.25 million gift for its Islamic studies program in 2012, and created a collaboration between Qatar Airways and the school’s Institute for Air and Space Law. Qatar’s financial reach extends beyond academia and into the Canadian charitable realm. The CRA audit of the Muslim Association of Canada found that the organization received more than $1 million from Qatar Charity, which ISGAP describes as a “state-owned organization,” in 2012. The foreign group gave nearly $2.5 million to help buy land and build the Islamic Community Centre of Ontario, the Canada Revenue Agency found during its investigation. The report argues that the financial power Qatar wields across Canada could influence how university administrators discipline antisemitism on campus and influence the message of religious figures in Muslim communities. The consequences of Canadian inaction, “due in no small part to a lack of political will,” the report argues, “has now become a major national security issue that requires serious scrutiny.” National Post sought comment from the Qatari embassy in Ottawa but did not hear back by press time.

• Jamie Sarkonak: Muslim charity under CRA microscope for ties to alleged Hamas front
• Barbara Kay: Canada needs to have a serious talk about the Muslim Brotherhood

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