Perceived Injustice in Canada’s Legal System | CAEF Special Bulletin, Mar 16, 2026
- CAEF
- 33 minutes ago
- 18 min read
CAEF Shares Important Story from Today’s Canadian Jewish News
Journalist and podcaster Ellin Bessner interviewed legal experts Michael Teper, lawyer and President of CAEF and Rochelle Direnfeld, former Crown prosecutor with Ontario’s Attorney General’s ministry in Toronto, and a legal advocate for the Alliance of Canadians Combating Antisemitism (ALCAA), who track hate crimes against the Jewish community, on The CJN’s North Star podcast. They provide explanations as to why in Toronto so many of these cases are being withdrawn or diverted.
After synagogue shootings, legal experts warn dropped charges fuel ‘impunity’
After three Toronto-area synagogues were shot at within the same week earlier this month, many people asked, how could this happen? But for legal expert Michael Teper, it was no surprise.
Teper noticed that two of the synagogues that were hit by gunfire are Orthodox and are the only ones listed on a notorious Canadian news site that has targeted Jewish schools, summer camps and places of worship where some members have served in the Israel Defense Forces.
A lawyer and president of The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, Teper tracks police-reported hate crimes against the Jewish community since Oct. 7, 2023 and recently published his spreadsheets on social media. He says the results show that nearly half of the 100 cases have seen their charges withdrawn, or diverted from going to trial in favour of alternate forms of community service or a peace bond.
For Teper, the Ontario government’s approach to punishment of these crimes fuels other attackers and risks sending a message of impunity.
Rochelle Direnfeld agrees. Direnfeld spent 32 years as a Crown prosecutor with Ontario’s Attorney General’s ministry in Toronto. Now she is a legal advocate for the Alliance of Canadians Combating Antisemitism (ALCAA).
On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, Teper and Direnfeld outline their concerns about why so many of the charges against anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protesters wind up never going to trial–and what they believe needs to change.
Transcript:
Ellin Bessner
Earlier this month, three Toronto area synagogues were shot at within the same week, raising new fears about rising antisemitic violence in the city. Police in both Toronto and York Region vowed to be “relentless” in solving the crimes. But for some legal experts, these attacks also raise another question: even if the police do find who did it and charge them, will the justice system respond to antisemitic incidents the same way it’s been doing for the past 2 1/2 years since October 7th?
For example, police in Toronto have laid hundreds of charges tied to protests, vandalism and harassment targeting Jewish institutions and people. The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation’s president, Michael Teper, has kept his own spreadsheets of 100 cases he’s tracked in Toronto. His results show that nearly half have had the charges withdrawn.
That’s not far off a recent report in the National Post showing about 60% of cases never reached trial.
These include some of the highest profile ones, such as the Indigo 11, who vandalized the Jewish-owned bookstore in downtown Toronto in 2023 for the owner’s support of Israeli soldiers. They got conditional discharges or the charges were dropped. The 3 protesters who disrupted the Giller Prize ceremony?
Withdrawn.
The Eaton Centre in and around Christmas time 2024? Dropped.
Public incitement of hatred at the Walk with Israel in June of 2024? Dropped.
The pro-Palestine student who hurled that 88-year-old Jewish man carrying an Israeli flag to the ground at Bathurst and Sheppard after a plea bargain? Her assault charge was dropped. She pleaded guilty to mischief. She got a year probation and was ordered to take anger management counseling and do community service, after which her criminal record gets erased.
Michael Teper
That sends a powerful message of impunity to those who would attack the Jewish community. It means that the laws are not taken seriously and that they can get away with it. And the extremists who have shot at the synagogues in the last week have taken that message to heart.
Ellin Bessner
I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Monday, March 16th, 2026. Welcome to North Star, the flagship podcast of The Canadian Jewish News, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Although Premier Doug Ford ordered the Attorney General to ask for an injunction Friday to try to stop Saturday’s Al-Quds Day parade in Toronto, that application was unsuccessful. The judge said the government should have come to court a lot sooner, not three hours before the rally was set to start. And besides, the judge ruled, what about free speech? Plus, he said the police don’t need an injunction to enforce the law.
Legal experts who monitor anti-Israel protests in and around Toronto since October 7th say that may be true. Police don’t. But privately, one detective told a synagogue member whose building was shot at last weekend, his concern is that the criminals, if they’re caught, will get off too easily with penalties that are a slap on the wrist.
In Canada’s criminal courts, about one-third of all charges are typically withdrawn or stayed before trial. But on today’s episode, we heard that in the antisemitism-related cases here, the proportion appears closer to half.
Joining me now to explore this are lawyer Michael Teper of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation and also Rochelle Direnfeld. She’s a former Crown prosecutor in Ontario for 32 years. Now Senior Criminal Counsel with the Alliance of Canadians Combating Antisemitism, and the newly appointed member of Toronto Police Services Board’s Jewish Advisory Committee. Good to see you.
Michael Teper
Good morning.
Rochelle Direnfeld
Good morning.
Ellin Bessner
When you heard about the Toronto shootings the past week, what went through your mind and what did you do?
Michael Teper
First, I was very relieved to hear that no one had been killed or injured. And I was very gratified and grateful for that fact. And I have to say that I was not shocked or surprised. I think that what happened on Friday night is the natural and predictable consequence of the environment that’s been festering in the Toronto area for the last 2 1/2 years.
Rochelle Direnfeld
Also, thank God no one was hurt because at the BAYT, there were two people that were in the synagogue at the time of the shooting, and there, but for the grace of God, one of them wasn’t walking by the door, because one of the… bullets actually perforated through into the synagogue. But yes, it was the inevitable consequence of what has been going on in this city for the last 2 1/2 years, the hate speech, both online and in person that we’ve seen at protests that has been festering. And this is the inevitable consequence of that hate speech that has gone unchecked by the police.
Ellin Bessner
So you’re talking about hate speeches behind this. The police were saying that global events and the current heating up of the war between Israel, Iran, and the United States made them beef up their patrols and beef up their command posts because what happens over there translates into problems here in Canada. Does that ring true to you?
Rochelle Direnfeld
So whenever things heat up in the Middle East, it always has consequences and there’s always a result of the increase in anti-Semitism in Canada. Historically, that’s what’s happened. And so with the latest events in the Middle East, with the war on Iran, that has caused an uptick of antisemitism and the type of conduct that we are seeing, especially over the last number of weeks.
Michael Teper
Well, I would say is, of course, what happens in Toronto is a reflection of what happens in the Middle East. Effectively, Toronto has become a minor theatre of the war. It used to be merely a propaganda theatre of the war, but now it’s turned into a situation where there are starting to become acts of violence, and I would even say low-grade domestic terrorism in response to the wars in the Middle East.
Ellin Bessner
So why can’t the police stop this? They’ve had two and a half years throwing all their millions of resources into it. What’s the problem?
Rochelle Direnfeld
The problem is that police, it appears as a policy, are exercising their discretion to de-escalate when hate speech is occurring. And instead of arresting those who are proliferating this hate speech, they’re allowing it to go unchecked. And in our view, there’s a difference between de-escalation, which is always a good goal in order to quell violence, but there’s a difference between de-escalation and capitulation. And what we’re seeing now and what we’ve seen for the past 2 1/2 years is capitulation. So we’ve seen multiple protests where hate speech is permitted, where police stand by, often not even understanding that what is being said is antisemitic, and allowing it to occur because no one is being hurt, No property is being damaged. And that is viewed as a success as far as they’re concerned, ignoring basically the hate speech that is being proliferated.
Michael Teper
But it goes beyond the police. As they say on “Law and Order”, the public is represented by two separate and equally important groups, the police who investigate crimes and the district attorneys that prosecute the offenders.
The problem is also with the Crown attorneys here in Canada, where charges are being regularly withdrawn either for so-called common law peace bonds that don’t require anything material or for no reason at all. They’re simply dropped. And that sends a really important signal to the perpetrators.
It started with the Indigo 11 about two years ago, where people were arrested for vandalizing a downtown Jewish-owned bookstore with paint and glue, and of those people, two of them received discharges, and the rest, the charges were dropped altogether. That sends a powerful message of impunity to those who would attack the Jewish community. It means that the laws are not taken seriously and that they can get away with it. And the extremists who shot at the synagogues in the last week have taken that message to heart.
Ellin Bessner
You’re saying that the people who were involved with the Indigo protests, which are mostly professors from York University and activists, are the same kind of people who are shooting up synagogues?
Michael Tepper
No, they’re not the same kind of people. What I’m saying is that the message that was delivered by our justice system to the left-wing professors and activists is the message that emboldens these much stronger-minded extremists that they can get away with it. What I’m saying is the effect on the first group emboldens… and incites the second group to action.
Ellin Bessner
Rochelle?
Rochelle Direnfeld
I agree that there’s a connection in terms of the emboldening effect. And what has been happening is that when police do lay charges, they are often diverted by the Crown. So instead of making their way through the criminal justice system, through to a trial or a guilty plea, the Crown exercises their discretion to deal with the charge outside of the court system, which is… known as diversion. The offenders will do some kind of upfront work, whether that’s counseling, whether it’s a letter of apology, whether it’s community work, and then come back to court, and then the Crown will withdraw the charge.
This is something that… the Criminal Law Division at the Ministry of the Attorney General can directly influence.
There are very well-known policies with respect to domestic violence, for example, or firearms offenses, or child abuse offenses, where discretion of the Crown is curtailed. That is not happening, and that has not happened with respect to hate crimes. And why? There just seems to be no political will, and Crowns who don’t necessarily understand the contemporary manifestations of antisemitism are diverting these charges because they tend to be low-level mischief, low-level assaults, low-level threatening type offenses. And the Crown simply doesn’t understand the effect that hate speech has on the community. And so deals with them in this way. And in our view, that’s not an appropriate way to deal with hate speech.
Michael Teper
I would go a little bit farther. I’ve been keeping track of what happens to people who do get arrested at anti-Israel protests and who do commit acts of hate speech on the internet in Ontario and even across Canada and some of the other provinces.
And I discerned the definitive pattern in the Toronto region particularly, of hate speech and anti-Israel protesters having their charges withdrawn. And I compiled a list of nine cases and I submitted that to the Crown Attorney’s Office about a month ago. And last week I received a letter from the Director of Crown Operations [for Toronto] that gave me the boilerplate explanation of what’s in the Crown Policy Manual and then summarily said he reviewed all the 9 [Ed. Note: eight, actually] cases and said everything’s fine, nothing to see here, move on. I’m not very satisfied with that explanation.
Ellin Bessner
Can you read some of the things he said?
Michael Teper
There’s not much actually that I can read to you because his analysis was very terse. He gave us the boilerplate explanation as to why charges get withdrawn.
“Decisions made by Crown prosecutors in respect of prosecutions are based on strictly legal and objective criteria. In some cases, after careful review of the evidence and in consultation with the police, the prosecutor determined there was no reasonable prospect of convictions. In other cases, after considering the significant upfront rehabilitative work undertaken by the accused and other factors in the cases, the prosecutor determined that a peace bond resolution was in the public interest. The conclusions reached by the prosecutors in the cases you raised were not unreasonable in the circumstances. In every case, the prosecutors considered relevant factors and used their discretion in making decisions as required. Their decision-making was appropriate.”
Thank you again for your correspondence. That’s what the Crown Prosecutor had to say. In other words, no analysis of the specific cases, no substantive discussion as to how and why the prosecutors exercised their discretion, simply a boilerplate coverall, disclaimer, oh yes, everything was done properly, go away, nothing to see here, folks, goodbye.
Ellin Bessner
Can you list a few of these people and the things they were charged with, just so we get an idea of the range of these things?
Michael Teper
There were two cases of willful incitement of hatred under Section 319-1 of the [Criminal] Code that took place at the Walk for Israel [sic] rally last year. There were several cases of forcible entry with regards to an Israeli-owned business. And there were multiple cases of mischief as well.
Rochelle Direnfeld
Two individuals were charged with public incitement of hatred at the March for Israel, not this past year, but the year before. And those charges were withdrawn. Public incitement of hatred is the only hate propaganda offense that doesn’t require the Attorney General consent, where the police lay “public incitement of hatred likely to lead to a breach of the peace”, then they’re trying to prevent a breach of the peace.
That’s why they are laying the charges and that’s why they can lay the charge without the Attorney General consent. So in the context of the [sic] March for Israel, these people were, in the one instance, the conduct was stomping on the Israeli flag and the other instance wearing a jacket where you know, Jews have a bull’s eye on his back, then the police saw that as a potential for breaching the peace and could have testified to that in terms of what was happening in the crowd, what the reaction was, and why they laid that charge.
So why, you know?
The Crown, of course, has the discretion always to withdraw the charge if they are of the opinion that in the circumstances there is no reasonable prospect of conviction or it’s not in the public interest to pursue the prosecution. That appears to have been what the Crown did in those two cases.
The problem is that why did they make that decision? And the concern is that they didn’t properly understand the contemporary manifestation of antisemitism, which is anti-Zionism. And so in both of those cases, this was, in my view, a failure to recognize that, and an improper or an unjust exercise of discretion.
Ellin Bessner
Coming up, how decisions inside the justice system in Ontario may be shaping what happens on Toronto streets.
music
Ellin Bessner:
So when you’re seeing this as a former Crown, and Michael, you track the cases, can we conclude that, all right, the police are laying their charges, and then something happens in this murky part of the justice system? And then that’s where the problem is, is not at the street level?
Michael Teper
It’s a combination, because what happens in what you call, Ellin, the murky part of the justice system, where in the Attorney General’s office, some lawyer ticks a box and withdraws a charge, that sends a message to the police officers in the street, which is “There’s no point laying a charge, because we go through the process, we do the paperwork, and then the charge gets withdrawn and we have no say in the matter. So why would we bother even laying a charge? Why would we bother even arresting someone? Because we know that it’s useless.”
Ellin Bessner
Is that what your experience is, has it happened in your old office?
Rochelle Direnfeld
Well, I’m not going to speak about specific cases that I dealt with in my old office, but I think that this is a combination. It’s both where police, you know, are seeing and hearing hate speech, hate propaganda occurring, and they are failing to act. But when they do act, and then the charge is then withdrawn by the Crown, then that sends a message.
That sends a message to like-minded people.
It tells them it’s okay to behave in the way that they have been behaving, that their conduct is normalized, that it’s now appropriate to say these, the types of things that we’ve been hearing at protests: All Zionists are racist, all Zionists are terrorists, Jews are committing genocide, From water to water Palestine shall be Arab.
I mean, those things have now become perfectly acceptable because no charges have been laid in relation to that kind of speech. When the police do lay a charge, and then it’s subsequently withdrawn by the Crown, then it’s a double message to those people.
“Well, yeah, they’re not going to charge us, but if they do, the Crown’s going to withdraw it anyway, so I don’t need to be concerned about it.”
And so that continues to proliferate, it continues to fester, and what we have is what we’ve seen in the last week. synagogues being shot at, Jewish-owned businesses being shot at. This has become so normalized. It’s just become part of our daily routine.
Ellin Bessner
Michael, you’ve been following these criminal charges. I’ve seen your spreadsheet. I don’t think there’s anyone else in Ontario, maybe in the government that has this. after doing this for 2 1/2 years, what surprises you the most? (And there are some Jewish names in there too, a few).
Michael Teper
What surprises me is the finding that in fact, in many cases, crime does pay. That… there are no practical consequences. A person has to be arrested two or even three times for the justice system to kick into gear, and that the system is all too eager, even if someone pleads guilty, to grant them discharges.
We have in Ontario something called the Principle of Restraint, which requires the judge to essentially impose the lowest possible sentence and avoid incarceration at all costs…and it sends a message that actually the consequence of getting arrested is five or six court appearances, and all I have to do is hire one of the four or five lawyers who specialize in defending these antisemitic hate crimes, and they’ll do their thing, and then I’ll get off. And that, again, has an economic effect. It emboldens them, it encourages them, and it sends the message that the price for antisemitic hate crimes is low.
Ellin Bessner
To me, it seems like this is a political answer. What do the politicians need to do?
Michael Teper
Well, the politicians can act at a policy level. They can’t intervene in a particular case. The Attorney General cannot say to a local crown attorney, “Make sure this person goes to jail and take this case to trial.”
But what they can say is, “If you are going to drop a hate crime charge, you need to send it to me and I need to review that personally.” They can ask for the Director of Crown Operations to personally review every single case where a hate crime charge is being withdrawn. There are lots of policy decisions that the Attorney General can take, but is not taking.
Rochelle Direnfeld
The other thing that they can do is they can make training mandatory for Crown attorneys so that they are versed on what the contemporary manifestations of antisemitism are, so that we can be assured that they do recognize what antisemitism is today. They can understand the distinction between protected speech and hate speech.
Michael Teper
Getting back to the synagogue shootings, there’s something I like to observe that’s been making the rounds on social media: the publication of the list and the website on The Maple that’s published by a fellow named Davide Mastracci. Davide Mastracci published a list of Jewish institutions that he labels “From GTA to IDF”.
And on that list of seven institutions, there are two synagogues, exactly two: Shaarei Shomayim and Beth Abraham Yosef of Toronto. Both of those synagogues were shot up on Friday night.
In horse racing language, that’s called an exactor, where you pick both the winner and the 2nd place horse in the contest. And that’s a pretty high odds bet. So I’m saying it’s a pretty remarkable coincidence if those synagogues were attacked and it had nothing to do with what Mr. Mastracci published. I think the far more… likely outcome is that these synagogue shootings are the natural and predictable consequence of that publication.
Ellin Bessner
So what do you say is happening, that this is actually incitement to violence against Jewish targets?
Michael Teper
I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, but what I would say is that it’s reckless endangerment, reckless indifference. That list is being published, and the publishers know or ought to know that is virtually the inevitable consequence of that publication in this current environment.
Ellin Bessner
I’m not sure if any of you are aware, but there’s been some efforts by some of the previous doxxing list, the parents of IDF soldiers that were doxxed. And full disclosure, some of my relatives are on that list too. If you look it up, there’s some Bessners on there too, to try to shut this website down financially, by having the payments and credit card clearing systems no longer allow processing. That’s by Shurat HaDin. And some of the parents are also trying to do a legal way to get this website taken down. Can you at all, any of you speak to the developments on this?
Michael Teper
I can’t speak to the developments, but I can suggest one thing that could be done aside from a potential criminal investigation, which would be that for some of these people to march into court to a justice of the peace and ask for a peace bond against the publisher, because this material is putting their safety at risk. The publisher isn’t directly encouraging and saying, “Oh, go out and get these people.” But what he is doing is he’s publishing a roadmap. So when you connect the dots, effectively, he’s creating a chain of reasoning that anyone can follow that would encourage extremists to do exactly what they did on Friday night or worse.
Rochelle
Look to the case of Matthew Althorpe, for example. He’s about to be sentenced at the end of the month for committing willful promotion of hatred for a terrorist group, as well as other terrorism offenses. He pled guilty last year and he’s going to be sentenced at the end of the month. The Crown is asking for 20 years. As a result of his manifestos that were published online, there were six attacks or plots to attack people or critical infrastructure where the terrorists themselves who perpetrated these acts said that they were inspired by Mr. Althorp’s manifestos. So there is the direct connection between the dissemination of hate speech and acts of violence and domestic terrorism. Hate speech radicalizes others and motivates them to commit hate crimes and acts of terror. That is what we are seeing. And the police need to understand It not only has an impact, in this case, on the Jewish community, but it also acts as a stimulant for these people to commit these heinous acts. And it emboldens hate mongers to continue and escalate their conduct when the police don’t act. Now, thankfully, in the case of Matthew, the police did act and the Crown did act. And he pleaded guilty and hopefully will be sent to prison for a long time.
Ellin Bessner
Who was he? Where was he located? What was he doing?
Michael Teper
Matthew Althorp from Ontario, and he was a recruiter for an organization called Atomwaffen SS, which is a designated terrorist group according to Public Safety Canada. He was publishing videos that recruited people into the organization, was encouraging the committing of these kinds of terrorist acts.
Ellin Bessner
Neo-Nazi right-wing.
Michael Teper
He was a neo-Nazi right-wing activist, yes.
Rochelle Direnfeld
Yeah, white supremacist. He was also the leader of another terrorist group called Terrorgram.
Ellin Bessner
Okay.
Lastly, Bill C-9, one of the sections of Bill C-9, is that there won’t be any more Attorney General necessity to sign off on hate crime charges, it will be removed. Is Bill C-9 something that you think might fix this problem that we’ve spent 40 minutes talking about?
Rochelle Direnfeld
Doesn’t add much to the hate propaganda laws that we already have, but it sends a message, in my view, that those types of symbols will not be tolerated when they’re used to promote hatred. What would be more effective in our view, and this is something that my organization has submitted to Parliament, is the offense of willful promotion of terror. And so it uncouples the offence of using those symbols from having to prove that it’s hateful.
So if we take that away and just say, showing these symbols, showing a Hamas flag, showing a Hezbollah flag, anything to do with showing a PFLP flag, for example, or an ISIS flag, or the Nazi Hackenzruz itself should be an offense. There’s no defense in law for having those symbols or using them in any manner. So why don’t we just outlaw that? So that is, what we would prefer.
Michael Teper
The real problem is that there’s no transparency as to how the Attorney Generals actually give their consent and what criteria they employ. I put out a Freedom of Information request to the Attorney Generals of all 10 provinces and not a single one of them gave a clear answer as to how this discretion is exercised. Only one province, British Columbia, was willing to provide any statistics. Ontario point blank refused to give any statistics of how many hate crime charge proposals were laid and how many were granted and how many were declined or any the information as to how the Attorney General makes those decisions. When there’s no transparency, that’s when the Jewish community thinks, Oh, maybe they have it in for us. So I think the transparency and clarity as to how this process works is essential to its credibility.
Ellin Bessneer
We have to end it there. Thank you both for being with us on The Canadian Jewish News podcast.
Thank you. Thank you.
Ellin Bessner
Late Saturday, Toronto police announced they charged two people at the Al-Quds Day rally with hate-motivated crimes. Both were counter-protesters, members of the Iranian community, opposed to the current Iranian regime, who allegedly attacked participants who were carrying regime flags.
And that’s what Jewish Canada sounded like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin’s charitable foundation.
Read article in JNS by Michael Teper, tax accountant and lawyer and President of CAEF, and Sam Goldstein, criminal lawyer, former director of legal affairs at B'nai Brith Canada and Director of CAEF: on the "Looney Tunes" world for Canadian Jews.