{"id":307322,"date":"2025-11-26T03:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307322\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T03:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:59:08","slug":"why-hasnt-canada-declared-terrorgram-a-terrorist-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307322\/","title":{"rendered":"Why hasn\u2019t Canada declared Terrorgram a terrorist organization?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A man places a candle on the pavement at Zamocka Street in Bratislava on October 13, 2022 after a teenager shot dead two men at the Teplaren bar, a gay bar. Manifestos circulated on Terrorgram have played a role in inspiring deadly attacks, including this one, according to U.S., British and Australian authorities.VLADIMIR SIMICEK\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

A white-supremacist group known as the Terrorgram Collective, whose online manifestos glorifying Nazis are aimed at youth, has been blamed for inspiring a deadly shooting at a gay bar in Slovakia in 2022 and a mass stabbing at a mosque in Turkey in 2024. <\/p>\n

The group\u2019s online reach has become apparent in Ontario, where judges in Ottawa and Toronto have recently convicted two men of terrorism charges for spreading Terrorgram\u2019s propaganda.<\/p>\n

Governments in Britain, the U.S. and Australia have designated Terrorgram as a terrorist group. But Canada has not. <\/p>\n

Federal cabinet ministers are responsible for designating terrorist groups. The list currently comprises nearly 90 groups, including Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa Cartel and India\u2019s Bishnoi Gang, transnational crime groups added for the first time by the government this year. <\/p>\n

Created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the list primarily included Islamist extremist groups such as al-Qaeda when it started, but more recently, several violent white-supremacist groups have been added. <\/p>\n

Ontario man, member of now-defunct neo-Nazi group, pleads guilty to terrorism charges<\/a><\/p>\n

Designating a group as a terrorist organization is significant. It can prompt law-enforcement agencies to launch investigations or redirect resources. Such listings also give banks the power to seize assets and may also lead border guards to step up scrutiny of suspected members.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has teeth,\u201d says Stephanie Carvin, a national-security professor at Carleton University. \u201cIf it\u2019s believed that you are a member of one of those organizations, then good luck having a bank account \u2212 and good luck existing in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadian government should consider listing Terrorgram and related groups, Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Mr. Balgord pointed out that the group\u2019s two convicted Ontario operatives have been described in court as men who started neo-Nazi fighting clubs that were allegedly recruiting young men to spread hate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the most serious threat on our doorstep right now,\u201d Mr. Balgord said. \u201cSo I\u2019d like the question to be asked: Should we designate them? And why aren\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to questions from The Globe and Mail for this story, Canadian government officials explained the government\u2019s process for designating a terrorist organization but declined to say whether it has plans to designate the Terrorgram Collective. <\/p>\n

Tim Warmington, a spokesman for Public Safety Canada said, \u201can entity may be added if there are reasonable grounds to believe that it has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in, or facilitated a terrorist activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Terrorgram Collective rose during the pandemic, when neo-Nazis around the world gathered in online encrypted chat groups to discuss their shared aim of overthrowing governments, according to an expert witness who gave evidence in Ontario\u2019s Superior Court this year in connection with the two recent convictions. <\/p>\n

The terrorism expert, Matthew Kriner of the U.S. Middlebury Institute for International Studies, wrote in a court-filed report that the postpandemic period is \u201cdefined by the rise of the Terrorgram Collective and its dominance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Manifestos circulated on Terrorgram have played a role in inspiring deadly attacks, according to the U.S., British and Australian governments. The shooting in Slovakia killed two people; five were injured in the mass stabbing in Turkey. <\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Home Office placed the Terrorgram Collective on its terrorist entities list in April, 2024. In that Parliament, politicians applauded the measure<\/a> and denounced the group\u2019s \u201cfascist\u201d world views including \u201cvile antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early January, 2025, the United States followed suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group promotes violent white supremacism, solicits attacks on perceived adversaries, and provides guidance,\u201d the U.S. State Department said in a statement<\/a> designating the Terrorgram Collective. <\/p>\n

Ottawa man sentenced to 10 years over neo-Nazi terrorist propaganda <\/a><\/p>\n

While designating a group as a terrorist entity can highlight threats and assist law-enforcement probes, such measures are not necessarily needed to lay criminal terrorism charges. <\/p>\n

Months before the American designation, U.S. authorities charged several citizens with being Terrorgram operatives. In one case, California attorney Phillip Talbert alleged two Americans had sought to harm minority groups and had also \u201cdoxed and solicited the murder of federal officials.\u201d <\/p>\n

This past June, Australia also designated the group after laying individual criminal charges. \u201cBy listing Terrorgram, the Australian Government is acting to keep Australians safe from terrorism and violent extremism,\u201d said Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs in a statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Officials there allege that last year a 19-year-old local man attempted to livestream his terrorist attack<\/a> targeting a politician in New South Wales. He faces life in prison for his thwarted attack, which led Terrorgram members to post advice on how others could carry out more successful strikes.<\/p>\n

The Terrorgram Collective\u2019s Canadian activities were exposed in Ontario courts this fall, in the cases where two men were convicted of terrorism offences. <\/p>\n

Both had started out in the Atomwaffen Division \u2212 a neo-Nazi terrorist group that Canada has listed. But as that group splintered, they became influential members of Terrorgram. <\/p>\n

In September, Ottawa\u2019s Patrick Gordon MacDonald was sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism \u2013 in part, for his role in videos he produced, which the judge described as \u201csupporting violent extremism.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe videos and the offender\u2019s graphic designs glorifying senior Nazis created a heightened level of propaganda on the Internet. The videos also helped to radicalize individuals, especially in the 10-to-20-year age group,\u201d Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith wrote in his sentencing ruling<\/a> in September.<\/p>\n

Mr. MacDonald had pleaded not guilty to terrorism.<\/p>\n

Matthew Althorpe is to be sentenced this winter in a Toronto court. In October, he pleaded guilty to terrorism offences that included co-writing and spreading key Terrorgram manifestos. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year prison sentence, while his defence lawyer is seeking 14 years. <\/p>\n

Court heard these manuals that were instrumental in indoctrinating attackers who hatched the deadly plots in Slovakia, Turkey and other countries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A man places a candle on the pavement at Zamocka Street in Bratislava…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-307322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}