On February 20, long-time Canadian Dimension columnist and contributor Yves Engler was arrested by Montréal police at the behest of pro-Israel media personality Dahlia Kurtz. In today’s Canada, offending Zionist influencers is apparently enough to land you behind bars.
Canadians involved in progressive politics, from the left-wing of the NDP and Greens to the Communist Party, read Engler’s work and admire his commitment to social struggle. For decades, he has organized in support of just causes, from helping stop war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at Concordia University in 2002, to tirelessly confronting Canadian politicians about their complicity in the genocide in Gaza, to penning a vast catalogue of work that shatters complacent illusions about Canada’s benevolence and reveals the often cynical, profit-driven, anti-democratic heart of Ottawa’s foreign policy.
This activism has made him all the right enemies—but as his arrest this month shows, it has also led to political persecution.
Engler’s targeting by Zionist forces and the police has startling implications for the Palestine solidarity movement, and the future of activism and political mobilization in Canada generally. As Alex Tyrell, leader of the Green Party of Québec, puts it:
I think it’s a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada—a country that’s supposed to be a free, democratic society. We’re supposed to speak out about a genocide.
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Engler is facing numerous charges for his anti-genocide activism. The initial charges, instigated by Kurtz, accuse him of harassment because he criticized her anti-Palestinian social media posts. After Montréal police informed Engler of these charges, he wrote about his impending arrest on his website and organized an ongoing letter-writing campaign in which thousands have urged the police to drop the charges. Absurdly, Montréal police claimed that the letter-writing campaign constitutes harassment of the police force itself. They heaped on four new charges: intimidation, harassment, harassing communication, and “entrave” (interference) against the police investigator who informed Engler of his looming arrest.
According to Engler, Kurtz is being assisted by a law firm associated with Neil Oberman, a Conservative Party candidate in the upcoming federal election. After the onset of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Oberman launched legal action against students protesting Canadian complicity in the killing of Palestinians. In fact, Engler had personally confronted Oberman in April 2024, asking him, “How do you feel about the 15,000 Palestinian children killed [in Gaza]?” Oberman threatened to call the police and walked off.
Kurtz, who claims to be a victim of harassment, has labelled anti-genocide protests “mobs” that “incite terrorism.” She has also called for Palestine solidarity activists to be deported.
Engler’s arrest has been widely reported by X users, including well-known political commentator Glenn Greenwald and Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada (Abunimah was himself unjustly arrested by Swiss authorities last month). Turkish and Iranian media have reported on Engler’s arrest, as has the UK-based channel Middle East Eye and the online legal news service Jurist News. However, no mainstream Canadian media have reported on Engler’s arrest, and next to no Canadian politicians have condemned his jailing.
Engler is far from the first activist in Canada to be targeted by reactionary social forces and the police for being on the right side of history. We can recall James Gareth Endicott, founder of the Canadian Peace Congress, who was smeared and physically attacked for his peace advocacy during the Cold War. We can also recall the 66,000 “communist sympathizers” who were included on the RCMP’s “PROFUNC” list, all of whom were to be separated from their families and locked in internment camps in the event of a “national security threat.”
We can recall the wrongful detention of 1,100 protestors for holding an anti-capitalist protest at the G20 summit in Toronto in 2010.
We can recall Zain Haq, the climate activist deported earlier this year because of his progressive political activities.
We can recall Charlotte Kates of Samidoun, her house raided by militarized police last year, and the Indigo 11, subjected to aggressive nighttime raids for their anti-genocide activism.
Those who stand up for just social and economic causes have long faced repression by the Canadian state. In this moment, the struggle for Palestinian liberation is the most unifying cause for people who want to build a better world. For this reason, it is no surprise that anti-genocide activists like Engler are being targeted.
It is imperative that these intimidation efforts fail. Despite the flagrantly political nature of his prosecution, Engler will be freed, and Canadian support for Palestinian liberation will continue.