New report suggests Muslim Brotherhood has plans to transform Canada

According to the ISGAP report, the group is 'fundamentally opposed to western democratic values and governance systems'

A new report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) argues that the Muslim Brotherhood — the world’s oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world but forbidden to operate as an official political party in several Arab countries — revealed in a 1991 internal explanatory memorandum its “grand mission” to eliminate and destroy western civilization “in America and Canada,” from within. As with many things, Canada appears to be late in addressing this threat. Hopefully, not too late.

The Trump administration takes the Brotherhood’s threats seriously and has produced an admirably robust counter-terrorism strategy dedicated to a number of its chapters’ defenestration. Other western governments, responding to rising anxiety over Islam-related changes in their societies, have published reports on Islamist “tamkeen,” a doctrinal term that can mean simple “entrenchment” or the “acquisition of power to build an Islamic state based on Shariah.”

There’s been a growing awareness of the Muslim Brotherhood over the past decade. In 2015, the United Kingdom issued a report about the group concluding that, “In common with the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere, Muslim Brotherhood-related organizations and individuals in the U.K. have openly supported the activities of Hamas.” In 2021, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group issued a report about Muslim Brotherhood networks in Europe, which warned that funding Brotherhood-related groups risked “the destruction of our own values.” And in 2025, France published an internal security report on the Brotherhood warning that the group was engaged in “entryism” — a political attempt to quietly infiltrate a societies’ institutions to gain influence and promote their fundamentalist religious agenda.

Hamas is a Brotherhood offshoot. A 2025 Global News investigation reported that about 450 people playing roles in Hamas “have ties to Canada.” Experts have testified to the Senate on the Brotherhood and its risks, and research institutes have rung alarm bells about the group. But the words “Muslim Brotherhood” have, to my knowledge, never been publicly uttered by Prime Minister Mark Carney or by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

In 2025, ISGAP produced a report titled, “The Growing Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Politics, Academia, and Civil Society in Canada,” taking note of what it sees as Qatar’s expanding footprint in Canada through academic partnerships, religious endowments and energy-sector investments, and some Qatari organizations, which are under scrutiny for terrorist affiliations.

ISGAP believes the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy is a “deliberate, multigenerational effort that closely aligns with its founders’ vision of gradually transforming western society from within, primarily through nonviolent means,” and claims that, in terms of ideology, it is “fundamentally opposed to western democratic values and governance systems.”

Last month, ISGAP published a second Canada-centered report titled, “Assault on Democratic Values and Principles: How Islamist entryism weakens civil society and higher education in Canada.” While the 2025 report concentrated on individuals, organizations and charities, this recent report examines possible ways that the Muslim Brotherhood exerts influence.

In this most recent report, ISGAP claims that Muslim Brotherhood influence in Canada operates through four reinforcing domains. The first domain involves creating narratives about Islam, Palestinians and Islamophobia in relation to Israel and its legitimacy in a way that constrains scrutiny or debate. The second domain involves embedding these narratives in institutions such as mosques, charities, schools, student groups, professional networks and advocacy organizations. The third involves mobilizing and attempts to impact policy leveraging the aforementioned institutions and individuals in them. The fourth, it argues, involves manipulating legal frameworks.

The report maps what ISGAP says is the Brotherhood and its affiliates’ route from ideological entryism through institutional access and legitimation in high places to public funding, political influence and protection from scrutiny. Combating its influence will require a holistic perspective and an assertive stance from government. But first, government needs to acknowledge its existence.

To that end, ISGAP concludes with rational recommendations. Canada should seek closer collaboration with the U.S. in sharing intelligence and investigating organizations linked or potentially linked to the Brotherhood. The report proposes a national system for disclosing foreign funding in universities, charities, research institutions and civil society groups. Stronger scrutiny of charities and non-profits is also advised, with a brighter spotlight on campus groups and their external relationships.

ISGAP also calls for a regulatory review of the Canadian Islamic College, Canada’s first official post-secondary Islamic educational institution, launched by the Muslim Association of Canada. When contacted for comment, MAC told the Post that the ISGAP report is “nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as research” that included “discredited allegations.”

If ISGAP is correct, the hour is late. Alas, in the space where courageous leadership should already have emerged to defend Canada’s eroding political and cultural sovereignty, a grave-deep vacuum yawns.

National Post