In early 2025, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council (CMPAC), a group claiming to combat “structural Islamophobia by mobilizing communities, engaging decision makers, and influencing public policy,” hosted a cross-Canada campus tour featuring a number of extremists, some of whom have made statements in support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Among the featured speakers were Belal Khaled. Though promoted as a “Gaza photojournalist” by CMPAC, he has made a number of social media posts appearing to praise Hamas’ October 7, 2023 genocidal massacres in southern Israel. Another presenter in the tour was Khadija Ben Qana (also spelled Bengana), a senior employee of Al Jazeera, an official mouthpiece of the Qatari royal family, itself a close ally and patron of Hamas. Ben Qana has taken to social media quoting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s praise of Hamas’ mass murders.

That was not CMPAC’s first time bringing the voices of extremist anti-Israel agitators to Canadian university campuses. A year earlier, CMPAC sponsored another tour in Canada featuring Sami Hamdi, a British political commentator who praised Hamas’ terrorist attacks in 2023. Following public outrage, Carleton University and Concordia University canceled his appearances.

And now, in the midst of a federal election, CMPAC is once again entering the fray, endorsing candidates based on their positions on the Hamas-Israel war. Despite CMPAC’s previous engagements with extremist voices, the Canadian Press (CP) allowed itself to become a free publicity agent for the group, giving readers zero insight into the radical nature of the organization.

CP’s March 26 article entitled: “New campaign will endorse federal election candidates based on their support for Gaza,” reported that “a group representing Canadian Muslims has launched a campaign urging voters to choose federal election candidates based on their support for Gaza,” adding that “the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council says it plans to endorse candidates in several dozen ridings where Muslim voters could hold sway.”

Not once did the Canadian Press article report that CMPAC has previously worked to bring extremist anti-Israel agitators who have expressed support for Palestinian terrorism to Canada on campus tours, a rather pertinent detail that would have given readers a full picture as to the nature of the group.

The Canadian Press article was also re-published in The Toronto Star, as well as CTV News. Neither news outlet bothered to add an addendum to the report telling readers about CMPAC’s involvement in bringing extremist voices to Canada. Instead, they allowed the group’s press release to be reported uncritically in their outlets, not dissimilar to how The Toronto Star recently acted as a de facto free publicist for an anti-Israel boycott campaign. 

The Canadian Press article is yet another example of how, in many corners of the Canadian news media, outlets have failed to shine a critical light on anti-Israel activists, whether they are organizations or individuals, allowing them to be presented as legitimate and mainstream, and making no mention of the highly controversial nature of their activities, which many Canadians would find to be highly offensive and problematic.

It is time for the Canadian news media to finally – and belatedly – hold anti-Israel activists accountable, when they have thus far been given enormous latitude to spread their radical messages with little to no challenge.