Documenting Ottawa’s Blind Spot on Antifa — and Concerns Around Its Funding of an ‘Anti-Hate’ NGO
TORONTO — This week on The Bureau Podcast, we speak with Toronto lawyer and independent journalist Caryma Sa’d about her explosive claims that Discord — the same chat platform now under FBI scrutiny after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — is also being used inside Canada by Antifa-aligned networks to coordinate harassment campaigns and share dossiers on political targets.Sa’d describes Discord as a central hub, where tiered servers give vetted insiders access to “dox-style” files that go far beyond what is publicly available. She argues some of this information must come from people in positions of trust — teachers, union members, bureaucrats, even political staffers — who are feeding sensitive details into activist networks.She also connects these practices to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a federally funded NGO that she says has “assisted Antifa” and shaped government focus in a way that overlooks the risks of left-wing extremism. Public records confirm CAHN has received more than $900,000 from Ottawa since 2020. Sa’d contends this money is effectively underwriting political targeting in Canada.In our full conversation, she goes further. Sa’d speaks about:* Her own targeting: how she was profiled after declining to work with CAHN, and how swarming campaigns have tried to undermine her legal practice.* Police reluctance: her frustration that even when harassment is “verifiable and documented,” law enforcement often shrugs off complaints as political disputes.* The protest ecosystem: how Antifa-aligned cells blend with movements for Indigenous rights, migrant rights, trans rights, encampment occupations, and pro-Palestine rallies — creating what she calls a “solidarity banner” that can rapidly pivot narratives.* Amplification abroad: her concern that hostile states seize on Canadian protest footage, using it in information operations that echo broader foreign interference campaigns.“The Canadian Anti-Hate Network. I think this is the most obvious and in my view, shocking example. It is an NGO that purports to document and fight against specifically far right hate. And in having such a narrow focus, they're obviously ignoring everything else that happens. And, you know, they would probably say that it's not equivalent. The real dangers, the real threats, the real risk of violence, comes from the right, not from the left. And I think that that has created almost a vacuum of focus and interest that has allowed the far left to metastasize in the way that it conducts itself. The Anti-Hate network has been found by an Ontario court to have assisted the Antifa movement, which that same court decision recognizes has been violent. Anti-Hate in practice takes public money to put targets on private citizens and its base then gets riled up to act on the articles that they put out, whether that's mobilizing to try and cancel events, mobilizing to try to get people fired, so on and so forth. But it is sort of a smear factory, especially, and I say this because I've been the target of one of those hit pieces.” — Caryma Sa’dThe Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thebureau.news/subscribe
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