Nadine Osman
A 54-year-old man from Newmarket, Ontario, has been charged following alleged threats to bomb a local mosque and murder the Muslim family living next door to him, reigniting alarms over Islamophobia in Canada.
York Regional Police confirmed they were investigating a hate-motivated incident involving threats against the Muslim community. At a news conference on September 8, Steven Zhou of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said the suspect had threatened to use his technical skills to carry out the attacks.
“The suspect is an HVAC expert. He allegedly said that he would use his expertise in that area to tamper with gas lines, to blow up his Muslim neighbour’s home, to kill everyone inside, including, allegedly, the children,” Zhou said, noting that the man had lived next door to the family for 14 years.
According to Zhou, the suspect had befriended the family but later confided in another neighbour that he was planning to murder them and attack the local mosque. Those neighbours alerted authorities. Zhou added that the man had also engaged heavily with Islamophobic content online.
In a statement read by NCCM Chief Mobilization Officer Omar Khamissa, the father of the targeted family, who asked not to be named, said his relatives remained terrified. “The thought that someone living so close to us, within our own community, was consuming and sharing far-right, anti-Muslim content and beliefs while planning violent attacks is deeply disturbing and unsettling,” the family said.
The mosque, which has not been identified for security reasons, described the alleged plot as “truly sobering and difficult.”
“The mosque is a place for peaceful reflection and communal worship. Had this person been allowed to carry on his plan, it would have turned into a massive tragedy,” its statement read.
Khamissa urged Canadian authorities to act on longstanding recommendations to bolster security for religious institutions, citing a parliamentary report from December 2024 that called for infrastructure reforms for mosques and other places of worship.
“We have the right to be angry in the face of these threats and attempts to intimidate Muslims in our community. Do we have to wait for more bloodshed before action is taken?” he said.
York police Inspector Stu Garner said the case was being treated as a hate crime. “I’m not going to jeopardise the integrity of the investigation, but what has been conveyed in terms of wanting to blow up the mosque as well as kill a Muslim in his neighbourhood is what we are investigating,” he said.
Newmarket’s mayor, John Taylor, said he had spoken with the family and was “disturbed” by the impact of the threats. Toronto police figures show hate crimes in the city rose nearly 55% over the past year.
Muslim groups have long warned of systemic Islamophobia in Canada. The NCCM has documented a pattern of deadly violence, including the Quebec City Mosque shooting on January 29, 2017, in which six worshippers were killed and 19 injured, and the truck attack in London, Ontario, on June 6, 2021, that left four members of a Muslim family dead and a nine-year-old boy orphaned.
Photo: Steven Zhou of the National Council of Canadian Muslims addresses the press on September 8, 2024, regarding the arrest of a Newmarket, Ontario, man charged with plotting to bomb a local mosque and murder his Muslim neighbours. (Credit: Global News)
