The CLARITy Coalition strongly condemns the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) for promoting the ideas of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, to impressionable youth at its recent convention in Toronto.
During a session directed at Muslim youth, Hassan al-Banna was presented as a role model for activism, leadership, and societal change. This is deeply concerning.
Al-Banna’s teachings are fundamentally incompatible with the principles of Canadian democracy, pluralism, individual liberty, and equality before the law. He is famously quoted as teaching:
“It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
Such ideas stand in direct opposition to the values upon which Canada is built. Canada is a constitutional democracy where citizens of every faith, ethnicity, and background are equal under the law. No religious or ideological movement should seek political domination over others.
Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood is the world’s most influential Islamist movement. Islamism should not be confused with Muslims who reject the politicization of Islam. Islamism is a political ideology that seeks to organize society and government according to a particular interpretation of Islamic law and governance.
One of the Muslim Brotherhood’s central doctrines is Tamkeen—a gradual process of societal transformation beginning with individual religious commitment and culminating in the establishment of Islamic political authority. While often presented in benign language, this vision ultimately seeks to subordinate democratic institutions and civic pluralism to a religious-political project.
The concern surrounding Hassan al-Banna extends beyond his political vision. Historical evidence demonstrates that he supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, promoted anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and facilitated the dissemination of antisemitic literature in the Arab world, including Arabic translations of Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His movement helped normalize a strain of modern political antisemitism whose effects continue to reverberate throughout the Middle East and beyond.
For these reasons, neither Hassan al-Banna nor the Muslim Brotherhood should be presented as role models for Canadian youth of any faith or background.
Equally troubling were reports from an interactive activism session in which participants were asked to identify challenges facing the Ummah and describe the type of community they wished to build. Projected responses visible to the audience included the phrase “Jew Free.” Hundreds of individuals, including adults, were reportedly present in the room, and not a single person pushed back on this.
The absence of immediate and unequivocal public condemnation is alarming. Calls for a society free of Jews are not a political expression, activism, or legitimate criticism of any government. They are expressions of exclusion, intolerance, and antisemitism. Such sentiments have no place in Canada.
At a time when antisemitic incidents have reached unprecedented levels across the country, community organizations, educators, religious leaders, and civil society groups have a responsibility to confront hatred wherever it appears. Silence in the face of bigotry risks normalizing it.
The issue before Canadians is larger than any single conference, organization, or controversy. The issue is whether democratic societies are willing to recognize and confront ideological movements that promote religious supremacy, antisemitism, segregation, or the erosion of liberal democratic values. Canada’s multicultural framework was never intended to provide cover for illiberalism. A free society requires the defence of both religious liberty and democratic principles.
The CLARITy Coalition supports the rights of Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists, and all Canadians to practice their beliefs freely and participate fully in public life. Our concern is not with religion. Our concern is with the promotion of Islamist ideology, political extremism, and antisemitism to young Canadians.
We call upon the Muslim Association of Canada to publicly condemn Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the appearance of antisemitic content during youth programming. We further call upon elected officials, educators, faith leaders, and community organizations to unequivocally reject the promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood as role models for Canadian youth. We call on the Canadian government to ban the Muslim Brotherhood.
Canadians deserve transparency regarding what is being taught to young people in organizations that operate within our communities. Canada’s future depends upon strengthening a shared civic culture rooted in democracy, freedom, equality, mutual respect, and the rule of law. Ideologies that promote religious supremacy, political domination, or hostility toward Jews undermine those values and should be rejected by all Canadians.
The defence of pluralism requires more than celebrating diversity. It requires the courage to confront intolerance when it emerges, regardless of its source. Canada cannot remain a free, democratic, and inclusive society if we are unwilling to challenge those who seek to replace those principles with ideological conformity, sectarianism, and hatred.