Police face penalty for claiming Toronto Muslims reverted to Islam after 7 October

JTA – Five Toronto Police officers who said on a podcast that Muslims returned to the faith in the wake of the Hamas 7 October invasion “made statements that were biased or inappropriate”, violating police standards, and now face a penalty, the police said. 

Multiple people had complained about the 10 March 2025 episode of the Project Olive Branch podcast. They received a letter about the disciplinary action on Friday and posted it online. 

The podcast had been launched to advance relations between the police and Muslim residents. 

Instead, Jewish groups said, the comments cast the 7 October attack , in which 1 200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, in a positive manner. 

B’nai Brith Canada welcomed the police decision. “This incident underscores the importance of antisemitism training for all police officers,” it said. 

Elise Higgitt, an inspector in the Toronto Police Service’s Professional Standards unit, said in the letter that an inspection had concluded that the five officers had committed “misconduct” according to an Ontario law. Higgitt quoted the Community Safety and Policing Act as saying that “a police officer shall not conduct themselves in a manner that undermines, or is likely to undermine, public trust in policing”. 

“The matter has been forwarded to the professionalism committee for penalty,” she said. 

A police spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service on Sunday confirmed the letter’s authenticity to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). 

“To ensure the investigation was conducted independently and avoid any perception of a conflict of interest, the Toronto Police Service referred the matter to York Regional Police,” Stephanie Sayer said in an email. York is a municipality neighbouring Toronto. 

“Following its investigation, York Regional Police substantiated the allegations of misconduct,” she said. “Toronto Police Service Professional Standards investigators reviewed the findings, agreed that misconduct occurred, and notified the complainants,” Sayer said. “Professional Standards has initiated the internal disciplinary process” according to the Community Safety and Policing Act. 

Sayer did not make the full report available to JTA. The National Post did obtain the report, and quoted it as saying that members of Toronto’s Jewish community expressed “concern that comments made during the podcast could be interpreted as characterising the events of 7 October in a positive manner”. 

The hosts “made controversial and inappropriate statements by publicly expressing personal views on a highly political issue while in police uniform,” the National Post quoted the report as saying. 

The report quoted one of the officers as saying that the remarks were “taken out of context”. 

The episode, the second in a planned series, was taken off YouTube, and the podcast appears to have been suspended since then. According to the National Post, the police officers spoke about an “unbelievable” number of Muslims who had become more religious after 7 October, referring to them as “reverts”. 

No context was otherwise available. In the first episode that appeared in December 2024, Muslim liaison officers Constables Farhan Ali and Haroon Siddiqui made multiple references to Muslim interactions with the police post-7 October, particularly at protests, as stirring distrust of the police in the Muslim community. 

“Everything was smooth, and then once 7 October hit, that’s where a lot of it has changed, and a lot of it had to do with our community members losing trust in the police,” Siddiqui said in the earlier podcast. 

The police chief, Myron Demkiw, apologised the day after the offending 10 March podcast. “I have personally heard from the [Jewish] community about the impact of this podcast, and I’m truly sorry,” he said. “Our commitment to protecting our Jewish communities remains unwavering.” 

Jewish organisations said they now wanted to see accountability. 

“We expect accountability that reflects the seriousness of these findings, along with meaningful reforms to ensure this never happens again on an official Toronto Police platform,” said the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.