5 Toronto police officers face punishment for controversial comments after Oct. 7

JTA — Five Toronto police officers speaking on a Muslim outreach podcast about the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught in southern Israel “made statements that were biased or inappropriate,” police said.

The officers violated police standards and now face a penalty, added Elise Higgitt, an inspector for the Toronto Police Service.

Multiple people had complained about the March 10, 2025, episode of the “Project Olive Branch” podcast. The complainants received Higgitt’s 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, and was hosted by Muslim officers. The episode in question is no longer online, but according to the National Post, the police officers spoke about an “unbelievable” number of people who had converted to Islam after the Hamas-led invasion and massacre, referring to them as “reverts.”

Jewish groups said the comments cast the attack, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 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.

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.

On Sunday, a police spokeswoman for the Toronto Police Service confirmed the letter’s authenticity to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“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 neighboring 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. “TPS 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 characterizing the events of October 7 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 of YouTube, and the podcast appears to have since been suspended.

In the first episode that appeared in December of 2024, Muslim Liaison Officers Constables Farhan Ali and Haroon Siddiqui made multiple references to Muslim interactions with the police post-October 7, particularly at protests. They described those interactions as stirring distrust of the police in the Muslim community.

“Everything was smooth, and then once October 7 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, apologized the day after the offending March 10 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 organizations 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 Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, an umbrella communal body.

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