Canada’s current approach treats Brotherhood-linked extremism as episodic — an audit here and there — without a cohesive strategy to counter its structural inroads into politics, community institutions, and advocacy networks. A U.S. designation will demand more

With Prime Minister Mark Carney’s surprise recognition of a Palestinian state still reverberating in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledge this week of ongoing legal work to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization sets up a direct test of whether Ottawa will align with its closest ally on a transnational movement long tied by American lawmakers to Hamas financing, radicalization, and political subversion — or risk deepening a posture critics say panders to an influential Islamist diaspora base in Canada’s largest cities.

“All of that is in the works,” Rubio told a reporter, referencing legislation on terror designations for the Muslim Brotherhood advanced to the House Judiciary Committee in June. The push follows a 2018 congressional hearing in which senior lawmakers and expert witnesses drew direct lines between Hamas, the Palestinian cause, and the Brotherhood.

At that hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Ron DeSantis described Hamas as “the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch,” noting its 1997 U.S. terror designation and a record of “thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians” and suicide bombings killing both Israelis and Americans.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a militant Islamist organization with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.,” DeSantis said, adding, “whether the Muslim Brotherhood writ large should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization has been the topic of debate here in Congress in recent years.”

He outlined Justice Department evidence that, in the early 1990s, the Brotherhood sought to build U.S.-based organizations to spread militant Islamist ideology and raise funds for Hamas, culminating in the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation’s 2008 conviction for providing material support.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, testified to a “revolving door” between Brotherhood leaders and designated terror groups, including Hamas, and argued that U.S.-based “legacy groups” function as political cover for violent affiliates.

During questioning, Rep. Paul Gosar pressed Jasser on the Holy Land Foundation’s role as part of the Brotherhood-created “Palestine Committee” to aid Hamas through charitable fronts operating in North America.

Many of these same charitable and political fronts, critics say, are expanding north of the border in Ontario and elsewhere — networks that Canadian leaders, including Carney, his predecessor Justin Trudeau, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, have engaged with politically. Carney’s formal recognition of Palestinian statehood is likely to be seen in Washington through the prism of Hamas’s identity as the Brotherhood’s Palestinian arm.

National security experts such as Casey Babb of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute warn that the Brotherhood’s self-described “civilization-jihadist process” — outlined in a 1991 strategy memorandum entered as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing case — aims to “eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within” and is now rapidly gaining strength, “materializing just north of the U.S. border.” Babb cites Canada’s “shockingly permissive immigration policies, multiculturalist ethos, and general complacency toward national security threats” as fertile ground for the Brotherhood’s ambitions.

In a recent New York Post column, Babb argued that in Canada, critical scrutiny of the Brotherhood’s influence — “for jihadist groups like Hamas and al Qaeda … and Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel” — is “almost entirely absent from public conversation or debate.” He also pointed to the role of state actors such as Qatar and Turkey in providing the resources and legitimacy needed to expand the Brotherhood’s reach across the West.

Canadian enforcement history supports parts of Babb’s assessment, particularly regarding charitable fronts flagged by federal investigators. Ottawa designated the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy–Canada (IRFAN-Canada) as a terrorist entity for transferring $14.6 million to Hamas-linked organizations. The CRA’s revocation of IRFAN’s charitable status in 2011, followed by RCMP raids in 2014, documented the operational ties.

More recently, the CRA has sustained a years-long audit into one of the country’s largest Muslim charities, alleging senior figures had links to an “apparent Hamas support network.”

Allies have acted more decisively.

Canada’s current approach treats Brotherhood-linked extremism as episodic — an audit here and there — without a cohesive strategy to counter its structural inroads into politics, community institutions, and advocacy networks. A U.S. designation will demand more: border measures, financial sanctions, visa bans, intelligence coordination, and possibly parallel listings under Canada’s Criminal Code or Special Economic Measures Act.

The implications extend beyond security cooperation. In Washington, a Brotherhood designation will sharpen scrutiny of Ottawa’s Palestinian statehood stance — especially if it emerges, that politically connected lobbyists, including current or former elected or government-appointed officials with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, have influenced Carney’s Liberals on the issue. Such findings could fuel congressional questions about Canada’s reliability as a security partner, with potential ripple effects on cross-border policing and counterterrorism financing.

For years, Ottawa has treated ideological affinity with the Brotherhood — absent direct material support for terrorism — as protected political and religious expression. The United States now appears ready to draw a bright red line. If Canada refuses to follow, it risks transforming the current standoff with President Donald Trump over deepening vulnerabilities in border controls and migration policy into an explosive break with Washington — a geopolitical rupture that could further erode the Western alliance and fracture North America’s security architecture.

And this, of course, would align with the Brotherhood’s stated divide-and-conquer objectives, as outlined in the strategy memorandum that surfaced in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing case cited by DeSantis.

As reported by Babb in the New York Post, “the Muslim Brotherhood laid out its long-term strategy to conquer North America through what it called a ‘civilization-jihadist process’ aimed at ‘sabotaging’ and ‘eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.’”