Investigators with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) are reviewing whether illegal activity occurred during a Saturday pro-Palestinian protest that led Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team to cancel a reception to host a visiting G7 leader, the TPS said Sunday.
The Saturday evening event at the Art Gallery of Ontario was meant to cap off a day of meetings between Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Toronto, but it was abruptly cancelled after demonstrators shouting pro-Palestinian slogans blocked entrances to the building and prevented many attendees from getting in.
Trudeau’s office said Saturday neither he nor Meloni were able to enter the venue, which briefly went into lockdown. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen was seen walking for two blocks with a police escort to find an unoccupied entrance.
TPS spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said police were in contact with the prime minister’s security team, who were told officers were prepared to provide secure access to the building for Trudeau.
She said TPS did not recommend the event be cancelled.
A dinner hosted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in honour of his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, had to be cancelled after pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked entrances to the venue where it was set to take place.
“Ultimately, the Prime Minister’s team decided not to proceed,” Sayer said in a statement.
“It was not at TPS’s recommendation that the event be cancelled, and many guests were already inside.”
Sayer said approximately 400 protesters were gathered outside the AGO. She said there were no injuries or arrests, though police are continuing to investigate what happened.
“We are reviewing the events of last night and if it’s determined that illegal activity occurred, charges can be laid at a later date,” she said.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Charlotte Hibbard, a spokesperson for the RCMP, which handles the prime minister’s security, said it was not safe to move Trudeau and Meloni into the building for the event due to several factors, including the size and “volatile nature of the crowds at the entrances to the venue.”
“Toronto Police Service and the RCMP were mobilized to make the area safe for the Prime Ministers to enter, but an estimate of how long it would take to make the entrances safe and accessible … could not be guaranteed before the end of the short event,” Hibbard said in a statement.
Demonstrators, who criticized the federal government’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, chanted slogans such as “Justin Trudeau you’re a liar” and called him “genocide Justin.”
Security for the event also blocked some reporters from getting inside.
Protests ‘meant to disrupt,’ activist says
The disruption marked a tumultuous ending to an otherwise cordial day of meetings in Toronto, during which Trudeau and Meloni said they agreed to establish the Canada-Italy Roadmap for Enhanced Cooperation.
Former RCMP deputy commissioner Pierre-Yves Bourduas told CBC News that the decision to cancel the event was justified.
“Agencies needed to call off the event to protect everyone and avoid some type of incident that could have diplomatic consequences,” Bourduas said.
“Things were getting really personal and highly emotional for some of these protesters … when you get to that level, you don’t want to provoke or push it.”
Liberal MP Marco Mendicino called on police “to enforce the law” following Saturday’s protest. He said the demonstrators were antisemitic.
“The location was not secure. And that was their objective. They don’t want their fellow Canadians to feel safe,” he said in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter.
“You break the law, you should be arrested, charged and prosecuted — These thugs think they scored a win last night, but all they did was lose public support and embarrass themselves. Time for the madness to stop.”
Aisha Sherazi, an Ottawa-based writer and community advocate, says disruptive demonstrations such as Saturday’s are integral to political movements, adding, “very important things have been won through those sorts of protests.”
Protests are “really meant to disrupt, and I think if you look at disruption, then of course they’re working,” Sherazi told CBC News.
Ahead of Ramadan, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and a number of prominent mosques are warning members of Parliament they won’t be welcome in their mosques until they call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, demand restoration of funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency and condemn Israeli war crimes.
“But I think the bigger picture is that they’re providing people with an outlet. And when the government isn’t listening to people and that’s the only outlet they have, then I prefer that to [the] alternatives.”
Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy for combatting antisemitism, said in an X post the cancellation of the event “is the direct result of caving in to the irrational demands of an out-of-control and noisy cohort, fuelling their determination.”
Israel declared war on Hamas following an Oct. 7 attack that saw 1,200 people killed and some 250 kidnapped by the Islamist militants, according to Israeli tallies.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller, who was asked Thursday about efforts to get people with relatives in Canada out of Gaza, says the situation in Gaza represents ‘probably the largest hostage-taking, right now, in the world.’
The subsequent military operation by Israel in Hamas-controlled Gaza has now killed more than 30,000 people, most of them women and children, Gaza health officials say.
Israel has been accused by some of genocide, including by South Africa, which has filed a case at the UN’s International Court of Justice alleging as such. Canada says it rejects the premise of South Africa’s case but would abide by the court’s decision.
Canada, which considers Hamas a terrorist group, has repeatedly said that Israel has the right to defend itself, but Ottawa has more recently called for a ceasefire in the conflict due to the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
