On 8 July 2025, three men in Quebec, Canada, were arrested and charged with facilitating terrorist activity, and a fourth was charged with weapons offences. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the men plotted to “forcibly take possession of land” near Quebec City. They sought to establish a new society and build an anti-government militia. The activity is alleged to have taken place between 2021 and 2024. Media reports indicate that the plot was first uncovered by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which informed the RCMP, a federal police force responsible for most terrorism investigations in Canada.
The arrests followed a January 2024 raid in which a massive cache of weapons was seized outside of Quebec City. In that seizure, the RCMP took possession of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, 11,000 rounds of ammunition, and nearly 130 magazines. Some of the material seized was “diverted” from the Canadian military, although no details have been released.
The men are alleged to have taken part in training activities, including weapons training and climbing, survival and orientation activities. Media reporting indicates that a broader group existed beyond just these four men; at least 15 members of this wider group received a badge and a number indicating their importance in the group. Further, some of their training and survival activities attracted groups of 30 or 40.
The accused men also ran an Instagram account where they tried to recruit people to their cause. The account was private and administered by one of the men. They also used the account to promote weapons, share information about training, and provide advice on survival and orientation. Images shared with the public suggest that the page had at least 1,000 followers. While the men charged likely all knew each other primarily from their military service and the broader military community, the Instagram account might have allowed them to recruit other members from outside the military community. This Insight will explain the background to the plot, analyse its significance in the broader Canadian terrorism context, and contextualise the role of social media technology in facilitating alleged terrorist activity.
Ideological Background
To date, there are few details about the men’s ideology or their plans, but the RCMP alleges that this was an “anti-government” plot. The colleague of one of the men charged, serving Canadian Armed Forces member Marc-Aurèle Chabot, described Chabot as having made “almost treasonous” comments about then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. While it is not known what Chabot specifically said about Prime Minister Trudeau, there has been a spate of threats against Trudeau, including one man who has been charged with uttering death threats in a post he made on the social media platform X and another who made threats on X and YouTube. Speaking about the arrests, an RCMP spokesperson also described ideologically-motivated violence in general terms, suggesting the men were motivated by a desire to bring about the collapse of society (accelerationism), as well as racism and misogyny.
The Significance of the Plot
This plot is notable for a number of reasons. First, two of the men charged were serving military members. This is the first time that serving Canadian Armed Forces regular members have been charged with terrorism offences. However, other members of the broader Canadian military community have faced allegations of extremism and sometimes charges. For instance, Patrik Mathews, a former Canadian reservist, was sentenced in the United States for trying to instigate a race war. Further, Steven Chand, a member of the “Toronto 18” terrorist plot, was a former Canadian soldier at the time of his arrest. The Canadian Armed Forces has also faced a number of challenges when it comes to addressing extremism in its ranks, with one report from 2022 indicating that the number of serving members joining extremist groups was on the rise. Further, research work, initiated by the Canadian Armed Forces, was not able to proceed when the military failed to grant researchers access to its bases or its members for interviews, despite the researchers obtaining the required ethics approvals from their institutions.
The second notable aspect of this plot was the size of the weapons cache. This is the largest cache of weapons, equipment, and devices seized in connection with terrorist activity in Canadian history.¹ The only comparable terrorism incident in Canada was the 2022 attempted bank robbery in Saanich, British Columbia, that was later determined to be an act of anti-government extremism targeting police. In that case, the perpetrators were found with several firearms, 30 improvised explosive devices, 3,500 rounds of ammunition, 100 ammunition magazines, in addition to helmets, body armour, utility belts and gun pouches. The weapons and equipment seizure in the Quebec case dwarfs other comparable incidents in Canada.
Finally, violent acts of anti-government extremism are relatively rare in Canada. In addition to the Saanich bank robbery mentioned above, other similar attacks include the 2014 New Brunswick shooting of RCMP officers. Other ideologically motivated terrorist attacks in Canada have involved involuntary celibates (Incels), as well as anti-Muslim violent extremists. However, according to CSIS, anti-government sentiment, particularly targeting former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as other public officials, markedly increased during the pandemic.
The Plot in Canadian Context
Since 2004, there have been roughly 60 terrorist attacks in Canada, with an average of 3 attacks per year. Ideologically motivated terrorists have perpetrated a little over 75% of those attacks. During this time period, the number of terrorist attacks in Canada has been relatively stable, with no statistically significant increase in terrorist attacks attributed to either ideologically or religiously motivated terrorists.
Figure 1: A chart depicting terrorist attacks in Canada between 2004 and 2024. (Source: author’s data, graphic courtesy of Insight Threat Intelligence Ltd, reproduced with permission).
At the same time, terrorism charges in Canada (one of the main ways that terrorist activity is disrupted in the country) have been primarily laid against religiously motivated terrorists. In the Canadian context, this mainly means Al Qaeda or Islamic State-inspired terrorist activity.
Figure 2: A chart depicting terrorist charges in Canada between 2004 and 2024.
This data illustrates a disparity between the attacks that tend to occur in Canada and the disruption efforts directed against them. Only in recent years have ideologically motivated violent extremists been charged with terrorism offences, and few of these charges have been pre-emptive. This gap might be due to a number of factors, including the RCMP historically only seeing terrorism as emanating from abroad. Immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the passing of Canada’s anti-terrorism act, the primary terrorism threat was consistently described as Al Qaeda and inspired individuals. Despite Canada’s anti-terrorism laws, including provisions for a variety of different terrorist motivations, the investigative focus was on religiously motivated extremism, even as ideologically motivated individuals were conducting attacks.
The 2017 Quebec Mosque attack marked a turning point in Canadian anti-terrorism policy, with a broadening of the terrorism lens to include individuals committing acts of anti-Muslim violence, misogynistic violence, and anti-authority and anti-government violence, illustrated by reference to these attacks in the 2018 CSIS annual report, and culminating with a section on ideologically motivated violence in the 2019 CSIS annual report. (The 2014 annual report talks about “domestic extremism” in one brief paragraph at the end of the section on terrorism.)
The lack of disruption against ideologically motivated actors might also be due to the difficulty in detecting these individuals: they tend to be lone actors using readily available materials like firearms and vehicles, which in turn reduces the likelihood of drawing the attention of counterterrorism investigators. Finally, the lack of disruption against these actors might also be due to the fact that, in counterterrorism investigations in Canada, investigations often start with information provided by the FBI in the United States. The US has focused less on ideologically motivated actors, and likely has less insight into ideologically motivated extremism in Canada than, say, Al Qaeda or Islamic State-inspired terrorism. Despite these challenges, in recent years, the RCMP has undertaken greater efforts to identify and disrupt ideologically motivated terrorist activity, and the number of arrests of ideologically motivated extremists has increased.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Despite the unique features of this case, it is important to keep in mind that terrorist attacks and, more broadly, terrorist activity in Canada are very rare. Canada has not suffered a terrorist attack since 2023, and while a number of arrests have taken place, these have been preventative rather than post-incident arrests. However, extremists are increasingly using social media and other online platforms and services to finance, recruit, and spread propaganda. These platforms allow extremists to reach broader audiences, and in the case of in-person terrorist cells, expand their networks. At the same time, when extremists post on these platforms, they also create opportunities for law enforcement and security services to monitor this activity and use it to initiate investigations or broaden their scope if and when appropriate. At the time of the arrests, the Instagram account associated with this investigation had already been taken down; it’s unclear if this was due to a request by law enforcement or independent action by Instagram. If the former, Instagram (and Meta) should review the content to determine if anything was posted that violated their terms of service, and if their internal processes should have alerted them to this account. While the exact content of the Instagram account in question is unclear, this alleged terrorist activity, and its connection to a popular social media platform, should motivate platforms to examine similar and linked accounts for potential extremist or violent content and consider content removals and referrals to law enforcement, and improve their understanding of anti-government and anti-authority extremism and how it manifests on social media. As this case unfolds, understanding the role that social media recruitment played in it, and its impact on the broader ideologically motivated violent extremist landscape in Canada, will be critical.
Endnotes
- This research was conducted as part of the author’s PhD dissertation, funded by a SSHRC research grant. Every terrorist attack and incident was coded and categorised for cost, tactic, complexity, type of attack, etc.
—
Dr. Jessica Davis completed her PhD in 2024 at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, examining counterterrorist financing policy and practice. Prior to undertaking her PhD, Jessica worked for the government of Canada in various roles in the Canadian Armed Forces, Global Affairs Canada, FINTRAC, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. She is the author of Illicit Money: Financing Terrorism in the 21st Century (2021) and Women in Modern Terrorism (2018) and has published extensively in the Globe and Mail, Just Security, Lawfare, and in academic journals. Jessica is an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Finance and Security, a senior visiting fellow with the Soufan Center, and a senior associate with the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). She is a SSHRC Bombardier scholar, and in 2023, she won the prestigious SSHRC Impact Talent award. She is also the President of Insight Threat Intelligence and the non-profit Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies and co-host of Secure Line podcast. She is currently a post-doctoral associate at the University of Calgary faculty of Law. Her next book, Money for Mayhem: How Finance Fuels Terrorism – and How to Stop It, will be published by the University of Toronto Press in 2026.
—
Are you a tech company interested in strengthening your capacity to counter terrorist and violent extremist activity online? Apply for GIFCT membership to join over 30 other tech platforms working together to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting online platforms by leveraging technology, expertise, and cross-sector partnerships.