A new Canadian federal budget, unveiled on Thursday, allocates the equivalent of about $45 million over four years and about $6.35 million annually thereafter to prevent “radicalization.”
“Preventing radicalization requires early intervention, targeted support for at-risk individuals and strong partnerships with communities,” the budget states.
Ahead of the budget’s release, B’nai Brith Canada told JNS that it submitted four recommendations to the federal government primarily focused on combating extremism and funding a national youth digital literacy program.
Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy at the nonprofit, said that B’nai Brith’s top priority was a program to educate young Canadians about the dangers of online radicalization and other harmful content.
“We’re making youth more literate in accessing online spaces, in using technologies such as AI, but we’re not adequately preparing them for the dangers that lurk, unfortunately, in the digital sphere,” he told JNS.
In its 2025 annual audit of Jew-hatred, B’nai Brith reported a 203% increase in online antisemitic incidents since 2022. In May, it warned that 2026 was on pace to become the most violent year for Canadian Jews.
Robertson told JNS that he hopes the proposed program will reach young people beyond the classroom. “This is the type of messaging that needs to meet youth at their level,” he said. “This is actually the type of information that needs to be distributed on social media, on gaming platforms.”
B’nai Brith also called for stricter oversight of federal grants to ensure compliance with Canada’s anti-racism strategy and a five-year program to educate Canadian youth about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of Jew-hatred.
“Increasingly, we’re hearing about youth who don’t even know what contemporary antisemitism is,” Robertson said. “They don’t understand that what they’re saying is actually hateful.”
The budget comes a week after Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a Canadian national security strategy that aims to strengthen intelligence capabilities and combat extremism.
“We welcome the first national security strategy in over two decades,” Robertson told JNS. “Now we need to see the elements of that strategy related to intelligence and related to extremism, radicalization, utilized to help contribute to the fight against antisemitism.”
‘Proactively confront’ threat of radicalization
B’nai Brith called for permanent and ongoing funding for the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, an existing federal initiative under Public Safety Canada that counters radicalization and violent extremism.
“As extremism and radicalization continue to have significant impact across Canada, we need to ensure that the entities established by our government to proactively confront this threat have sustainable funding,” Robertson told JNS.
JNS asked if the federal government had been receptive to B’nai Brith’s proposals. Robertson said that Ottawa has shown interest in its requests for a national youth digital literacy program and permanent funding for the violence prevention center but had not done enough to combat Jew-hatred.
“We’ve seen rhetoric from our federal government, but we haven’t seen sufficient action to combat the national crisis of antisemitism,” he told JNS.
The budget addresses B’nai Brith’s request for ongoing funding for preventing radicalization and violence. It does not identify funding for the Jewish organization’s proposed five-year program teaching Canadians about the IHRA definition or specify the stricter oversight of federal grants that the organization sought to ensure compliance with Canada’s anti-racism strategy.
After the budget’s release, B’nai Brith urged members of Parliament to support the budget. “Threats to Canadians are becoming more sophisticated, diverse and unpredictable,” Robertson stated. “We must be prepared to confront hate-motivated extremism, decentralized threat actors and nihilistic violence.”
The funding under the newly unveiled budget would, beginning in the 2027-2028 fiscal year, support the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence.
Most of that money—about $39.5 million over four years, and about $5 million annually thereafter—will expand the center’s community resilience fund, which supports efforts to prevent radicalization to violence. (JNS used U.S. Treasury Department currency conversion rates from late September, the most recent such data available.)
The budget also includes about $124 million over five years and about $21 million annually thereafter for a new digital safety and data protection commission to enforce online safety legislation covering social media platforms and artificial intelligence chatbot services.
A separate budget item would provide the Canadian Security Intelligence Service with about $4.25 billion over 10 years and about $410 million annually thereafter to expand its capabilities. The funding would help “better protect Canadians from terrorism, foreign interference, espionage and other evolving threats,” the budget states.
Canadian finance minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the budget in the House of Commons on Thursday, as conservative opponents interrupted him by calling out their criticism.
“They’re so excited about the budget, they’re already commenting,” he quipped.
