Michael Higgins: The Muslim Brotherhood is a ‘cancer’ at the heart of Canada - National Post

Copy URL Facebook Linked In X (Twitter) Loading account options Sign In Manage Account Close account menu Sign Out Mohamed Fahmy's Canada Act Now campaign is a warning about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of this country. (Gavin Young / Postmedia) By Michael Higgins November 3, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. Last Updated: November 3, 2026 at 8:56 a.m. Spending time in prison with Islamic terrorists gives Mohamed Fahmy special insights into the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood. So when he says Canada needs to buck up and start paying attention to their malign influence in this country, we should listen.

The Muslim Brotherhood, says Fahmy, is stealthily inserting itself into all areas of Canadian society.

“The public needs to understand there’s a difference between Islam and Islamism,” says Fahmy in an interview with National Post.

Islam is a religion, he says, Islamism is a political, economic and social ideology aimed at influencing governments and society into adopting certain religious beliefs.

“The Muslim Brotherhood, and the ideas that come with it, is a cancer. If you look at the leaders of many of the groups like ISIS or al-Qaida, they all idealized the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s the parent of Hamas, for example, and Hamas has been designated here as a terrorist organization since 2022,” says Fahmy, who is a Post contributor.

As part of the Fahmy Foundation, established in Vancouver while he was in prison in Egypt, the prominent war correspondent and author has launched Canada Act Now, a campaign to raise awareness of Islamist radicalization and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I’m only asking, as a step one, an investigation by the government, something that can be an official reference for journalists, for academics, for the citizens of Canada,” he says.

Fahmy’s keen perception into political Islam came after he was arrested while working as a journalist in Egypt in 2013 during the Arab Spring.

Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for reporting on the upheavals and served 438 days in jail before being granted a rare presidential pardon following an international outcry at his treatment.

“During his imprisonment, Fahmy witnessed the radicalization of younger detainees and engaged in sustained dialogue with senior Islamist figures, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, providing rare insight into the dynamics of ideological indoctrination and prison-based radicalization,” says the biography on his website.

“I ended up thrown into prison with the senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood, living with them, eating with them. So I can say that I have a good grip of what they represent,” says Fahmy in the interview.

Fears about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada are not new. More than a decade ago the Senate committee on national security and defence heard evidence on the increase of radical Islamism within Canada.

Marc Lebuis, founding director of the Montreal-based Point de Bascule, an independent research organization analyzing Islamist threats, told the Senate of the “penetration of our institutions by Islamists.”

“By penetration, I refer to the presence of Islamists and their sympathizers within a range of institutions from political and government organizations to NGOs and corporate entities. Those involved could themselves range from non-violent fundamentalists attempting, whether clandestinely or otherwise, to sway policy from the inside, to those that are violently inclined,” he said.

He then quoted from a document he described as “an internalization memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood.” It said, “The Ikhwan (brothers) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.”

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by al-Bann (also known as al-Banna) who advocated for a “bottom-up, gradual Islamization of society that would eventually lead to the formation of a purely Islamic society and political entity,” according to the George Washington University program on extremism.

In 2018, the U.S. subcommittee on national security quoted from al-Bann’s book, the Way of Jihad, in which he wrote, “Jihad means the fighting of the unbelievers and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam, including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols.”

Last November, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating certain foreign chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists.

“The Muslim Brotherhood has inspired, nurtured, and funded terrorist groups like Hamas, that are direct threats to the safety and security of the American people and our allies,” said a statement from John Hurley, under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Fahmy says certain Middle East countries, such as Egypt, Syria and Jordan, have already outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood.

In October this year the European Parliament adopted a resolution “on the need for an EU strategy to counter Islamist entryism and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network.”

Fahmy defines “entryism” as Islamists “establishing a presence in the judicial system, in the educational system, in various aspects of society in order to influence society in a gradual way.”

The EU resolution noted that Islam, the religion, was different from “political Islamism.” “Parliament stressed that criticism of a political ideology must not be equated with an attack on a religion,” read a statement from the parliament.

The EU resolution condemned, “Islamist entryism strategies as an unacceptable form of covert and malicious interference aimed at weakening democratic institutions, the rule of law and the neutrality of public institutions. It identified the Muslim Brotherhood as an example of transnational Islamist networks operating through associations, foundations and cultural, educational, religious, charitable and social organisations, rather than solely through formal membership.”

Fahmy says Canada urgently needs a public debate about the Muslim Brotherhood and “how it threatens the civility and the civil society and the secularism that Canada is known for. And I call on the Canadian government to initiate a thorough and transparent investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood activities and organization in Canada.”

He also warns, “Canada has become a safe haven. They are basically taking advantage in a way of our democratic society, our freedoms here.”

Part of the challenge in investigating the Muslim Brotherhood is that there will be those who denounce it as part of a broader attack on Islam. It is to the benefit of the radicals to sow confusion between Islam and Islamists.

As the EU noted, “The strategy of Islamist entryism relies, in particular, on the organised confusion between Islam as a religion, which falls under freedom of conscience, and political Islam as a societal project, which seeks to produce collective norms, derogatory regimes or community allegiances placed above common law.”

However, Fahmy’s call for an investigation into the pernicious influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada seems a clear case of examining Islamist radicals.

The U.S. and the EU have pointed the way and Canada should follow. We ignore Fahmy at our peril.

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