QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
Canada Border Services Agency
November 20, 2025
Senator Moreau, last week, eminent legal scholar and international human rights expert Richard Falk was detained at Toronto Pearson International Airport on his way to a conference on Palestine. Ostensibly, he was detained to be questioned on whether he was a national security threat to Canada.
Would you be able to find out for us from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the Minister of Public Safety about the grounds on which he was detained and why he was flagged in the first place, presumably on some sort of database which caused the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, to pick him up?
Senator Woo, I will inquire into that. My understanding is that the Canada Border Services Agency is an independent agency. There is no political involvement in the way they should handle people at the border.
I will raise the issue. If I have any further information, I will gladly share it with you.
I appreciate that.
It still begs the question: Even if the CBSA is independent — and I have no doubt it is — they had a reason for picking him up and questioning him as a potential national security threat. It would be valuable for us to understand why that happened.
I should clarify that I have his permission to release information through privacy restrictions. In your inquiries, could you also find out the nature of the questioning and whether there were any external groups — domestic or foreign — that pressured the CBSA to do this investigation?
It is a very important question. I’m not sure that, even in my inquiry, I would have access to that kind of information. I went through the facts of that situation. I know he’s an elderly person.
He’s 95.
He’s 95 years old. If I have that information, I will share it with you, as I said.
My question is for the government leader in the Senate. Given that Canada’s foreign affairs minister has condemned Richard Falk for his comments on the Boston Marathon massacre when he blamed it on former president Barack Obama and the State of Israel, the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs said:
There is a dangerous pattern to Mr. Falk’s anti-Western and anti-Semitic comments. The United Nations should be ashamed to even be associated with such an individual.
He was condemned at the time by the head of the UN. He was also condemned in 2011 by former prime minister David Cameron when he published an anti-Semitic cartoon. The images posted by Mr. Falk on his blog showed a dog wearing a Jewish head covering while urinating on a depiction of justice and devouring a bloody skeleton. Why was he allowed into the country?
Honestly, I don’t have the answer to that question, if there is an answer to that question. I will raise the question with the minister. If I have anything to say on that issue, I will get back to you. I understand it’s a serious question. I don’t have an answer to provide at this time.
He also posted on his blog: “. . . the world is beginning to understand just how toxic jewish religious practice and cultural indoctrination really is.”
He also posted: “. . . Judaism is a pyramid scheme of social shaming leading to great accumulation of wealth by those at the apex . . . .”
These comments are similar to others he has made.
There was also a leak by the Palestinian Authority. They tried to expel him on the grounds that he admitted he’s a partisan of Hamas.
The question is this: Why was he allowed in?
Senator Downe, I’m afraid I will give the same answer to your supplementary question as I gave to your principal question. The facts you’re raising here are serious. If I have the information, I will raise the question with the appropriate authorities. If I have an answer, I will get back to you, sir.
