A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo

Toronto authorities are investigating gunfire attacks targeting two locations of a Jewish-owned bakery chain over the weekend in one of the latest incidents to strike Canada’s Jewish community amid an increasingly hostile climate marked by rising antisemitic violence and intimidation.

The Toronto Police Service said on Monday that investigators are examining whether the two shootings are connected, reviewing evidence from both crime scenes, and working to identify and apprehend those responsible.

Both locations reportedly sustained damage to their front windows after gunfire struck the buildings, though no injuries were reported in either attack.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow identified the targeted businesses as two locations of the Jewish-owned bagel chain Kiva’s, condemning the shootings as “vile and unacceptable” attacks that have no place in the city.

“We all have a responsibility to stand against hate. I will always stand with Toronto’s Jewish community against antisemitism. We will continue to invest in community safety and the necessary work of confronting hate wherever it exists,” Chow said in a statement. 

Established in 1979, Kiva’s has served Toronto’s Jewish community for decades and today operates three locations across the city, according to its website.

Melissa Lantsman, a member of the Canadian Parliament, described the shootings as a “targeted campaign of intimidation,” warning that attacks against Jewish institutions and businesses have become increasingly commonplace across the country.

“Synagogues, schools and Jewish businesses come under attack again and again. This country needs to wake up to the hatred metastasizing in its streets,” Lantsman said in a statement. “Canada’s Jewish community isn’t asking for sympathy. They’re demanding action.”

“Toothless bills, thoughts and prayers and more statements don’t quell a community’s anxiety. They just insult it. Task forces don’t act. No more councils that don’t speak up. Just do the results part. Enforce the law,” she continued.

The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a Canadian Jewish advocacy group, also condemned the attacks, noting that the incidents add to mounting concerns over the safety of Jewish communities and communal spaces across Canada.

“These attacks come amid a broader rise in violent extremism across Canada and other Western democracies — a toxic brew of anti-Zionist rhetoric, local criminal elements, Iranian-backed proxies and ISIS-inspired terrorism,” CIJA wrote in a statement.

B’nai Brith Canada called for a coordinated national response to what it described as a growing national crisis, urging the creation of a dedicated task force to investigate the perpetrators, examine possible extremist or foreign-backed links, and pursue terrorist designations where the legal criteria are met.

“Jewish Canadians cannot continue to be left to secure their own schools, synagogues, community institutions and businesses against escalating threats. This is an emergency, and we expect our governments to fulfill their most basic responsibility, protecting our people, our institutions and our businesses,” the statement reads. 

“The question is no longer whether Canada has an antisemitism crisis. The question is why our governments do not seem to have the resolve to confront it,” it continues.

Earlier this month, B’nai Brith Canada warned that the country is on track for its most violent year for the Jewish community in recent memory after the group documented 27 violent antisemitic incidents nationwide between Jan. 1 and July 15 — more than double the 10 incidents recorded throughout all of 2025.

The group’s preliminary 2026 total has already surpassed the full-year figures for 2022, 2024 and 2025, and trails only the 77 violent incidents documented in 2023.

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Canada has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to recent government data, Canadian Jews were the targets of more than 70 percent of all religion-motivated hate crimes reported to police in 2025 despite making up less than 1 percent of the country’s population.

Statistics Canada reported last week that police recorded 4,708 hate crimes nationwide last year, including 788 targeting Jews. Anti-Jewish incidents therefore accounted for 16.7 percent of all reported hate crimes and 70.7 percent of the 1,115 incidents motivated by religion.