TORONTO — A Toronto pro-Palestinian demonstration can go ahead as planned after an Ontario judge tossed out the government’s move to pre-emptively block it.
The court’s dismissal of the 11th hour request by Premier Doug Ford’s government arrived less than an hour before the scheduled Al-Quds Day rally outside the U.S. Consulate in downtown Toronto.
The request was swiftly condemned by civil liberty groups, and organizers called it an attempt to silence Palestinian solidarity and criticism of Israel.
Ford on Friday said he had told his attorney general to seek an injunction against the demonstration, calling it a “breeding ground for hate and antisemitism”, allegations denied by organizers.
During Saturday’s court hearing, lawyers for the province acknowledged there was no evidence it had ever resulted in criminal charges against demonstrators.
Police say they were going to expand their presence at the rally citing heightened unease around the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and the shots fired at three synagogues and the U.S. Consulate in the past two weeks.
The global rally is broadly billed as an event for solidarity with Palestinians and an end to Israeli occupation of their territories. Organizers in Toronto promoted this year’s event with a call for “no war on Iran and Lebanon”.
Al-Quds, taken from the Arabic word for Jerusalem, has been a magnet for controversy in part because it was popularized in Iran after the 1979 revolution.
One of Ford’s first promises as premier in 2018 was an outright ban on the protest. The British government supported a ban on this year’s rally in London.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2026.
The Canadian Press
