Canada’s Churches on Fire

Raymond Ibrahim, original publication:  Oct 5, 2025.

The Stream

In mid-September, two churches in Canada were hit by Islamic extremists. On September 16, Our Lady of the Snows in Colville Lake, Northwest Territories — the community’s only church — was torched to the ground. Just days earlier, vandals had smashed windows and damaged property at Saint Peter and Saint Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, while also defacing a nearby convent with graffiti and broken glass. Locals called the attacks “heartbreaking” and “a really big loss to the community.”

Such attacks are common; one of the more notable ones occurred on June 9, 2024, when Toronto’s historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church and its priceless artwork were set ablaze and reduced to ashes. The pastor, Rev. Don Beyers, said his congregation was “greatly devastated”:

Why has Canada Become the Epicenter of Arson Attack on Churches?

Raymond Ibrahim, published 07/10/24.

On Sunday, June 9, 2024, the historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto, and its many artifacts and precious paintings, were “completely destroyed” in a blaze, to quote Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop.  The torched church’s pastor, Rev. Don Beyers, added that the congregation is “greatly devastated”:

I’m crushed, I feel for my people. You can’t imagine what this is like for a church community to come on Sunday morning to find that everything you worked so hard for and done so much for [is] gone in the matter of an hour.

Authorities said “The fire has not been deemed criminal in nature yet,” thereby implying no foul play.

This may seem to be a reasonable conclusion, at least for those unaware that Canada—not Egypt or Nigeria—has fast become the world’s epicenter of arson attacks on churches. Over the last two-and-a-half years, over 100 churches have been vandalized, torched, or desecrated in the “Great North” (mapped and listed here).