By Joseph Marshall
Yves Engler has proudly built a career on confrontation, agitation and provocation. This week a Quebec court finally added something else to that list, a criminal conviction.
In January a Quebec judge found Engler guilty of harassment and obstruction of justice after he organized a campaign that flooded a Montreal police investigator with emails. The case began after Engler targeted pro Israel commentator Dahlia Kurtz online during the Israel Gaza war. When he learned police were preparing to arrest him, Engler published the investigator’s contact information and urged supporters to bombard the officer with messages demanding that the charges be dropped.
More than 1,600 emails poured into the detective’s inbox.
The court ruled that Engler’s campaign was not activism but interference with a police investigation. Earlier this week he was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to perform community service. The original harassment charge connected to Kurtz was later dropped by prosecutors, but the judge concluded that Engler’s attempt to mobilize supporters against the investigator crossed a legal line.
In a Social Media interview conducted by Quebec Green Party leader Alex Tyrrel, on the steps of Montreal’s Palais de Justice immediately following his sentencing, Engler framed himself as a “victim” and called the sentence “of course, a not significant punishment” and pointed out he spent 5 days in jail for not obeying an order not allowing him to talk about his case. He referred to the charges against him as “odious” and his probation “dubious” and an “injustice”. He said that he has filed an appeal the conviction.
Engler has spent much of the past two decades cultivating a reputation as one of the city’s most aggressive far left political agitators, particularly when it comes to Israel and the Jewish community.
His public career began at Concordia University in 2002 during the riot that erupted when then former, now current, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to speak on campus. The event descended into chaos as protesters beat up Jewish attendees, including Holocaust survivors, smashed windows and fought with police. The violence forced the RCMP to cancel the speech, even though Netanyahu wanted to get on stage. Engler, who was an executive member of the Concordia Student Union at the time, was later found guilty by a student tribunal of assault and vandalism and was suspended from the university.
In Montreal’s Outremont neighborhood, Engler became notorious for confronting Chasidic Jewish residents in the street, often filming the encounters and posting the footage online. Those confrontations frequently involved arguments over neighborhood issues but critics said the pattern looked less like activism and more like harassment directed at visibly Jewish residents.
Engler has always insisted that he had no problem with Jews, his intention is to merely expose injustice.
In 2006 Engler pleaded guilty to a forgery offense. Other confrontations have resulted in charges or police investigations over the years.
Last year, Canada’s political left eventually decided it wanted nothing to do with him. Engler attempted to run for leader of the federal New Democratic Party. His platform centered on dismantling Canada’s alliances with Western democracies and attacking Israel. The NDP reviewed his candidacy and rejected it outright. Party officials concluded that Engler had a record of harassment and intimidation of public officials and refused to allow him onto the ballot.
When his wife later attempted to enter the leadership race herself, the party rejected her application as well, concluding that she was effectively acting as Engler’s stand in candidate.
The conviction this year fits squarely within the same pattern. Engler calls it political persecution. The court called it harassment and obstruction of justice.
For years Engler has portrayed himself as a fearless truth teller taking on powerful institutions. The record tells a different story. From the Concordia riot to street confrontations with Chasidic Jews in Outremont to a campaign that attempted to overwhelm a police investigator with thousands of emails, the constant thread has been conflict.
This time that conflict ended in a criminal conviction.
