MONTREAL — Two active members of the Canadian Armed Forces are among four people arrested and charged on Tuesday for allegedly participating in an anti-government plot to forcibly take possession of land in the Quebec City area.
Three of the suspects, motivated by "violent extremism," planned to start a militia and "took concrete actions" to facilitate terrorist activity, the RCMP said. Two 24-year-olds and a 25-year-old allegedly took part in military-style training that included shooting, ambush, survival and navigation exercises, using a variety of firearms and high-capacity magazines.
In an interview, RCMP Cpl. Erique Gasse described the case as "ideologically motivated violent extremism."
The suspects wanted to start an anti-government "community" north of Quebec City, and allegedly used a private Instagram account to recruit members and supporters, he said. RCMP distributed a photo from that Instagram account showing seven people in military-style uniforms brandishing firearms. Gasse did not say who was pictured.
"We know there were followers on that (account)," Gasse said. "They were trying to recruit people who had knowledge about guns and they were telling people where they were training in Quebec or in Ontario."
Marc-Aurèle Chabot, 24, and Raphaël Lagacé, 25, both of Quebec City, and Simon Angers-Audet, 24, of Neuville, Que., are charged with facilitating a terrorist activity. They also face charges related to the illegal storage of firearms, and possession of explosives and prohibited devices.
A fourth suspect, 33-year-old Matthew Forbes of Pont-Rouge, Que., has been charged with possessing firearms, prohibited devices and explosives, among other offences.
All four were arrested early Tuesday in Quebec City. Later in the day, they made brief virtual appearances in a Quebec City courtroom, where their next court date was set for July 14.
In an email, the Department of National Defence confirmed that two of the suspects were active members of the Armed Forces. "The Canadian Armed Forces is taking these allegations very seriously and has fully participated in the investigation led by the RCMP," the department said.
Neither police nor the Defence Department identified which of the four suspects were active members of the military.
The charge sheet says the crimes are alleged to have taken place between June 2021 and January 2024 in Quebec City, Montreal, Rolphton, Ont., and Petawawa, Ont., and elsewhere in Quebec, Ontario and Canada.
Police say the investigation began in March 2023. Searches conducted in January 2024 in Quebec City led to the seizure of 16 explosive devices, about 11,000 rounds of ammunition and other weapons. The suspects allegedly had in their possession items including grenades, night vision goggles, high-capacity magazines, and improperly stored firearms.
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
Gasse said the investigation of the four suspects was complete but new probes could begin if more evidence comes to light.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Camille Habel noted that participating in training exercises or viewing the accused group's online content is not, in itself, a criminal offence. "What it comes down to is who’s willing to use violence in order to support their cause, and that’s when it becomes terrorism," she said.
Habel said terrorism investigations are long and complex, partly because they require police to prove that a suspect's actions are motivated by ideology, beyond hate or criminal intent.
“That intent and that ideology is hard to prove,” she said in a phone interview, adding that sometimes RCMP need to forego laying terrorism-related charges in order to make a quick arrest on other grounds in the interest of public safety.
“In this case, we absolutely could prove the ideology, and what they were planning to do was a terrorist offence,” she said.
Habel said the suspects were allegedly motivated by anti-authority or anti-government sentiment, which she described as a belief system that can be influenced by a range of ideologies and personal grievances.
“We'll see quite often with people that are either anti-authority or anti-government is that they have many grievances with the government or whatever (authority) that's around them and they want to change it,” she said. “And in order to change it, you need your own society where you will be able to enforce your own set of values."
David Hofmann, an associate professor at the University of New Brunswick and researcher with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, said it was just a matter of time before arrests of this nature would emerge.
He said these types of groups have been increasingly cropping up across the country over the past decade, but most tend to be in the early stages of radicalization — planning and gathering weapons and ammunition. The amount and types of weapons seized suggests the group arrested Tuesday had reached a higher level of "operational sophistication," he added.
“If they're gathering explosives, they've obviously moved to an operational stage that was dangerous and concerning," Hofmann said.
Jessica Davis, president of the consultancy Insight Threat Intelligence, described the weapons seizure as the “single largest cache ever recovered in a terrorism incident in Canada.” She said it’s difficult to tell how big a problem extremism is within the Canadian Armed Forces, which has been "fairly resistant” to having external researchers investigate the institution in detail.
She added that while her data shows an increase in terrorism and terror-related charges in Canada, such cases remain rare.
“In absolute terms, Canada's still a really safe country," she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2025.
— With files from Kyle Duggan in Ottawa
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
