A 25-year-old university student from Alberta dressed in military gear, positioned himself in a Montreal hotel room window, and opened fire on a neighbourhood below, killing a police officer and a bystander. He left behind a 104-page document that one extremism expert is calling 'an incel critique of capitalism.' Canada is now doing what it always does after something like this: taking a very long, very uncomfortable pause before using the word terrorism.
What Actually Happened on Monday
According to BBC News, Seth Hatfield, 25, of Lethbridge, Alberta, opened fire from a hotel room window in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges borough around midday on Monday. An eyewitness called police after spotting a gun sticking out of a window. By the time it was over, two people were dead and a second officer was wounded.
Police killed Hatfield at the scene. The Quebec coroner's office confirmed his identity on Tuesday, and the University of Lethbridge confirmed he was an enrolled student there. The university said it was cooperating with the investigation.
The two victims have been identified. Officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, had grown up in the very neighbourhood where he was killed, joining the Montreal Police Force in 2021. Michel Mizrahi, 64, was a father of three who sold suits for a living. He was Jewish, originally from Lebanon, and had lived in Montreal after a period in Israel. He is believed to have been caught in the crossfire, though BBC News reports the precise sequence of events is still unclear.
The Document Nobody Wants to Name
Here's where it gets complicated, and frankly where Canada's political class starts visibly sweating. A 104-page document purportedly written by Hatfield has been circulating on social media since the attack. BBC News reports it contains misogynistic messaging alongside anti-capitalist and anti-government content. Police have not verified its authenticity. That caveat noted, experts who have read it aren't exactly shrugging.
Stephanie Carvin, a professor who studies extremism at Carleton University, told the BBC the document is best described as 'an incel critique of capitalism.' She called its ideological cocktail a form of 'salad bar extremism,' mixing far-left and far-right ideas to justify violent misogyny. That's not a fringe academic being dramatic. That's someone who reads this stuff for a living telling you exactly what she found.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reportedly sent a bulletin to law enforcement agencies across Canada warning that a circulating document had allegedly encouraged citizens to shoot police officers. That's according to the Globe and Mail. So authorities were alarmed enough to send a national alert, just not alarmed enough yet to use the M-word in a press conference.
The Hotel Was Across From Pornhub's Parent Company
Yes, really. Local newspaper La Presse reported that Hatfield positioned himself directly across from the Montreal offices of the company that owns Pornhub. The document, according to BBC News, criticises pornography throughout. The company released a statement saying it 'will not speculate on motive.' A very reasonable position for a pornography company to take at a moment like this.
Carvin told the BBC it remains unclear why Hatfield specifically chose Montreal for the attack, and called it something that 'will almost certainly be a significant part of the investigation.' That's the kind of careful, hedged language academics use when they're fairly sure they know the answer but don't want to be wrong in print.
The Antisemitism Question
Côte-des-Neiges has a large Jewish community, and Michel Mizrahi was Jewish. Those two facts put together lit up social media fast. The Jewish Community Council of Montreal moved quickly to pump the brakes. Rabbi Saul Emanuel of the JCCM issued a statement urging the public not to leap to conclusions, noting police had provided no motive and no evidence about who the intended target was. 'Our community's fight against antisemitism is too important to be undermined by speculation or rumour,' he said.
That's a strikingly disciplined response from a community that has every right to be frightened. The JCCM is correct that the ideological profile of the document, as described by Carvin, doesn't neatly fit an antisemitic targeting motive. But 'we don't know yet' is a harder message to land than 'here's the villain.' The investigation is ongoing.
What Politicians Said at the Podium
Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada called for stronger gun control and said social media needed serious attention. She did not comment directly on the document's contents but said she believed there needed to be 'a way to ensure that women feel protected.' That's a carefully worded acknowledgment that the attack had a misogynist dimension without saying the word incel anywhere near a microphone.
Borough Mayor Stéphanie Valenzuela gave a tearful press conference calling Officer Benredouane's death 'an act of heroism.' That part was direct and earned. The rest of the official response has been considerably murkier, with police citing an ongoing investigation at every turn. Which is fair. But it also creates a vacuum that gets filled by exactly the kind of speculation the JCCM is warning against.
The Dingo Take
Let's be straightforward about what we appear to be looking at here. A young man wrote over a hundred pages about why he hated women and the systems he blamed for his circumstances, put on tactical gear, picked a sniper's nest, and killed two people. Experts who have read the document are using words like 'violent misogyny' and 'incel critique.' The RCMP was spooked enough to warn police forces nationally. If a document tied to an attacker had praised jihad, the press conference language would not be this careful.
Incel-motivated violence has a documented, escalating body count in Canada specifically. The 2018 Toronto van attack. The 2020 Danforth shooting has disputed but examined incel links. This is not a fringe phenomenon that arrived without warning. It has a literature, an online infrastructure, and apparently a recruitment pipeline running through universities. Canada keeps treating each incident as a shocking anomaly rather than as data points in a pattern that is asking to be taken seriously.
Mohamed Lamine Benredouane grew up in the neighbourhood he died protecting. Michel Mizrahi sold suits and had three kids. They deserved better than to become casualties in someone's manifesto. The least we can do is call the thing what it is, investigate it with appropriate seriousness, and stop waiting for a motive that feels politically comfortable enough to announce.
