The 37-year-old Quebec man arrested last summer and charged with 3D printing firearms and hate speech against Jews has pled guilty in Quebec court.

Pascal Tribout of Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, a small town northwest of Montreal, was arrested and charged in June following a months-long RCMP investigation that resulted in his arrest, along with the seizure of a large quantity of 3D printers, materials and a homemade firearm.

According to Lac des Deux-Montagnes Police, Tribout’s apartment was full of equipment for building firearms, with abundant materials, weapons and machinery discovered when they raided his home in February of this year.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing and distributing “computer data relating to firearms or prohibited devices that can be used with a 3D printer,” the first Canadian to plead guilty to the new provision. Tribout also pled guilty to willful promotion of hatred.

He has remained in custody since his arrest in June.

Tribout had spread conspiracy theories on the social media platform Telegram, suggesting that Jews orchestrated the COVID pandemic as a hoax to target the population through vaccines. The court heard that, on an antisemitic online forum, he told an undercover RCMP officer that he supported the idea of death squads to execute Jews and wanted to commit the “perfect crime.”

Tribout also boasted that his weapons could resemble paintball guns and were easily destroyed and reduced to just “pieces of plastic,” and shared images of the weapon, along with instructions and plans to print guns.

Investigators with the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement team found more than two dozen printed weapon frames for pistols and semi-automatic rifles, along with a prohibited magazine, Nazi propaganda materials and 3D-printed bladed weapons. Following ballistics tests and inspections by police, the weapon frames were discovered to be not readily functional and easily broken during handling, resulting in an agreement for a plea to the lesser charge of “attempting” to manufacture a prohibited firearm.

Quebec prosecutors sought a five-year prison sentence. Tribout returns to court in April, where he is also expected to apologize to the Jewish community, the result “a major victory against hate in Canada,” B’nai Brith Canada wrote on social media.

“This fellow’s online activities were brought to our attention,” Henry Topas, regional director for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, told The CJN. “And as we have done in other such files, we prepared our own file and brought it to the appropriate hate crimes unit based on what was being said online.” The file first went to Laval police, which then escalated the case to the RCMP, “and the next thing we knew, he had been arrested.”

“We feel we’ve done the community a great service,” said Topas, who also filed a community impact statement with the court, “and hopefully we won’t have to bring such cases again, but that’s probably wishful thinking.”

That statement included a reminder that Jews are the most targeted minority in Canada: “When B’nai Brith Canada learned of Pascal Tribout’s arrest, we were struck by the seriousness and magnitude of the charges against him. Not only is he alleged to have fomented hatred against the Jewish community, but he is also accused of acting on that hatred by setting up a laboratory to produce weapons.

“For the Jewish community of Montreal, which after the Holocaust in Europe became a haven for survivors to rebuild their lives, this dual threat of hatred and the potential for violent action raises horrific fears. Montreal is still home to some elderly survivors and their descendants who bear the scars of their parents and grandparents.

“These scars, combined with the violence we now see on our streets and campuses, make it all the more necessary for the justice system, the last bastion of hope for the community, to stand up and act in the face of these threats,” it continues. “We believe that the sentence handed down must be strictly exemplary and send a clear message to both the accused and his potential accomplices that these types of actions and behaviors will not be tolerated in our country.”

Hatred Elsewhere in Quebec

Meanwhile, an unidentified man from Rivière-du-Loup, 200 km east of Quebec City, was arrested on Dec. 11 for posting hate speech on Telegram and X (formerly Twitter).

According to the RCMP, the 19-year-old individual allegedly posted hundreds of hateful messages in recent months, targeting Jewish communities and sexual minorities in particular.

The man had been previously arrested last February for similar offences, including posting hundreds of hateful messages online since July 2023. He was not charged, but interrogated and released with police-imposed conditions. There are no Jews living in Rivière-du-Loup, whose population numbers approximately 30,000, according to the 2021 census.

The man has not been identified by police because some of the offences were alleged to have occurred when he was a minor. Despite his previous arrest, he continued his illegal activities online, according to an RCMP statement.

RCMP Corporal Martina Pillarova told The CJN, “The postings were threatening violence,” but could not provide any further details, adding this is the first time the young man has been charged.

The man is facing charges in three cases in youth and adult court for willfully inciting hate against identifiable groups—including Jews, racialized persons and the LGBTQ community—and promoting antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust. The offences occurred between June 1, 2023, and Dec. 11, 2024.

He pleaded not guilty, was released on bail with condition, and will return to court on Dec. 20 in Rivière-du-Loup.

Topas recalled B’nai Brith Canada’s 2023 annual audit of antisemitic incidents, and what he called “the exponential rise” in online hate. With almost 16 antisemitic incidents occurring every day in Canada, double from the prior year, online harassment was up 137 per cent. “One reading of this is that many people who spend time texting and emailing each other, rather than speaking, they are also feeling some sense of false liberty to sit there in their basement and spew hatred instead of physical harm—neither of which are acceptable.”

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