Brad Neufeld, the vice-president of a Toronto-based health-care firm, was in Tel Aviv when the first sirens went off on Oct. 7, 2023. It was early Saturday morning, and Hamas terrorists had hit Israel with everything they had, murdering, raping and kidnapping civilians.

In the panicked days that followed, Ottawa organized flights for Canadians to flee the sudden war zone. Neufeld, however, took a hard pass.