It’s ironic that the strongest defenders of Canada’s Jewish community are the Conservatives, who the Liberals often accuse of conspiring with neo-Nazis and white supremacists
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While antisemitism has always been present in Canada, this is the first Canadian election in decades where it has been normalized.
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Riot police being called to Montreal’s McGill University after pro-Hamas demonstrators vandalized the university’s McConnell Engineering Building, targeted the dean’s office and blocked students from attending classes last week surprises no one any more.
Same goes for a Jewish-owned coffee shop in Toronto, vandalized for the third time in the past year, the latest incident occurring one day after the federal election was called.
Nor is its surprising that Rod Loyola, a candidate running for the Liberals in Edmonton Gateway and a former NDP member of the Alberta Legislature, praised Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as terrorist organizations by Canada in 2002, in a 2009 video as reported by the National Post. (Loyola says he has since renounced this view and, after being dumped by the Liberals, plans to run in another riding as an independent.)
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According to Statistics Canada, while Jews make up 1% of the Canadian population, 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes today are aimed at Jews.
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Toronto Police last year reported a 69% increase in hate crimes against Jews in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023 – far higher than for any other group.
Attacks on Jews have become so commonplace that they are no longer seen as unexpected, either in Canadian society or on the campaign trail in this election.
And spare us the argument from Jew haters that they can’t say anything against Israel without being accused of antisemitism.
The harshest criticism of Israel and how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – currently on trial for corruption – has prosecuted the war in Gaza and dealt with the hostage crisis comes from Jews living in Israel.
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The difference is they don’t call for the destruction of Israel or driving the Jews into the sea.
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The irony is that the strongest defenders of Canada’s Jewish community are the Conservatives, despite the fact the Liberals routinely accuse them of conspiring with neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Indeed, despite the historic affinity of the Jewish community in Canada for the Liberals, in the modern era it has been conservative political leaders – Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper and Pierre Poilievre – who have consistently and unequivocally denounced antisemitism, without qualifications, including its modern-day disguises as anti-Zionism and calls for the destruction of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.
By contrast the Liberals – with only rare exceptions – turn a blind eye to the far more dangerous, accepted and even applauded institutional antisemitism running amok in Canada, that today comes from the left.
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Antisemitism that infects everything from the federal government – look at the people it hires as so-called “anti-racism” experts – to the liberal media – look at what their columnists write – to public sector union leaders – look at the things they say – to universities, “think tanks” and “non government organizations,” what laughably used to be called “civil society.”
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The Liberals, mindful of the fact there are more than five times as many Muslims (1.8 million) as Jews (335,000) in Canada, have steadily drifted away from supporting Canada’s besieged Jewish community and support for Israel at the United Nations, despite the worst outbreak of antisemitism in Canada since the 1930s.
When Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, tells former NDP leader Tom Mulcair that her positions on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are influenced by the demographics in her riding – and she’s still the foreign affairs minister – it’s obvious where the Liberal Party of Canada stands on Israel today.
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Of course, Liberal politicians do issue motherhood statements from time to time about everyone having the right to protest but not to promote hatred – typically after a particularly egregious, public display of Jew hatred.
But there are seldom meaningful, if any, consequences for those who protest by promoting hatred, with police often acting as handmaidens for the protesters.
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Ditto for those who target Jewish neighbourhoods, businesses, synagogues, day schools and university students for hate, as if Jews in Canada are responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu government in Gaza, while their political and media enablers laughably claim these “protests” are not aimed at Jews.
It’s the same twisted logic that, were it reversed, would hold Muslims in Canada responsible for terrorism by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
As for the third national party in Canada, the NDP, it’s been a lost cause when it comes to meaningfully condemning antisemitism for decades – ironic since there was a time when democratic socialists and many Jewish organizations were closely aligned on social issues such as poverty and racism.
But that was then and this is now.
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