The resignation speech Trudeau owes Canadian Jews

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that he is resigning from the office of Prime Minister. Here is the resignation speech Trudeau owes Canada’s Jewish community.

My Fellow Canadians,

I know many of you think I am resigning today because of the economic and housing crisis, the rabid crime, and the domestic strife that has overtaken Canada under my leadership. While those are good reasons, they are not why I am resigning. Here’s why I am resigning. 

Ever since the 1760s, Jews from all over the world have been finding a safe refuge in Canada. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, North Africa, Asia, and other places around the world have found a safe haven in Canada, where they built new lives, schools, synagogues, and communities. These Jews have served Canada well. They became teachers, engineers, and postal workers, joined the police and the military, and have done everything they can to help Canada thrive and prosper. It is during my term in office that 260 years of Jews finding a safe refuge in Canada have come to an end. Not only do Jews no longer arrive in Canada as a safe refuge, many of them consider leaving the Canada they love, fearing for their own safety. I have failed my most basic duty as prime minister.

The juxtaposition of the two images – one in which I lead applause for Nazi SS member Yaroslav Hunka just two weeks before October 7th and the other of antisemitic mobs roaming Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto and Montreal – will forever haunt me. Never will I be able to forgive myself for the fact that neighborhoods dense with one of the largest communities of Holocaust survivors in the world saw synagogues firebombed, Jewish girls’ schools shot at, and bullies marching in front of synagogues. How can I possibly forgive myself for letting those old survivors of the worst tragedy in human history, tormented by the images of Hitler’s Nazis in their youth, see it again right here in Canada? It is for this that I feel deep shame, and I am resigning today from my position as prime minister. 

Since 1738 when Esther Brandeau, a French Jewish woman who fled to Canada dressed in the guise of a Christian man to avoid persecution, no Jew has ever been deported from Canada for their faith, yet, under my term as prime minister, Canadian Jews have begun fleeing religious persecution in Canada. The Western world has watched in disbelief how the once very tolerant Canada let antisemitism against its own Jewish citizens rise by a staggering 670%, doing little to change that. 

I, the same Justin Trudeau who was somehow able to find the wherewithal to shut down the truckers’ convey to Ottawa, was somehow not able to find any additional government resources for a Jewish girls’ elementary school being shot at with live fire multiple times. I, the same Justin Trudeau who was able to restrict the donations and finances of all those truckers and their supporters, was suddenly unable to act as swarms of antisemites marched through Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto and Montreal. This is my legacy, and this is what I will be remembered for. 

Recognizing the horror I have inflicted on my own citizens, I will take the coming years to help repair some of the damage I have done. I will visit the communities devastated by my actions, speak out against antisemitism, repudiate the malice I have unleashed against the Jewish state, and try and bring some healing to Canada.

Sincerely, 

Justine Trudeau