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William Barclay

The Trudeau Government Has Abandoned Canada’s Jews

People stand near an illuminated Canadian Maple leaf as thousands gather in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to show their support for the people of Palestine, on May 15, 2021. Several demonstrations took place on Saturday across Canada to denounce the Israeli repression against Palestinians and to demand "the liberation of Palestine".
In Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, several thousand people, often carrying flags, took to the streets to express their solidarity with the Palestinians, denounce the "war crimes" committed by Israel, or call on the Hebrew state to "stop killing children". (Photo by Cole BURSTON / AFP)
A Crowd of pro-Palestinian Demonstrators Amasses in Canada (The Times of Israel, 2024)

Since the most recent outbreak of the Israel-Palestine Conflict on October 7th, Canadian society has been inundated with antisemitism and innocent Jewish people everywhere have been subjected to all species of violence and attack.

Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s response has been utterly inadequate, and Canada’s Jewish community has been abandoned to confront its grim fate alone.

Firstly, in cities across Canada, openly hostile, illegal, pro-Palestinian protests have repeatedly been permitted to invade Jewish neighbourhoods and target locations that are fundamental to Canada’s Jewish community, such as synagogues, schools, and community centres with violent antisemitism and Jew-hatred.

For example, in Windsor, “…hundreds of [pro-Palestinian] demonstrators…” swarmed Jewish residential areas, whereupon they enthusiastically indulged in various antisemitic slogans and reiterated calls to genocide the Jewish people.

Furthermore, in Montreal, a mob of pro-Palestinian protestors surrounded a Jewish community centre, as well as the Federation CJA’s headquarters, before it proceeded to terrorize Montreal’s historically Jewish Côte Saint-Luc neighbourhood with frenzied antisemitic chants and calls for the slaughter of all Jews in Canada and the Middle East.

In fact, Toronto’s Jewish community was forced to endure over 300 overtly violent pro-Palestinian protests, before the Toronto Police Service finally acknowledged that it was necessary to “…crack down on illegal acts at anti-Israel protests and bar protesters from congregating…on the edge of Toronto’s Jewish community.”

Moreover, since October 7th, antisemitic hate crimes have been permitted to surge and transpire in Canada without any effective response from the Trudeau government.

For instance, in Toronto, antisemitic hate crimes surged by 211% between October and December, and, in Montreal, the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) recorded 73 hate crimes against Jews between October 7th and November 7th alone, despite registering only “…72 hate crimes and incidents against all minorities for all of 2022.”

Similarly, in Vancouver, “More police-reported antisemitic incidents occurred…in the period of the last three months of 2023 than in all of 2022.” In fact, violent antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed by 208% over the past year and, “between Jan. 1, 2023 and Dec. 31, 2023, [B’nai Brith Canada] logged 5,791 incidents of antisemitism [in Canada as a whole]…” which easily “…[surpassed] the previous record of 2,799 reported in 2021.”

In addition, gunshots have been fired into multiple Jewish schools and numerous prominent synagogues and schools across Canada have been firebombed. Furthermore, countless innocent Jewish people have been viciously attacked, and over 100 Jewish organizations, institutes, and communities across Canada were recently targeted with a bomb threat, which explicitly stated “You will all end up in a pool of blood…This will be your last day on earth.”

Sadly, even the Trudeau government itself has carelessly reinforced a variety of antisemitic tropes and helped to re-entrench various organizations that openly participate in the terrorization of the Jewish community.

For example, in March, the Trudeau government endorsed a motion in Canada’s House of Commons that urged the state of Israel “…to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention…” and baselessly indicted Israel for the “…continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.”

Furthermore, the Trudeau government has continued to fund and support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), despite the fact that UN Watch has emphatically exposed UNRWA as a terrorist enterprise and complicit in the October 7th massacre in Israel.

In addition, the Trudeau government recently revoked the charitable status of two historic Jewish charities, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Ne’eman Foundation, and, thereby, explicitly confirmed various longstanding rumours that it is “…on a campaign to kill off pro-Israel and pro-Jewish charities.”

Unfortunately, although Prime Minister Trudeau has repeatedly declared himself to be a champion of diversity and all oppressed peoples, it is clear that the Trudeau government has remained fundamentally unconcerned with the plight of Canada’s Jews.

In fact, explicit Jew-hatred and antisemitic violence have now become a sad reality of Jewish life in Canada, due to the fact that the Trudeau government has so overwhelmingly failed to protect Canada’s Jewish community against the virulent antisemitism that has subsumed Canadian society since October 7th.

In truth, Jews across Canada have become endangered within their own homes and communities, as well as the focal point for any antisemitic tendencies and violence that are latent within Canadian society.

Worse still, Jews in Canada must now begin to steel themselves for the fact that their plight is not merely tolerable, but, oftentimes, encouraged, by Canada’s political leaders and that antisemitism is rapidly becoming an acceptable aspect of Canadian society.

About the Author
William Barclay is an acclaimed political theorist and private consultant. For over a decade, William has worked together with high caliber political actors, organizations, and community leaders, in order to achieve urgent political objectives and help successfully resolve various unique challenges in Europe and North America.
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