(AP) — Canada is failing Jewish Canadians and the community is being brutally targeted by hate, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday.
Carney said across Canada, antisemitism has surged to levels not seen in the post-World War II era. He noted that last year over two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes were directed at Jewish Canadians. Jews make up only 1% of the population.
Carney said antisemites in Canada have fired bullets at Jewish schools and thrown firebombs at synagogues and attacked community centers. He said they have targeted Jewish-owned businesses and drove Jewish students from common spaces on university campuses.
Carney said antisemitism plagues Europe, Australia and the United States. But he said the crisis of antisemitism in Canada is “specific, severe and demands a targeted response.”
“Something important happened: Canada finally said the quiet part out loud,” Harley Finkelstein, a prominent Jewish Canadian and president of the e-commerce company Shopify, posted on social media.
Noah Shack, the CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said before the speech that the Canadian government must do more to strengthen community security and combat hate.
“It pains me that we had to commit $75 million to this, any dollar to this,” Carney said.
The prime minister also said a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion will examine the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism. It will measure its impacts and investments in education, prevention and community safety will follow, his office said.
“They are the basic standards we owe one another, in our shared public institutions, to ensure that no Canadian community is driven from those institutions by hatred.”
