The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau is Wrong and Dishonourable

"There are very few Jews in the world. Not even one percent of the world's population is Jewish. Not even 0.1 percent. In fact, only about 15 million of the world's population of 8 billion people -- less than .02 percent -- are Jewish."

"Canada has the fourth largest population of world Jewry at 335,000, less than one percent of our 39-million population, dramatically smaller than the Muslim population [in Canada], approaching two million."

Howard Levitt, senior partner, Levitt Sheikh, employment and labour lawyers

Ottawa police’s hate crime unit is investigating allegations of hate speech at a pro-Palestinian rally on Parliament Hill over the weekend, where some participants were heard chanting in support of the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

No one but an unmitigated bigot could ever contest the fact that Jews have been proud Canadians, valuing the country of their birth as second, third, fourth-generation Canadians. There has been a Canadian presence in Canada since before Confederation. Although Canadian Jews infamously faced organized and often institutional antisemitism, nothing dissuaded them that this was their country, too. Even at times when universities were loathe to admit Jewish students, and Jews faced signage indicating that private clubs and public venues were off-limits to their presence, Jews never lost faith in Canada.

 

Jews were proud to contribute to the social weal of the country they loved in any way they could. Jewish contributions to science, medicine, law, education, business, finance and media, culture and politics has always been outsize to their actual numbers. It is and always has been in the Judaic tradition to value education, and to contribute to the society -- anywhere in the world -- where Jews lived throughout the diaspora. Jewish innovation and sheer cerebral power has earned them 22 percent of Nobel prizes.

Despite the reluctance in North America and elsewhere during World War Two, and the accompanying unspeakable Holocaust, when despite the news of Nazi Germany's persecution of Europe's Jews and its institutionalized genocide machinery on a scale unimaginable in its industrialized determination to erase a Jewish presence from the world community, post-war consciences awakened by the liberation of death camps throughout Europe opened immigration and refugee doors for surviving Jews.

Jewish philanthropy outdistances that of any other ethnic/religious group in establishing supports and installations at hospitals and universities through the generosity and sense of responsibility to the public weal through generous donations. Jews were proud of their traditions, their culture, their history, but never hesitated to meld with the public spirit of shared values enhancing the greater community with their presence, sharing satisfaction with their Canadian experiences with other Canadians.

The social compact that eventually resulted in Jews being able to relax in a more inclusive social compact with Canada as equal partners in all that has been important and vital to the future prospects of the country has been shattered. The mutual trust and dependence that took too long to build, but which contributed to a more balanced society, took little time to utterly shatter with the more recent introduction to the Canadian experience of Muslims from abroad arriving as immigrants, refugees and illegal migrants.

Suddenly antisemitism was spurred, re-awakened in the greater general population where it simmered at a low ember for generations, lit by the fire of Muslim hatred of Jews. Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist groups, aided and abetted by Palestinian civilians who in their thousands flooded across the border from Gaza into Israel to rape and to kill, to torture and to mutilate, to take infants, the elderly, the ill and the unfortunate as hostages to Gaza, Canadian Jews have been embattled. 

Suddenly finding themselves as 'outsiders', with, according to the hordes of pro-Hamas protesters, no right to be in Canada, much less in Israel. Threats to Jewish survival can be shouted endlessly by a chorus of Jew-haters, Jewish university students harassed on campuses, children attending parochial school accosted, fire-bombs targeting synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers, graffiti plastered on Jewish-owned businesses across the country, but apart from tut-tutting, no official at any level of government has used their authority to declare these criminal acts worthy of arrest and prison.

Most of all, the prime minister of the country, purporting to be an arbiter of equality, a proponent of justice, has himself led the fray and set the tone by his -- Justin Trudeau's -- lack of commitment to law and order and the government's responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all Canada's citizens, including Jewish Canadians. Trudeau has as much as indicated that he gives equal weight to the words and actions of the Israeli government and that of Hamas. 

Verbal sympathy for the plight of Canadian Jews faced with an unending storm of antisemitism, fear and threats, has gone no further. No action of any kind to ensure that the perpetrators of unjust and criminal acts in the public arena where university campuses and buildings have been occupied and Jewish students and faculty have been threatened and detained from entering their places of study and employment have gone unchecked. 

 

Canadian Jews have been abandoned by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau and indeed by provincial and municipal governments and police forces.

Canada ... hang your head in shame.

Signs calling for violence against Jews are seen at an encampment at McGill University in Montreal on April 29. Photo by Pierre Obendrauf/MONTREAL GAZETTE

"Our citizens, hated not because they are bombing Gaza, but because they are Jews, are frightened as never before"

"They are frightened by the venomous hatred from so many sources, manifesting in the screaming crowds in their neighbourhoods, vandalizing of businesses, death threats and calls to genocide, as our police and governments stand in silence."

General Rick Hillier, former Chief of the Defense Staff, Canada