Canada's Multiculturalism Love Affair

"I want to acknowledge the fear and distress this has caused."

"We recognize that Jewish residents have been living with a heightened sense of fear due to repeated incidents targeting their community, and this only adds to that, which is completely unacceptable."

"While the weapons used were imitation firearms, the impact is very real."

"These are criminal acts that we allege were meant to intimidate and cause fear."

Toronto Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews 

 

"We are under attack like never before. Antisemitism, a global virus that has metastasized, finds itself right here on Bathurst Street. A street that my grandparents moved to from Poland in 1921, a street that represents the Jewish community's past, present, and one day will represent the future."

"[Thursday night's shooting] at one of the most revered, respected and holy synagogues in Canada, is totally unacceptable."

"Our government, led by Premier [Doug] Ford, will never accept the normalization of even one act of antisemitism."

"Not only will we call it out, we will work day and night with our police services."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner

 

"Heartbroken and furious at the same time over another attack on a Canadian synagogue by thugs who target the innocent at prayer."

"Antisemites are doing this. And governments too spineless to name them or defend what Canada once stood for is giving them the room to flourish."

Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader, federal Conservative Party of Canada 

A police cruiser is shown outside a synagogue in North York where three people were shot at with a replica firearm on Thursday night. (CP24)

 

 It was announced by Toronto police that an 18-year-old man from Vaughan, north of Toronto has been arrested. He is being charged in connection with a shooting at the Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Toronto last Thursday night. The charge and arrest is inclusive of an April 30 shooting that took place in front of another synagogue in an area of the city long known as a Jewish neighbourhood. The man arrested was named as Ruslan Novruzov. In making his announcement to the press, Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews added that the incidents were "deeply concerning, particularly because the victims were visibly identifiable members of our Jewish community".

 

On April 30, three individuals walking in the Jewish neighbourhood near Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue West were shot at with a replica firearm, from a vehicle. Of the three, one was hit, as the suspects swiftly drove off in a blue SUV. Early Friday morning, police executed search warrants on a residence and vehicle in Vaughan where Novruzov was arrested and charged with a number of weapons offences. Two  gel blaster imitation firearms were seized.

 

The incident happened around 10:49 p.m. on Thursday at Chasidei Bobov synagogue in the area of Bathurst Street and Hwy. 401. Photo: Peter Dworschak/CityNews.

 

"I am disgusted by the targeted antisemitic attacks that took place in North York over the last several days, including last night outside a synagogue."

"These attacks will not be tolerated and I'm pleased the Toronto police have acted quickly in response and have a suspect in custody."

"I expect that all those who are responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford  

Fine statements of sympathy and support from the province's highest political authority. An authority that has not -- in the past three-and-a-half years since the October 7, 2023 Palestinian terrorist assault on southern Israel led by Hamas that rampaged through farming communities, towns and villages and a nearby music festival to slaughter, rape and torture children, youth, the elderly, entire families in an orgy of sadistic savagery and which ignited a storm of antisemitic claims and threats in Canada through organized Palestinian protests, endangering the Jewish community -- moved to put a strop to these public displays of hatred.

 

Nor, for that matter has the federal government acted in any way to calm the situation, secure the normalcy of civil behaviour of one ethnic/religious/ideological group of Canadians against another. Instead, all levels of government, from Toronto's own municipal council led by its Mayor Olivia Chow, to the provincial government of Premier Doug Ford, to that of the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney acted to calm the firestorms of ongoing anti-Israel, anti-Jew, pro-Palestinian protests. While declaring their objections on moral grounds to antisemitism, they invariably invoke their rejection of 'Islamophobia'. 

 

The incident took place outside a synagogue on Bathurst Street near Wilson Avenue.   CTV News

 

Lost in the turmoil of never-ending protests -- where choruses of 'Final Solution!', 'Israeli genocide!', and 'Globalize the Intifada', along with threatening marches through Jewish neighbourhoods by scores of keffiyeh-clad, masked protesters was the need to ensure the security of Jewish Canadians whose houses of worship, parochial schools, and Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized, fire-bombed and shot at -- have responsible government-authority interventions taken place. Group Muslim street prayers, illegally shutting down intersections and roadways have been tolerated. 

 

The large, and growing Canadian Muslim population has the kind of voting heft that the much smaller Canadian Jewish population does not have any longer. The generations of Jewish Canadians that trusted and loved their Canadian home now find themselves marginalized, thanks to the mass migration, emigration and refugee-intake of recent years, of people from Muslim-majority countries who have brought their traditional Jew-hate baggage with them. This is the cultural vigour celebrated in Canada as the benefits of multiculturalism.  

"Know this, if anybody feels that one act of antisemitism is going to be OK, it's not. It's time that everybody in our community, of other faiths, of other heritages, stand together."

"[Non-Jews are welcome to go on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday], to a synagogue, a Jewish congregation, in our city, and stand outside that congregation in solidarity."

"Stand, raise  your voices. Stand a little stronger for the values of Canada and Ontario that unite us, that bind us one together."

Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner