The Canadian Jewish Barometer

"[It is] ironic [that DEI programs are] often structurally incapable of even seeing antisemitism, let alone addressing it."

"If your DEI lens only recognizes race-based disadvantage, and cannot grapple with religious, cultural, economic and national dimensions, then Jews -- who are the most targeted group in the country -- are effectively rendered invisible."

"Some of the research shows an inherent tension between DEI frameworks, and the ability to understand antisemitism."

"When DEI is framed almost exclusively around systemic barriers defined by race, it cannot grapple with how antisemitism operates along religious, cultural, economic and national lines."

"The result is that antisemitism is frequently not mentioned at all in institutional DEI policies, or, when it is, the national dimension of Jewish identity is explicitly excluded."

Rhonda Lenton, former president, York University

 

"That 25 percent [one in four Jews seriously considering leaving Canada] is not people packing suitcases; it's a measure of lost trust. They are questioning whether Canada is still living up to its commitments on multiculturalism and minority rights."

"When that many members of a historically successful minority are thinking in those terms, it's not just a 'Jewish problem'. It's a warning light for every minority in this country."

"We're finding that strong negative attitudes toward Israel's very right to exist have bred a great deal of antisemitism in recent years. They're different focal points -- Jews on the one hand, Israel on the other -- but they have become closely linked forms of antipathy."

Sociologist Robert Brym, University of Toronto 

Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, looks at bullet holes fired at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Synagogue in Vaughan, March 12, 2026. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National Post

 

According to the Canadian Jewish Barometer 2026, representing a new national survey through a medium compiled by former president of York University Rhonda Lenton and University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym, non-Jewish Canadians hold less favourable views of Jews at present than was the case two years earlier, while attitudes toward Israel have become far less favourable over the same time frame. The authors of this new national survey conclude that the greatest exacerbating factor is the diversity, inclusion and equity programs that have succeeded in eroding sensibilities. 

 

The web-based survey undertook to question 3,062 Canadian adults from mid-January to mid-February of 2026. Oversampling polls of Jews, Muslims and Quebecers drawn from a Leger Opinion Panel, made for detailed subgroup analysis. Positive sentiment toward Jews was found to have dropped in comparison to a similar 2024 survey; agreement with negatively-worded statements about Jews rose by roughly five percent on average, considered to be statistically significant.

 

Non-Jewish Canadians with the most favourable view of Jews fell by eight percentage points in the two- year period, while those with slightly positive views dropped by 15 points. Leading the authors to deduce  that the 'golden age' of Canadian Jewry -- from the 1960s to the early 2020s -- giving way to a hostile environment. The Barometer notes that Jews suffer more police-recorded hate crimes per capita than any other ethnic, racial or religious group in Canada, since the Israel-Hamas war.

 

Rising incidents of hostility have caused a psychological toll within the Jewish community In 2024, 63 percent of Jews felt less safe in Canada than they did five years earlier and by 2026 that figure leapt to 88 percent, where close to seven in ten Jewish parents are concerned over their children's safety in school. Fear, discomfort and discussions over emigration represent newly measurable trends, with one in four Jews seriously considering leaving Canada.

 

The prevailing atmosphere is that non-Jewish Canadians are markedly more critical of Israel; strong and moderate support declining, while weak support, outright opposition and uncertainty have all gained traction. More Canadians describe their view of Israel as unfavourable than favourable, with a majority stating their opinion that the Gaza campaign represents 'genocide'. 

 

Universities and other organizations must retool how DEI is operationalized to identify where anti-Jewish bias is being inadvertently baked into policy, according to Ms. Lenton. Perhaps the best, most effective place to start the process, is government itself with its 'progressive' dedication to DEI. The Barometer indicates that more hours of classroom teaching of the Holocaust correlates with slightly more positive attitudes toward Jews, but that effect is slight. Many non-Jewish respondents in Quebec particularly, under-estimate the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.   

"A program designed to be inclusive ends up being exclusive of the group that experiences the highest rate of hate crimes in the country. The only 'good Jew' in many DEI framings, is a Jew without any national ambitions for the Jewish people."

"That's includes revisiting definitions metrics and recommended strategies [to identify where anti-Jewish bias is baked into policy] and making sure that Jews are recognized as a vulnerable minority in all the dimensions in which they are targeted."

Robert Brym

  

"Whether justified based on available surveys or not, the perception itself is politically significant. For many Canadians, antisemitism is no longer viewed solely as a domestic prejudice inherited from Europe’s past, but increasingly as a problem linked to contemporary demographic and concomitant cultural change. In short, more immigration from Muslim countries. The constant and massive anti-Israel demonstrations that have rocked Toronto and Montreal have left a broad, distinctly visual impression."

"Perhaps the most revealing demographic pattern in the survey was the connection between antisemitic attitudes and dissatisfaction with Canada itself. Respondents who viewed Canada negatively were significantly more likely to feel negatively towards Jews than those who expressed confidence in the country and its institutions."

Sago, Public Square, The Hub  

 

 

 

Israel Baiters, Jew Haters -- They Are Legion

"Resisting Israeli occupation and apartheid is a right. Unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance movement until full liberation!" [Oct 8 2023] 

"Palestinian resistance mov't has demonstrated 2day that Israeli settler colonialism & occupation will not last. Unity of the resistance forces & solidarity is needed now more than ever as a new stage in the war of liberation has begun."

"[The] struggle in Palestine isn't a humanitarian one one, as liberals and some leftists like to think. It is a national liberation struggle with all that entails. This includes not questioning the tools used by the oppressed to achieve their liberation."

Hassan Husseini, national negotiator, Public Service Alliance of Canada

"I do not feel that he [Husseini] would be able to properly represent me, a Jew and a Zionist."

"I continue to feel  unrepresented by PSAC as they ostracized many Jewish members and created  space in which we do not all feel safe."

PSAC member Chelsea (surname withheld on request)

"Since October 7, the union has taken an antisemitic path, which has undermined the diversity of its members. They have already organized anti-Israeli webinars and meetings."

"They did nothing to stop the rising antisemitism; rather, they instigated it by taking sides in foreign political matters."

Valerya Shneider, PSAC member

@JoeTruzman

Demonstrators in Toronto, Canada, celebrate following the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel.

 

 

 

Academia in Canada, along with unions, have been expressing their opinions about the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza from the perspective of a viral propaganda campaign launched by Islamists and supporters of Palestinian 'resisters' of the Israeli 'occupation' of the West Bank and Gaza. That Israel is forced to maintain its overseer status is similar to the work of a zookeeper maintaining the enclosures of wild animals. 

 

Without that Israeli function of military supervision, Palestinian terrorists would enjoy free reign to attack Jews, whether those in authority, in the military, in security of law and order or civilians.

The administrators of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas, and that of Hamas governing Gaza, incite their public to hatred and violence against Israel and Jews relentlessly. Both governments of the Palestinian Territories have never bothered to focus on establishing civilian governing infrastructure that would lead to the state status they so fervently speak of to the West. 

 

Israel's oversight is an existential requirement to ensure the safety and security of Israeli citizens, including the two million Palestinians who live in Israel as state-entitled citizens.

In Canada, the current government which prides itself on its progressive credentials which ensure quality of life and security for all Canadian citizens and residents, and cites equality of all, has experienced some value judgement equivocations in attempting to balance a fine line in reflection of its population of both Jews and Muslims, by giving as much credence to statements expressed by Hamas as it does those of official Israel. 

 

There has been no solid condemnation followed up by restraining actions by governments in Canada in response to vicious slanders, threats, violence, or criminal actions perpetrated by pro-Hamas groups in Canada against Canadian Jews and their institutions, much less Canadian public and private institutions.

On the very day of the barbaric invasion by Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas into southern Israel to carry out a pre-programmed slaughter of Jews, mass rapes, mutilations, and abductions of children, women and the elderly, the national negotiator for Canada's largest public service union responded to a social media post by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs denouncing Canadians celebrating the atrocities, when he responded: "It is called liberation of stolen land, stupid!!!"

The logic of labelling ancestral heritage geography as stolen land aside, this kind of bald-faced libelous slander would never see the light of day if Islamists knew they would be held responsible under Canada's criminal law code for promulgating and promoting hatred of an identifiable minority. Under this government of Justin Trudeau's Liberals, that has not happened, nor will it happen. 

 

This government's eye is fixated on numbers; the large number of Muslims who now populate Canada, as opposed to the much smaller number of Canadian Jews.

Even as the scale of the massacre by Islamist terrorists in Israel was being clarified as new information was released, the barrage of celebratory 'protests' in support of Palestinian terror was unprecedented as an expression of sheer, unadulterated hatred. Choruses of 'final solution', 'intifada' and 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!' rang out on the streets of Canadian cities in well-orchestrated campaigns of intimidation of Jews in Canada and the furtherance of support among antisemitic fundamentalists in Canada. To which politicians tut-tutted, but made no move to respond to.

The day prior to the Israel Defense Forces' ground operation in Gaza, Husseini wrote to his followers: "Good morning and f--k #Apartheid_Israel and anyone who defends it and attempts to whitewash its #WarCrimes and genocide". Husseini compared Israel to Nazi Germany while accusing Canadian media of spreading "Zionist propaganda" as he compared Hamas terrorists to Jews during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazi extermination machinery. 

 

Fred Hahn, a CUPE Ontario leader also praised the October 7 bloodbath.

 

"Unions should focus on their members' working conditions and benefits, not on divisive, amateurish, simplistic, one-sided, and toxic forays into foreign policy."

"It goes much further than simply Husseini. It is an organized campaign, led and inspired by people like Husseini and Fred Hahn and implemented by activists who are making Jewish union members unwelcome in organizations created to protect every one of their members."

"There are good reasons that some unions are being taken to human rights tribunals for anti-Jewish discrimination."

"This has to stop."

Richard Marceau, general counsel, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

American Universities Under Command of Palestinian Demands

"[Protesters over the weekend were] calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel [while some protesters shouting out antisemitic slurs were not students]."

"Jews are scared at Columbia. It's as simple as that."

"There's been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism."

Nicholas Baum, 19, Jewish freshman, Jewish Theological Seminary

"We saw signs indicating that Israel should be destroyed", reported U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning who had visited Columbia along with three other Congressmen, as she spoke with reporters following her tour of the Morningside Heights campus. At Columbia University an email was forwarded to staff and students that many classes at its Morningside campus would be hybrid for the rest of the semester where possible.

Cal Poly Humboldt closes classes for rest of semester

 

"Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students' learning and all the required academic operations", the email explained. Facing intense scrutiny over whether they are seriously involved in protecting their students, faculty and staff against antisemitism since the deadly October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel, college leaders also deal with criticism from others claiming students' right to speak is being denied, political protests being censored.

A New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD as anti-Israel protesters continue their riotous protests and police across the United States are called in to deal with them. Students barricaded themselves within a building at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University, reflecting the surge in anti-Israel, 'pro-Palestinian' demonstrations getting out of hand and endangering Jewish students on campus with threats and isolation.

Students have set up encampments on university property, moving into tents as part of their dedication to protesting against Israel and for terrorism as a form of freedom and liberation from oppression. Students demonstrating that they can form opinions and mount protests without the least idea of what it is they are protesting. Called in by university administrators, police were busy clearing out the protesters only to have them return and once again set up their tents and encampments despite students and faculty members' arrests.

In desperation, universities locked down buildings so that "key cards will not work". People are urged to stay away from the "dangerous and volatile situation" at Siemens Hall, Cal Poly Humboldt, explaining they are "deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters", urging them to "listen to directives from law enforcement ... and to peacefully leave the building." Humboldt for Palestine posted that students had "taken" Siemens Hall, listing demands, including the university divesting from any associations with Israel.

"The barriers were breached by protesters, many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU [who exhibited] disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behaviour [refusing to leave when told the protests would be disbanded. Assistance was then requested from the NYPD", explained NYU spokesman John Beckman adding that 'several antisemitic incidents' had been reported.

NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy and his officers being chased and surrounded by protesters Monday night while trying to get inside the NYU Catholic Center after arresting one of them. Peter Hambrecht

The Radicalization of College Campuses

"In another world, on university campuses, some Jewish students -- coddled by their administrations -- cite their fear of a protest chant as an indicator that a Second Holocaust is imminent. It's not rational, but understandable."

"They are not feigning: the fear is so real it can conjure the Gestapo in the halls of the Ivy Leagues. Then they are guests on television networks, narrating their harrowing life at the academy."

"You almost laugh but it isn't a joke. It's psychosis."

Mohammed El-Kurd

 

"If Mr. Rosenthal is bent on silencing diverse or dissenting voices, particularly Palestinian voices describing genocidal conditions and western hypocrisy, I'll call that what I believe it is: racist."

"If he's encouraging students to boycott one of the few Canadian Muslim law professors in the country because he doesn't like my opinions or who I retweet, I'll call that what I believe it is: Islamophobia."

Professor Faisal Bhabha, Osgoode Law School

 

"We disguised our political demands  behind religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labeled any objection to our demands as racism."

"Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathizers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who like Dave Gomer were now in middle-career management posts."

"It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicized religion as ideological agitation; they felt racist if they tried to stop us."

"Islamism demanded no less of a root-and-branch overhaul of society. But it was cloaked in religious garb, no one quite knew what to do with it, and people were desperate not to offend."

"There was confusion over whether to define our activism as a cultural identity, an ideology, or a faith. To top it off, Islamism went through a decade of being embraced by both the left and right wings."

"The default liberal position was to embrace the movement as part of multicultural sensitivity: to tell people to stop practicing their faith was imperialism in nineties clothing, a colonial hangover bordering on racism."

"Instead, we were embraced as a new generation of anti-colonial politicized youth."

Maajid Nawaz, Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism

A 'pro-Palestinian' rally Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

According to Howard Levitt, lawyer and journalist, class-action lawsuits are pending against three Canadian universities who for years have nurtured a culture of antisemitism that has resulted in a poisoned environment on campus, one that has become intolerable for Jewish students, a situation that has been exacerbated by the horrific events of October 7 and the aftermath, of condemnations emanating from the left, from unions, and from academia, not of the terrorist group Hamas, but of Israel's response to the terrorist rampage of deadly carnage.

The government-sanctioned woke movement had its origins in universities and professors which have for years been indoctrinating their students into the ideology which began in the United States and moved into Canada, although it was at the University of Toronto that it was taken to another level by the instituting of the BDS movement that then moved onward and upward to the United States. 

According to Mr. Levitt, the reason that the now-famed professor of psychology and author Jordan Peterson left his tenured position as professor-emeritus at University of Toronto was his realization that any student studying their degrees under his tutelage would be penalized by a studied lack of academic prospects. The atmosphere in most colleges and universities now is corrosively left-woke-progressive and Israel appears to be their iconic demon.

Close to three of every four American-Jewish students has had experience of, or witnessed antisemitism in this academic year, according to a study carried out by the Anti-Defamation League jointly with Hillel International. In addition to which more than one in three non-Jewish students reported having witnessed or experienced an incident of antisemitism in the wake of October 7 (some of whom may have been erroneously targeted as Jews; others likely as a result of having indicated no sympathy with antisemitism).

It appears that an Osgoode Law School professor unapologetically in support of the 'Palestinian' cause, which in the current context cannot be separated from approval of Hamas, was seen to have reposted a number of posts seen on the social media platform X with a clear message of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, antisemitism pathology. This is a professor of law -- Faisal Bhabha -- who obviously teaches students from all walks of life, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and finds it irresistible to single out Jews for personal antipathy.

He would teach legal ethics, a course in civility as an authority of Canada's rule of law. The question occurs how might students of Jewish background cope with their emotions when this professor guides them through the tenets of the legal profession, and then grades their progress? In response to Professor Bhabha's postings, Jonathan Rosenthal, part-time Osgoode professor, Law Society Bencher and Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers took umbrage:

"It is disturbing that as a legal educator you would choose to repost this tweet. Have you no concern for any of  your students? Evidently not" he addressed Professor Bhabha back on X. Professor Rosenthal went on to discourage students from taking any courses Professor Bhabha teaches, leading Bhabha to respond with: "You're a first-class bigot", in a classic response of the pot calling the kettle black. Which led Mr. Levitt to intervene, asking him how he felt Jewish students might react to their fear considered "psychotic" and the characterization as a "pampered, pathologically narcissistic 'community'."

 

A group of York University faculty members, staff and students say they will participate in a walkout of classes Tuesday in protest of suspensions of three employees who were charged for mischief of a Toronto Indigo bookstore. An Indigo bookstore is seen Wednesday, November 4, 2020 in Laval, Que. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

 

This week, York University suspended three members of their staff, one among them a professor, when they were criminally charged with the defacing of a Toronto Indigo bookstore, targeting its Jewish founder, Heather Reisman for her connections with Israel. The three involved had gone out at night geared for mischief, pouring a blood-like substance over posters on the glass frontage of the store, accusing the Indigo CEO of involvement in Israeli 'genocide' of Palestinians.

Another professor at York University, along with a group of professors and students protesting the suspension, issued a statement including "We feel that the administration should be standing up for rights to free expression". Police don't have a habit of charging malefactors with criminal behaviour when they're exercising their rights to 'free expression', a little factoid that may have slipped the attention of these brilliant academics.

All of which leads one to despair over the quality of university graduates that North America is preparing to take their place in society as responsible adults dedicated to uphold the law and the system of justice under a democracy that stresses equality, human rights and freedom from racist discrimination.

"Mr. Bhabha twice asserted that “Zionism is about Jewish supremacy,” which he linked to white supremacy in the United States. The notion that Zionism, which merely calls for Jewish statehood in the Jewish homeland – no different than most other national movements – is a uniquely evil form of “supremacy,” is a false and dangerous allegation."

"Worse yet, Mr. Bhabha also stated that “Accusing Israel of exaggerating the Holocaust could be, for some, a plausible argument.” This is a preposterous canard with no supporting evidence."

"We, the undersigned, demand that Associate Professor Faisal Bhabha no longer teach any “human rights” courses at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School."

"Any version of human rights that does not include a firm rejection of antisemitism is ethically and morally bankrupt. Students at York University and Osgoode Hall Law School deserve better."

B'Nai Brith Canada

York University campus

(photo credit: REUTERS/MARK BLINCH)

 

Co-Opting Canada for Islam

"[The] Islamophobia industry [is enabled by] self-proclaimed Muslim dissidents, reformers and ex-Muslims [who] act as instigators and propagators of anti-Islamic narratives as well as validating and authorizing the circulation of these tropes."

"[I have] comprehensively outlined the machinations of Canada's Islamophobia industry."

"[Moderate Muslims and mainstream Jewish organizations] share political and ideological mandates that involve the demonization and vilification of Islam and Muslims and often work in concert to foment controversies and spread Islamophobic narratives and conspiracy theories."

Jasmine Zine, Professor, Sociology and Muslim Studies Option, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario

BDS protesters at McGill University FILE PHOTO

 

Religious studies professors, sociology professors,  history professors, they dominate increasingly in Western institutes of higher learning, and bring to academia and to the public, their perspective and narratives focusing on the legitimacy of Islam as a religion of peace, while painting with a broad brush of Islamic condemnation any individual or group that dares point out that Islam today represents offshoots of extreme religious devotion wreaking havoc worldwide as Muslim terrorist groups.

Fundamentalist ideologically-driven fanatics on a mission to force the greater Muslim population to a more 'pure' and authentic vision of Islam excising all the relaxed, Western- and democracy-ringed versions of the original that may blur the stark distinction of Islamic values, precepts and mores from those of any other religion, laws, cultures or value systems. In the process, to demonstrate just how serious they are, these groups known more familiarly as Islamist terrorists rampage through non-Muslim and Muslim societies alike, intent on vengeance against those failing to place Islam on the pedestal demanded for it.

In a country like Canada which, like any other has its home-grown bigots and racists, but which is not even marginally culturally and socially racist, the current government has been pleased to demonstrate its progressive credentials by describing Canada as a 'racist country', and with this attitude from the executive branch of the federal government, it is hardly surprising that Muslim academics feel free to slander the country and to accuse Canadians of anti-Islam bias described as "Islamophobia", a term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood after the public impact and reaction stemming from the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.

Even more shocking is the presence of a growing number of mosques throughout Canada, reflecting the growing number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East bringing their social culture, religious devotion and Islam-inspired system of justice with them, and where in the mosques incendiary messages of hatred against others are frequently spewed. It has been those messages that have been responsible for recruiting Muslims to the concept of jihad, persuading some to go abroad to fight alongside terror groups like Islamic State.

Yet with all this activity of fanatical Muslim terrorists cutting a swath through the Middle East and Africa with their agenda of slaughtering non-Muslims and Muslims alike in the performance of their martyrdom missions in jihad, people like sociology professor Zine feel free to preach against "Islamophobia", condemning the general population, both non-Muslim and moderate Muslim who abhor the violence engendered by some of the Islamic texts and hadiths along with interpretations of the Koran inimical to peace between people, as "Islamophobia".

Professor Zine recently released a report she titled The Canadian Islamophobia Industry: Mapping Islamophobia's Ecosystem in the Great White North, where she gives insights into "how Islamophobia manifests and is purveyed: in Canada"; a totally skewed perspective of anti-Msulim bigotry in Canada, besmirching wide groups of people as racist, inclusive of Canadian Muslims who practise a moderate Islam. 

Raheel Raza, president of the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, a rational, intelligent and moderate movement within Canada representing the interests of integrated Muslim-Canadians, has been singled out by Professor Zine for special condemnation. Raheel Raza points out that the term "Islamophobia" has no clear definition, unlike the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's antisemitism definition; clear and concise. She points out that Islamophobia is meant to connote heresy.

Ms. Raza also speaks of the mosques that were found to be spreading radical messages, with links to known terrorist groups, for spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories, for refusing to denounce terrorist attacks; indeed promoting them as reflective of the faithful committing to martyrdom on behalf of upholding Islam's sacred injunction to its faithful to spread the word of Islam, committing to proselytizing. What also takes place is hateful attacks against others in the community. 'Solitarity with Palestinians' sees radical groups in Canada mounting slanderous attacks against Israel and Canadian Jews.

 

Children hold anti-Israel signs at the al-Quds Day at the Alberta Legislative grounds in Edmonton (Credit: Facebook: Radical Citizen Media)

The BDS movement, Israel Apartheid Week and Al-Quds Day creates divisions between Canadians of various origins and cultural heritage. Islamists in Canada have infiltrated Canadian universities, as student groups mount verbal and violent conflicts against their Jewish counterparts. Muslims are prone to complaining about Islamophobia and attacks against Islam and Muslims in Canada, yet as Statistics Canada and police reports point out, Jews are the single most-persecuted religious/ethnic group in Canada through antisemitic attacks, followed by Blacks, and then Muslims. And it is Muslims who lead the way to antisemitic attacks.

Al-Quds Day Rally in Toronto, 2022. (Credit: B'nai Brith Canada)

Accommodating 'Racialized' Victimhood

"Racialized students benefit from being taught by racialized teachers. The deleterious effects of the MPT [Math Proficiency Test] on racialized teacher candidates who have been unsuccessful in the test outweighs its benefits."

"Racialized teacher candidates have gone through an education system in which they have suffered discrimination and disadvantage."

"The candidates are then required to take 'high stakes' standardized tests which the available data shows they are more likely to fail."

Ontario Superior Court of Justice Divisional Court

 

"The mathematics part is all about logic. The pedagogical part is a lot of memory work."

"A lot of people who failed the test were educated outside of Canada. It wasn't about math skills, it was about memorization."

"Lots of people who come to Canada came as professionals. We are eager to contribute. But it was a bit of a trap."

Richard Atimniraye Nyelade, Cameroonian immigrant to Canada

Richard Atimniraye Nyelade   Photo by Julie Oliver /Postmedia

That 'trap' has now been opened, expunged from the laws and regulations that saw a need to ensure that teachers in Ontario were in command of mathematics to the extent that they could adequately convey their knowledge to their students. A challenge from the Ontario Teacher Candidates' Council -- its membership comprised of immigrants to Canada aspiring to the teaching profession who found the math test to qualify as teachers beyond their scope of academic reach -- which saw fit to challenge the need to become proficient in math as teachers in the Ontario school system.

The judicial review they had requested with the argument that the test had a disproportionately negative effect on' racialized' candidates, convinced the progressive sympathies of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Divisional Court that the requirements infringe on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In their December 17 decision it was noted that 'racialized' teachers were under-represented in Ontario and that alternatives to the MPT existed as options.

The math test for those wishing to be certified teachers was mandatory, but has now been judged to be unconstitutional. Abrading the rights of 'racialized' would-be teachers, but at the same time, impeding the rights of the children and students of the province to be adequately taught the important subject of mathematics. The Math Proficiency Test (MPT) was introduced alongside a number of provincial strategies meant to improve math skills of students as a result of provincial test scores dipping. 

All new teacher candidates wishing to teach in publicly funded schools were mandated to take the test. One of the founders of the Ontario Teacher Candidates' Council, Bella Lewkowicz, now an Ottawa teacher, heralded the decision as "a huge victory. It's not often that educators can claim victory over the Ministry of Education", she stated. A classic case of the trail wagging the dog.

 

Richard Atimniraye Nyelade, originally from Cameroon, failed to pass the test twice. He succeeded on the third try. He arrived in Canada in 2018, with his bachelors degree from his native country along with a master's from Norway, enrolling in a University of Ottawa teaching program, planning to teach in his first language, French. "I did it because, when you arrive as a newcomer, you want to be sure to contribute to society", he said. But obviously on his own terms, not on those that society deemed best for its student population.

 

There are 50 mathematics content questions to the test, along with another 21 questions related to math pedagogy. Applicants must score 70 percent on both parts of the test to qualify as a pass. Once the province began officially administering the test, demographic data indicated disparities in success rates where candidates identifying as Indigenous and Black enjoy sucess rates 20 percent under those of white candidates.

 

Francophone candidates had lower success rates as well, as opposed to anglophones (in officially bilingual Canada francophones are certainly not considered 'racialized' or under-privileged). 55 percent of non-white candidates writing the test in French succeeded in comparison to 84 percent of white candidates writing in French; data that helped the court to form its opinion. Those whose first language is neither French nor English scored lower success rates.

 

Students in Quebec tested better than Ontario students in math where success is attributed to requiring student teachers to take courses in math methodology and content, instead of a high-stakes test. "I was in the middle of my program when they dropped this bomb" (the MPT requirement), commented Ms.Lewkowicz, who took the test and easily passed after graduation from University of Ottawa, and now teaching French in Ottawa.

The court ordered the regulator to grant certification to candidates who failed to pass the test, and that the test requirement be removed from the Ontario College of Teachers Act, legislation governing the teaching profession. The Ontario College of Teachers stated it had not been a party to the court proceeding. According to Mr. Atimniraye Nyelade, francophone candidates from countries like Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Haiti have encountered the same problem he did with the math test.

Yet another instance of new immigrants to a country where rather than integrating and adjusting to the values, priorities and legislation of their adopted country, steps are taken to cry foul and demand extraordinary treatment geared particularly to their shortcomings rather than taking responsible action to upgrade their qualifications to match expectations of any citizens, to prove they meet the required qualifications of a profession they wish to become part of.

Grade 2 teacher Vivian Mavraidis walks through her classroom at Hunter's Glen Junior Public School, which is part of the Toronto District School Board, during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

Canada Is "Woke" Central

"We will hire the most qualified people based upon their skills and mutual interests. I've had two people say that was the kiss of death. I thought I was trying to be nice saying that if you were interested and able I'd hire you and that's all that mattered. I don't care about the colour of your skin. I'm interested in hiring someone who wants to work on the project and is good at it."

"I believe this is an important stand to make. I will not be silenced any more."

"I think what's happened is the woke and the social justice warriors have made a moralistic argument the way the religious right used to make moralistic arguments. And now people are afraid to challenge them. But I think it's okay to say I believe that equality is a morally valid position. I believe that meritocracy is a morally valid position."

"People do different things. They have different abilities. They have different interests. To me, the whole point is to treat people as individuals, so that's what I do in my life. My way of dealing with racism, or sexism, or any other 'ism' is to treat people as individuals.

"[As scientists] we don't believe in EDI [equality, diversity, inclusion]. We believe in merit, fairness and equality. You should be fair in your procedures and treat people as equals."

Patanjali Kambhampati, professor of chemistry, McGill University, Montreal

Patanjali Kambhampati, a scientist at Montreal's McGill University turned down twice for government grants related to inclusive, equity and diversity provision 'hoops;. John Kenney, National Post

 

As an award winning Canadian scientist Professor Kambhampati has decided to speak out after his request for funding of two projects a year apart were refused one after another, two years running. As a man of great integrity and an expert in his field of scientific research accustomed in the past to receiving federal government research grants, he was being punished for his lack of commitment to "diversity"; doublespeak for giving breaks to unqualified people simply on the basis of their colour or ethnicity.

It doesn't seem to matter to the funding authorities who decided to set his requests aside as not worth evaluating when he emphasized that it was expertise as a qualification that moved him to make his hiring choices, not the colour of an applicant's skin. As himself a man of colour, born in India, living in a 'white' society with ample experiences of his own in the past as a recipient of overt racist discrimination. It is the scientist in him, not the man of Indian origins who responded to pointed questions on his funding application that displeased the funding arbiters.

He committed himself to hiring on merit, nothing more, nothing less. Merit as in scientific qualifications, not the merit based on diversity and considerations of 'inclusiveness'. When his first research funding request was turned down on patently obvious rejection linked to the critical hiring questions, he put it down to new criteria he had no interest in and set it aside. When it happened for a second time, he decided to make it a public issue.

His field of scientific expertise explores super-fast laser science at its cutting edge, a field spanning every issue from telecom to medicine. He applied for a $450,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC]. NSERC responded that "the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion considerations in the application were deemed insufficient", and they rejected his application. His previous application went to the federally funded National Frontiers in Research Fund a year earlier "to support world-leading interdisciplinary, international, high-risk, high-reward, transformative and rapid-response Canadian research"; turned down on similar grounds.

 

This is the same government that refuses to give summer-student employment grants to any employee-applicant that refuses to sign a commitment to never support groups or are themselves involved in denying abortion rights to women. The result of which was that critical hiring in many areas of social services for summer student jobs for the past several years stumbled and failed when church groups, for example, could not affirm the demand.

It was at the first-stage bureaucratic level that both Professor Kambhampati's applications were stalled. Neither proceeded to the next step where other scientists would review the proposals for their scientific merit and immediacy. Then it came to light that at roughly the same time another arm of government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, approved a grant to Dr.Lana Ray, professor at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, of $1.2 million to study cancer prevention with the use of traditional Indigenous healing practices. 

 

Professor Ray commented when the award was announced: "We need to stop framing prevalent risk factors of cancer as such and start thinking about them as symptoms of colonialism."

Professor Kambhampati took up his position in Montreal in 2003 at McGill. Born in India, the now-50-year-old had lived in the United States since age four, working in Minnesota, Texas and California before taking up his Canadian professorship. "In childhood I used to get constant beatings and name calling. Two years ago, I had eight police officers break into my house because I was sitting on my porch while brown. That happened on Canada Day", he said in an interview.

He treats everyone equally and fairly, led by his own experiences. He now believes that woke ideology prevalent on campus has leached into government, creating two major problems: self-censorship and a resistance to asking meaningful questions. "There's a lot of self-censoring. And certainly you see it among young people in the university. So young people in the university self-censor a lot. Now they are afraid to talk. That's no way to advance our understanding of the world."

As a child, he said, his mentors were "old, white World War II vets" who taught him all about radio-controlled airplanes. "And that's what led me to build lasers 30 years later". As a mentor now, the Professor explained he has been of assistance to both men and women of different cultures and religions. "I've mentored minorities, I've mentored women. I myself am a Third World minority. And I have mentored people who have catastrophic illnesses. And I have mentored people who are LGBTQ, and not for any reason other than to treat people as equal."

Woke ideology, in his experience, has accelerated in the last several years. "And now it's the prevailing culture. It's 90 percent of the normal people against 10 percent of the vocal minority that has shamed everyone into self-censorship", he said. 

 

"As a scientist our job is to think about how nature works, ask questions, and find answers without prejudice. We cannot do that anymore. We cannot ask how humans work, and how science and nature work, because the woke are interfering with us and saying, 'You can't ask those questions. You're a racist. You're a sexist. You're a homophobe. You're a colonialist. You're a something'. There's some way in which the woke are trying to get people [so they're' no longer asking meaningful questions]."

And So, Does Higher Education Cure Anti-Semitism?

"Contemporary antisemitism focuses obsessively on the alleged misdoings of ‘Zionism’, seeking to separate Zionism from its Jewish context. The ‘Zionism’ which these antisemites seek to malign and oppose has little in common with actual Zionism."

"We would never suggest that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. This argument is simply a strawman. However, when Israel’s very existence is delegitimized and threatened, when Israelis and Jews are excluded because of their association with the Jewish state, and when antisemitic conspiracies and tropes flourish under the guise of anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism, we recognize that this is antisemitism."

"We are incredulous at the suggestion that the adoption of the IHRA definition and the commitment to rooting out antisemitism is somehow opposed to the wider struggle against racism and oppression."

Open Letter of support of the IHRA definition by 350 academics

 

According to the IHRA definition, which has been adopted by 31 governments world wide ... "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

"Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic [while acknowledging that manifestations of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity."

 

Infamously, it is in the world of Academia, where learned professors encourage their students to regard Israel as an aggressor and a military occupier of land that is claimed by Palestinians as their own, both historically and traditionally, anti-Semitism has blossomed. It has become an educational tool used by 'woke' left-wing academic progressives to smear Israel and lead to greater instances of overt anti-Semitism. It has helped to launch the BDS movement popularized by Palestinian expatriates and their supporters.

 

Where gratuitous hate-mongering has thrived and impressionable university students have absorbed messages that Jews are loathsome people, contriving to control every level of society from communications to finances, entertainment to business enterprises the work in progress carries on. The Jewish drive to command the world economy and gain control of everything that matters represents a world threat; no level of slander is too absurd or too scathing that it cannot be adopted by academia and circulated among exploitable minds.

 

Those who sympathize with the plight of the Jewish community, struck time and again by manifestations of society's mistrust and suspicion of the Jews in their communities, and the Jews themselves pin their hopes on combating anti-Semitism through the medium of education. With education comes rational thought and an examining mind that seeks the truth, as a tool to dispel vicious innuendos and claims blackening the reputation of Jews on the international stage.

Recently, three researchers headed a survey designed to determine whether anti-Semitism is indeed associated with low education levels. Their takeaway from the survey is not encouraging, leaving the impression that higher education leads to greater anti-Semitic sentiments. 

"We found that respondents with higher education levels are markedly more likely than those with lower education levels to apply a double standard unfavourable toward Jews ... subjects with college degrees were five percent more likely to apply a principle harshly to Jews than non-Jews ... among those with advanced degrees, subjects were 15 percent more unfavourable toward Jewish than non-Jewish examples."

Professors Jay P.Greene, Albert Cheng and Ian Kingsbury appeared in a feature article recently published in Tablet magazine. They burst the bubble of widespread belief that education would solve the human rights abuses that Jews face in their daily lives, verbal and physical violence and Holocaust denial that sullies human rights and historical facts. The result of this survey established that placing faith in the mind-liberating and cerebral focusing on facts and realities has been sadly misplaced. 

The trio revealed that they "discovered that more highly-educated people in the United States tend to have greater antipathy toward Jews than less-educated people do. Contrary to previous claims, education appears to provide no protection against anti-Semitism, and may in fact serve to license it -- in part by providing people with more sophisticated and socially acceptable ways to couch it."

"We found that respondents with higher education levels are markedly more likely than those with lower education levels to apply a double standard unfavourable toward Jews ... subjects with college degrees were five percent more likely to apply a principle harshly to Jews than non-Jews ... among those with advanced degrees subjects were 15 percent more unfavourable toward Jewish than non-Jewish examples."

So, should the fact that a group of over 350 academics representing institutions world-wide signing a letter supporting the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, be happily viewed as encouraging, for the purpose of supporting the “urgent need” to fight prejudice against Jews and to “speak up” when Israelis and Jews worldwide are threatened?

Signed by academics, diplomats and intellectuals from the US, Europe, Australia, Israel and United Arab Emirates, the letter acknowledged the IHRA definition of antisemitism as "an invaluable tool that recognizes the various manifestations and garbs of contemporary antisemitism". That sounds good, really good, and is entirely appreciated for its level-headed deliberation, appearing to refute the findings of the three professors whose study concludes that individuals at that level of academia are anything but open-minded and reject anti-Semitism for the racial slur that it is.

Except that those who signed that letter, representing an elite echelon of academics, diplomats and intellectuals abroad are not representative of the aggregate in their exalted fields. They are, each and every one, supporters of Israel, Jews themselves or non-Jews who empathize with the Jewish community and who accept Israel as a legitimate state safeguarding the interests and security of Jews worldwide, when the world itself rejected that role, treating Jews differently than all others.

"Just as anti-Semitism on campuses cloaked itself as anti-Zionism in the 1970s and 1980s, Holocaust denial now serves as a campus vehicle for spreading hatred of Jews. By presenting their thesis as an academic question deserving debate, the deniers have found fertile ground among campus newspaper editors eager to demonstrate their commitment to free speech and the airing of controversial ideas. And through the student editors, Holocaust deniers have found an inexpensive method of reaching thousands of impressionable young adults who often have limited knowledge of the Holocaust and are in the process of forming their perceptions of world history."

Anti-Defamation League

Supporters of the 'BDS', Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement protest for lifting the Gaza blockade and to boycott the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, outside the venue where the contest is to take place in Tel Aviv

 

Universities as Sanctimoniously Progressive Institutes of Lower Learning

"[Police and prison intuitions are] hostile to outside critiques, [show] imperviousness to reforms [and] do not have the leadership capacity to engage in the transformative change."                                                                                 "Even in the context of widespread public scrutiny and claims to be reforming, Canadian police are on pace to kill a record number of people in 2020, many of whom are racialized, Indigenous, and/or suffering mental health challenges."    "The Black Lives Matter movement and Indigenous organizers in Canada provides an opportunity to move beyond episodic discussions of structural racism and enact tangible actions, particularly in regards to criminal justice systems in Canada." Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice Department, Carleton University, Ottawa

"I would expect that kind of move by a political organization but from something that claims to train students in research, it is not exactly a good message to send."  "In research, the ideal position is that you're neutral and you're trying to understand a given issue."                                                                                                             "You don't have to agree with everything an organization you are going to study is doing."                                                                                                                               Remi Boivin, director, International Centre for Comparative Criminology, Universite de Montreal

"The RCMP believes that bringing students from the program into the organization is of great benefit, especially during a time of transformative organizational change."                                                                                                              "These students bring fresh and innovative ways of thinking and an academic lens to the organization that supports our organizational response to complex and emerging policing issues."                                                                                   "[This decision makes us sad]. The RCMP values the students and relationships we have built with the Carleton University Criminology Department over the past ten years."                                                                                                                Cpl.Caroline Duval, national spokeswoman, RCMP

Some 80 third-year students from Carleton University's Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice take part in internships with the Ottawa Police Service, RCMP, Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre and other institutions each year. That will end in 2021. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

Universities, academic institutions of higher learning, where students are ushered toward the opening of minds, to approach situations with a questing, questioning motivation to learn and to observe and to participate and ultimately to emerge from the experience capable of understanding the world around them, taking their place in a chosen profession with pride. That, at least, is the original purpose of a university, to teach students to appraise, and to analyze, to withhold judgement until an issue can be seen in the round, then to approach the situation with firm conviction and the certainty of what they can personally do with their newfound knowledge to improve it.

At Carleton University in Ottawa henceforth, students in the criminology department will no longer be given the advantage of an inside look at how policing agencies, prisons and other associated public security institutions operate. Students who, having obtained their degree and looking to the future of the professional life they have chosen as a police officer, inmate records co-ordinator, correctional officer, detention officer, guard, correctional rehabilitation officer, juvenile detention counsellor, bailiff, undercover investigator, parole officer, will no longer have the advantage of prior experience gained through student placement to prepare them for their professional lives.

Because the department that is grooming them for their choice of profession, and the professors who teach in that department have decided on the wisdom of cancelling the opportunity, claiming that police at municipal, provincial and federal levels and prisons are too steeped in racism and brutality to become a mentoring agent to students. The 'white-privilege, colonialist' mindset that is the mantra of Black Lives Matter has thoroughly penetrated the halls of academia. Not, thankfully, all such academic institutions, but most markedly on this occasion, Ottawa's Carleton University, with doubtless more to follow, while still others refrain.

Denying students the exposure and experience at correctional institutes and law enforcement agencies that would greatly assist them in fully comprehending details and circumstances not available to them in a classroom, in preparing them for their professional lives. The university and its staff have decided in their great wisdom that depriving students of such resources normally included in their preparation for real life outside academia, would sully their reputations and pride in themselves. An dismissive indictment of the agencies instead, is a salve to their progressive credentials.

Over the several decades of the criminology program, thousands of students at Carleton had the benefit of field placements with the RCMP, Ottawa Police Service, Correctional Services Canada and the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, but the latest wave of international protests over racism implicating policing has spurred a wide re-assessment. One of the largest such programs in Canada, the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. itself cancelled its student placements, but its reason was COVID-19-related.

Carleton University Ottawa.  Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS

"I did an ICCJ placement at [Correctional Service of Canada], evaluating efforts to strengthen offender-staff relations." "I now do community-based work diverting youth from courts, partnering with universities on evaluation. Institutions are improved when partnered with universities. This [Carleton University's suspension of student placements] is a bad idea."  Alex Yeaman, former Carleton student