Strangely enough, the Canadian government seems to be in no hurry to deal with the pressing problem of rising antisemitism in Canada.
Its somewhat lax attitude toward this issue is difficult to understand and fathom.
Since Hamas’ one-day invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed around the world. A month ago, a Muslim father and his son, both loyal to the Islamic State organization, killed 15 people on Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia, on the first night of Chanukah.
Canadian Jews have not been immune to the scourge of antisemitism.
The number of reported cases in Canada, a beacon democracy, rose to 6,219 in 2024, the highest since B’nai Brith Canada began monitoring them more than fifty years ago.
In the latest incident, mezuzahs were ripped from the doorways of Jewish homes in Toronto.
In light of these incidents, one can only wonder why Prime Minister Mark Carney has neither appointed a new antisemitism envoy nor honored an election campaign promise to significantly increase the annual budget of the Canada Community Security Program.
Deborah Lyons, the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, was appointed in 2023 by the then prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Lyons, the former ambassador to Israel, replaced Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister in Trudeau’s cabinet. She resigned last July, citing exhaustion after two years of “waking up every day to a fight.”
Her successor has yet to be named.
In last November’s federal budget, Carney failed to allot additional funding for the Canada Community Security Program, which provides enhanced protection for synagogues and Jewish schools and community centers.
Laura Scaffidi, a spokesperson for Carney, told The Globe and Mail late last year that the government is “taking action to combat antisemitism and protect Jewish Canadians, who have faced a horrifying rise of late, especially since Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack.”
Without providing details, she said that the government intends to strengthen the Canada Community Security Program. As for Lyons’ replacement she said vaguely, “We are continuing significant engagement with the community about how to best build on this crucial work for the year ahead.”
As Scaffidi might agree, words are not enough.
Action is required on an urgent basis.
Cotler believes that Lyons’ successor should have been named already. As he put it recently, “The Bondi beach massacre is not just another wake-up call for us in Canada … It should be seen … as a ticking time bomb, a massacre foretold. I think we are on the precipice here … of antisemitic mass casualty acts.”
Mark Sandler, the chairman of the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism, agrees that a new special envoy should be appointed without delay. “Antisemitism has become normalized in Canada,” he said.
Simon Wolle, the chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, concurs. In the aftermath of the Bondi beach atrocity, he said, “there is a palpable and justifiable fear” among Jewish Canadians that “it is only a matter of time before a similar tragedy happens here.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has called on the government to provide a timeline to fund the Canada Community Security Program and to find a replacement for Lyons.
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the director of policy and advocacy at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has expressed disappointment at the government’s unexplained failure to commit dedicated funding to the Canada Community Security Program. “Jewish Canadians are now living with unprecedented anxiety over their personal safety, heightened by the events in Australia.”
It is abundantly clear that announcements by the Canadian government with respect to Lyon’s replacement and extra funding for the Canada Community Security Program are long overdue.
Further delays will be unacceptable and proof that Carney is showing insufficient concern or sensitivity over the upsurge of antisemitism in Canada.