Is Canada’s prime minister doing enough to protect his Jewish community

It’s impossible not to feel the sense of outrage, anger, sadness and trepidation when reading the words of Deborah Lyons, Canadian Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, who said, “As parents, to fear that your young daughter is being put in danger simply by going to school tomorrow morning, here in Canada, is an unacceptable situation.”

This woman was simply describing just one of several recent antisemitic incidents which have plagued Canada’s Jewish community since October 7th. It was only this past Saturday, when “two men opened fire on Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School for girls, located in the North York section of Toronto.”

Far from an isolated attack, according to Israel’s Toronto Consul-General Idit Shamir, there has been an escalation of these types of blatant anti-Jewish attacks, especially upon Jewish students. Just a week prior to this incident, “Montreal police arrested a man in connection to a shooting at a Cote-des-Neiges borough school which took place on November 12th.” It wasn’t the first attack on that school which had been previously targeted, some days earlier, along with another Orthodox Jewish elementary school. 

In addition, an incendiary device was ignited in November, at a synagogue in Quebec, at the same time that a Molotov Cocktail had been hurled into the front door of Montreal’s Congregation Beth Tikvah. This does not include other shootings, arsons and vandalism of various schools and Jewish houses of worship. Windows were also smashed in Toronto’s Kehilat Shaarei Torah Synagogue this month. One Montreal mother, who happens to be a member of our family, was forced to remove her 14-year-old son from his public school as a result of being bullied for his Jewishness.

Just during the last year, even before the October 7th massacre in Israel, “the Jewish advocacy organization, B’nai Brith logged 5,791 incidents of antisemitism.” This represents a sizable increase from previous years. 

Presently, there are an estimated 390,000 Jews in Canada, representing the fourth-largest Jewish community in the world. Most of them live in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta. Montreal is in the Quebec province and Toronto is in the Ontario province – both of which have a very sizable Jewish presence. As one person put it, this phenomenon is also “an attack on Canadian values and a threat to the multicultural diverse society.”

And while Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau responded to this latest shooting at the Toronto Jewish girl’s school, by referring to the attack as, “a brazen act of antisemitism, calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice,” it’s just a bit confusing for those of us who have noticed Trudeau’s proclivity towards the acceptance of Woke ideology, part of which seeks to classify certain ethnicities in the oppressed or oppressor category. Because within that warped concept of reducing individuals into divisions, which represent evil or victimhood, Jews have somehow ended up on the side of those who perpetrate hardship, deprivation and even genocide against Palestinians, perennially seen as the consummate victims.

Despite its geographic irrelevance that Canadian Jews may have no ties to Israel or possibly not even be anything more than nominally associated with the local Jewish community, they are, nonetheless, guilty by association with those who are committing these antisemitic acts against them. 

Consequently, Prime Minister Trudeau, cannot distance himself too much from an ideology which he has embraced. According to Eric Kaufmann of the Manhattan Institute, “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has distinguished himself on the world stage as the paragon of this belief system, and many outside Canada assume he reflects an equally woke Canadian public.”

Another article categorizes Canada as being the Wokest country, stating that Justin Trudeau has turned late father and prime minister Pierre’s liberalism on its head, "resulting in transgenderism for children, easy drug access for addicts, state-assisted suicide for the non-terminally ill and censorship against the unenlightened.”

So, if it’s true that Trudeau’s obsession with Woke ideology is an extension of his policies, why would antisemites, whose hatred of Jews, which stems from their perspective of placing them in the Oppressor box, be in opposition to the prime minister’s own positions? It’s something that urgently needs to be considered by him, because he seems to be sending a conflicting message as it relates to his own Jewish community – where on the one hand, he sounds sympathetic to their plight, but, on the other hand, his identification with Woke philosophy is undermining his call for an end to the attacks.

As an advocate of the two-state solution, Trudeau suggested that Canadian leftist New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh should follow the lead of Norway, Spain and Ireland, adding that his party would also prioritize a two-state solution to the conflict,” who agreed by stating, “We absolutely believe that we need to recognize Palestine as a state to move forward with a two-state solution and Canada should take this position.”

The fact that both of these men would even speak about recognition of a Palestinian state, attaching no terms or requirements, especially including the immediate return of the 100 hostages Hamas is still holding, significantly undermines the security of Canada’s Jewish community and sends a duplicitous message, essentially rewarding barbaric terrorists who committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, by conferring upon them the honor of statehood. And it only took a massacre to get there!

This slap in the face to all civilized individuals, part of whom are Canada’s Jewish population, in no way reflects a concerned and serious leadership who has nothing but the best interests of their people at heart. If anything, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen to throw in with those who are part of the problem, forcing everyone to legitimize and tolerate violence and terrorism as an acceptable means to gaining recognition, respect and privileges, all at the expendable cost of treasured human life.

It is the worst possible message that any leader could send, because it only serves to escalate and proliferate the intolerance and loathing that is growing in the country which he likes to pretend is welcoming and inclusive of all types, but that, of course, depends upon one’s political leanings and social interpretations and preferences. 

Sadly, Jews don’t seem to qualify, when it comes to the tolerance afforded to other minorities, because, in Canada, as well as many other parts of the world, these days, they are not considered to be the same as others.  Perhaps, this is the fulfillment of scripture, that “they shall be a people who dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations.” (Numbers 23:9)

In the end, it means that the safest place for Jews to live is among their own, where they can watch out for one another and where they also have the best chance of being protected by the God who promised to forever preserve them as a people.