Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Group Implores Prime Minister to Open Antisemitism Inquiry

Canadian Jews have been hit by a wave of antisemitic incidents, with at least 32 reported across five provinces in just the past week alone, according to the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada.

“Antisemitism in Canada is now accelerating at an increasing rate, spreading across provinces, platforms, and public spaces. That is a warning signal, and it demands more than piecemeal reactions” the group wrote on Wednesday in a letter urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to create a Royal Commission that would explore the problem and draft policy proposals for solving it.

B’nai Brith noted that Australia established a Royal Commission for investigating antisemitism following the Bondi Beach massacre in which two gunmen, allegedly inspired by the Islamic State terrorist group, opened fire on Jews celebrating Hanukkah last month.

According to the group’s latest audit of antisemitism in Canada released last year, antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose 7.4 percent from 2023, with 6,219 adding up to the highest total recorded since it began tracking such data in 1982. Seventeen incidents occurred on average every day, while online antisemitism exploded a harrowing 161 percent since 2022. As standalone provinces, Quebec and Alberta saw the largest percentage increases, by 215 percent and 160 percent, respectively.

According to the report, incidents included someone firing a gun at a Jewish school for girls in Toronto, Ontario; a man trying to burn down the Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver, British Columbia; and a newspaper in Quebec depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the vampire Nosferatu, a Nazi-era trope.

“We cannot permit this to become normalized,” B’nai Brith Canada research and advocacy director Richard Robertson said in a statement. “Antisemitism is not only a threat to Jews — it represents a total repudiation of Canadian values. Those who foment hate against any marginalized group stand in direct opposition to our multicultural, diverse national identity.”

Carney has received backlash from the Canadian Jewish community for some of his statements on Israel and antisemitism. He once agreed with a heckler’s saying that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and some have accused him of worsening the antisemitism crisis or refusing to acknowledge the problem on social media.

Jewish groups decried Carney’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state last year, characterizing the move as a reward for Hamas’s terrorism against Israel.

However, Carney, a moderate liberal who advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has met with Jewish groups and issued lengthy statements condemning antisemitism and expressing solidarity with the Jewish people.

“The past few years have been difficult for the Jewish community in Canada. The rise of antisemitism across Canada is disturbing and intolerable – and addressing it is a top priority for this government,” he said in a special Rosh Hashanah message issued in September “On Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish new year], we recognize the incredible contributions of Jewish Canadians and affirm our commitment to building a country where everyone can freely and safely practice their faith and culture.”

Carney has more to do, B’nai Brith argued in its letter this week.

“Canada cannot wait for a Bondi of its own before acting,” the group continued, while calling on Carney to appoint a new special envoy on antisemitism. “A federal Royal Commission on Antisemitism is needed now, with the mandate and independence to assess the threat environment, identify systemic drivers, and deliver actionable recommendations for policymakers.

The US is seeing antisemitism rise as well, leading to incidents of assault, arson, and murder.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — an average of 25.6 a day. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.

The FBI has published similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.