Anti-Jewish hatred in Canada spiked in 2024, new audit says
"A previously-unfathomable new baseline for the occurrence of antisemitic incidents in Canada has become established," said B'nai Brith's Richard Robertson
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OTTAWA — Canada saw a big jump in antisemitic hate in 2024, according to an annual audit.
As documented in B’nai Brith’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents, 6,219 incidents of hatred against Jews were reported in 2024 — a worrying trend which saw a 7.4% increase from 2023, and a 124% increase since 2022.
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“Over the past 18 months, a previously-unfathomable new baseline for the occurrence of antisemitic incidents in Canada has become established,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith’s director of research and advocacy.
“Shamefully, the unacceptable has become the new normal.”
The Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks, which saw Palestinian terrorists storm Israeli villages and conduct a campaign of murder, kidnappings and sexual assault, touched off an unprecedented spike in hatred targeting Canada’s Jewish community.
Weekly hate rallies are common in many cities across Canada, with many anti-Israel marchers taking their case into Jewish neighbourhoods and places of worship, often with protection and escorts provided by local police services.
“Every region across Canada, except Ontario, saw a double-digit or greater increase in antisemitic incidents in 2024,” Robertson said, adding that Alberta and Quebec saw triple-digit increases in Jew-hatred.
Last December saw 809 such incidents reported — the highest monthly total ever recorded by B’nai Brith Canada, which Robertson described as both “shocking” and “horrifying.”
“Jewish persons were the target of physical assault, threatening harassment and grotesque intimidation,” he said.
“In Canada, online and in-person hatred of the Jewish population was willfully promoted and publicly incited and the genocide of the Jewish people was advocated for.”
B’nai Brith Senior Legal Counsel David Matas said the problem continues to grow.
“The Jewish community in Canada has been subjected to bigotry far greater than that of any other religious or ethnic minority,” he said, pointing to Toronto police statistics showing antisemitism made up 53% of all reported hate crimes since Oct. 7.
“Antisemitism in Canada is becoming normalized.”
Robertson said Canada needs a top-down approach to dealing with the problem, from federal politicians enabling policies such as contributing to Hamas via false fronts like UNRWA, down to municipal police forces in cities like Toronto and Ottawa facilitating and even excusing blatant incidents of Jew hatred.
“We need to ensure our police forces are properly empowered, that there are adequate provisions within the criminal code for the police to utilize to combat some of the criminal activity we are seeing.”
In addition to the police, Matas said prosecutors need to ensure arrests are followed through with appropriate charges for offenders.
“Police will go to the prosecutors, and the prosecutors say ‘we don’t think we’re going to get a conviction, we’re not going ahead,’ so that stymies them,” he said.
The audit, Roberton said, is a testament to Canada’s failure to address this crisis.
“The numbers speak for themselves.”
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume
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