Canada Has a Jewish Problem
And its name is PM Mark Carney
Editor’s Note: A Canadian federal election is being held on April 28. Yesterday, I wrote about the disturbingly anti-Israel and not terribly Jew-friendly government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently succeeded Justin Trudeau. This op ed appeared in the Jewish Chronicle , U.K.. We have reproduced the initial paragraphs and link to the full article, below.
Following that is a piece providing more detail and information regarding the very difficult conundrum for the Canadian Jewish community, at 375,000, the fourth largest in the world. I am Canadian. It is shocking.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has an Israel problem. And a Jewish one. A big one.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu scolded Carney on “X”, mercilessly.
“Canada has always sided with civilisation. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement!”
This post was in response to earlier comments made at a campaign rally (Canada is in the midst of a federal election, with the vote on April 28). “Mr Carney”, a man shouted at him. ”There’s a genocide happening in Gaza.”
A dull and awkward communicator, Carney chose this moment to affect jocularity; to present himself as the guy who delivers clever zingers with ease. Smiling, Carney responded: “Thank you. Thank you, Diana. I’m aware. ‘Tis why we have an arms embargo.”
Canadians.
We have a well-deserved, long-standing reputation for being ovelry-polite, too nice, and pretty vanilla.
An idyllic nation where nothing really important ever happens. We say please, thank you and “sorry” compulsively.. Love hockey, beer and flannel plaids. And we make a mean maple syrup.
That Canada is of a bygone era.
And, depending on who wins the Canadian federal election being held on April 28, things could soon deteriorate even more precipitously.
The Great Canadian Shift began with the election in October, 2015 of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The world swooned over the handsome boy-man who seemed to be so hip and chill and in tune with the zeitgeist. And, I suppose he was.
During his near-decade in power he transformed Canada from a sensible, law abiding country - which also happened to be the most soundly managed G-7 nation – into a DEI/woke bubble where ensuring an adequate supply of tampons in male washrooms was high on the priority list for the federal government.
In 2015, the Canadian middle class was—by every statistical measure—thriving and on a steep upward trajectory. The economy was strong and booming. A nation with a resource-based economy, Canada was beautifully positioned to become an economic superpower.
But Justin Trudeau had a different vision.
In addition to preening with his wife for steamy fashion magazine covers, Trudeau became known for some real gems; like when he commented, early on in his tenure, that the “economy grows from the heart.”
He was not a serious guy. In fact, he was a vacuous flake.
Trudeau became an international laughingstock in 2017 when he took a one week road trip—with his wife and children—to India. They went full-on with the costume kitsch. Multiple bespoke, traditional Indian costumes were donned daily by the Trudeau family, causing one Bollywood star to mock the PM on twitter.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi—whose deep contempt for Trudeau was known in government, media and foreign policy circles—refused to meet him until the very end of his visit—which was really more of a fun family vacay. That was a snub—in the diplomatic world – of epic proportion. But, still, Canadians, thought, he’s so handsome.
The Economist had taken to disparaging Trudeau as the “former snowboard instructor.” Truth is that Justin dabbled in part-time teaching (drama, yearbook, and, by some accounts, math) for a few months in Vancouver. He spent much of his adulthood on ski hills and, as we know, playing blackface dress-up and smoking a lot of “weed.” (I’m a tail-end Boomer. We called it dope. And for good reason.)
The draconian approach of the Trudeau government during the Covid period has been noticed domestically and internationally. In 2022, the trucker protest – as it came to be known – drew signficant negative attention to Canada. The happy, nice Canadian brand took a huge hit.
The Trudeau government openly demonized anyone who dared to express vaccination concerns as the enemy. “Do we want to make room for those people?” Justin famously sneered during an appearance on a French language talk show during this period.
Those who opposed vaccines—or dared to dissent from the Trudeau government’s policies on anything, really—were smeared as being alt-right fascist extremists, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic. My personal fave is when then Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, deemed anyone who disagreed with the open-door refugee policy of Trudeau to be “un-Canadian.”
This heavy-handed intolerance was pervasive in the Trudeau years and led to draconian legal and political persecution of two convoy protest leaders as well as thousands of supporters. Random individuals who donated small amounts–like $50–to support the convoy protests, found that their bank accounts were frozen. No warning. No reason. And this was done at the direction of then Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland. When announcing this dictatorial measure to the Canadian public, Freeland broke out in giggles, which made the abuse of power that much more intolerable.
Within the last year—as his political fortunes tanked—Trudeau actually bragged about the legalization of cannabis as being his great legacy. I mean. We were managing just fine with decriminalization. While legalizing “weed”, he also destroyed the economy and social fabric of a once thriving nation.
When Trump 1.0 put in place his “Muslim ban” in 2017, Trudeau posted an obnoxiously sanctimonious tweet, pretending Canada was one big Statue of Liberty, inviting all the haggard, tired and poor to come to Canada.
And they did come. By the millions. The population of Canada when he assumed power in October, 2015, was 35-million. Today it stands at 42-million and still surging. Of those additional 7-million it is estimated that 5-million are people who remain in the country illegally on expired visas. No one seems too fussed about locating and deporting them. Truth is, no one seems to really understand what is going on.
And then there are the large numbers of individuals from Muslim-majority countries who have been admitted to Canada as “refugees,” or migrants - which seems to be the preferred parlance. Some may legitimately qualify. But it is possible that many do not. Furthermore, they have jumped many queues and receive huge financial support from the federal government; a degree of bespoke largesse available only to that particular community.
There are also very serious concerns regarding what security screening has been applied to these new “migrants”/refugees, if any. The Trudeau and Carney governments have been anything but forthcoming in providing responses to inquiries about this.
And what do we see on our streets? Home to the fourth largest Jewish community in the world (after Israel, the U.S. and France), Canada is also a very hospitable jurisdiction for radical Islamists and their hard-left supporters, perhaps moreso than any other western country.
On the afternoon of October 7, as the slaughter of Jews was ongoing in Israel, many Canadians were celebrating the “al Aqsa Flood” on the streets of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and elsewhere. Celebrating. We know that most of those dancing in the streets were members of the Muslim community. In one heavily Muslim neighborhood in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga—a pickup truck showed up with a Taliban flag flapping. More astute celebrants told them to take it down. Hamas, however, was fine.
Even thought it is listed in Canada as a terrorist organization, the enthusiastic crowds in the streets on October 7 seemed to think otherwise. They cheered the barbaric slaughter of innocents, saying it was legitimate resistance. They cheered the ultimate goal of Hamas—to annihilate the state of Israel and murder all Jews.
And they did so with the explicit support of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ad nauseum, this flanneur posing as leader, excused the pro Hamas demonstrations as being “peaceful protests” in which people exercised their constitutional freedoms. Except that he was and is full of brown stuff.
There was and is nothing peaceful about these constant and aggressive shows of power on Canadian streets. And their conduct violates multiple provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada as well as oodles of municipal bylaws and provincial and federal legislative provisions. And yet, law enforcement does nothing. Au contraire, they emboldened and assisted the terrorist supporters. Toronto police have been the superstars of collusion from the outset. One of their more notorious acts was to deliver coffee and donuts to pro Hamas thugs who made a weekly habit of “demonstrating” on a highway overpass that was a main access route to a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Toronto.
I have followed events in Toronto and even attended “protests” when in town. Police are openly chumming around with the Hamas crowd while being overtly hostile and aggressive with the “Jewish side.” Following some particularly disturbing conduct in the fall of 2024 – and involving police interaction with the Jewish community – I reached out to the Toronto Chief of Police, Myron Demkiw, to hear his take on things. As expected, his office declined my invitation, which speaks volumes.
You can listen to the two part podcast series State of Tel Aviv put out in December, 2024, on antisemitism in Canada, at these links:
Fast forward to the present. For the past 18+ months antisemitism has become entrenched and normalized in Canada. Jewish schools have been attacked on multiple occasions with incendiary devices. Canadian Jews are harassed and threatened, often with violence, on a daily basis. Law enforcement and every level of government look away (with the exception of the province of Alberta and several municipalities in Ontario).
It is astonishing – how rapidly a country devolves into lawlessness. Pro Hamas and Islamist disruptions are normalized. Pop up mosques frequently block major intersections and transportation hubs. Not infrequently, Muslims get down in the ice and slush on major city roads. Recently, they chose to indulge this performative tendency right outside the magnificent Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal. To…pray? Really? Or to flex their collective muscle and show Canada that there’s a new sherriff in town?
On Good Friday – one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar – Toronto Islamists are organizing a massive public prayer event in the large square outside City Hall.
I mean…
University campuses across Canada have been chaotic and regular hosts of antisemitic violence – inside the lecture hall and on the quad. The once highly-regarded McGill University has become a cesspool of Jew hatred and violent Islamist and anti-Israel activism.
And Mark Carney?
Harvard and Oxford educated, enriched by a 13-year stint at Goldman Sachs, Carney then came back to Canada to work in public service. He entered at a senior level in the ministry of Finance and was soon appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada by Conservative PM Stephen Harper.
Once done, Carney was tapped to serve as the first ever non-Briton to head the Bank of England in its 200+ year history. That. Is one helluva feather in his cap.
Carney left the Bank of England in 2020 to continue his high-flying high-finance career. He has said, at times, that he is based in Ottawa, but that assertion raises eyebrows. Carney owns real estate in London and NYC. To date no one has been able to confirm where he actually resides. Earlier this week, he finally stated that he had renounced his UK and Irish citizenships and confirmed that he was paying income tax in Canada. He has been less than forthcoming on all counts. And it took a long time for him to actually clarify these quite basic questions that were asked for some time.
As well, as the former Chair of Brookfield Asset Management, there are many concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and whether his disclosures - although complying with Canada’s ethics laws - are sufficient. Especially in the wake of Trudeau’s scandal plagued tenure-during which ethical breaches were many-Canadians are asking if the laws in place to manage conflict situations are strong enough.
He has also been dropping a series of nose stretchers, which even the Liberal-friendly Canadian media has been forced to criticize.
Perhaps his most brazen and stupid one was when he took credit for having shepherded the Canadian economy through the 2008-9 financial crisis. That earned him a very rare, public and stinging rebuke from PM Harper.
Harper stated in a fundraising letter to Tory supporters that “it was then-finance minister Jim Flaherty who made the ‘hard calls.’”
He further asserted that Carney does not have experience managing the Canadian economy on a daily basis. Several weeks later, Harper reinforced this message at a huge rally in support of the Conservative candidate in this election, Pierrre Poilievre.
"I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be prime minister once worked for me," Harper told the crowd. "And in that regard, my choice without hesitation, without equivocation, without a shadow of a doubt, is Pierre Poilievre."
Harper and Carney could not be more different. Carney is a net zero climate zealot who has been clear that he will continue with the Trudeau approach to leaving fossil fuels in the ground. That spells poverty and continued economic decline for Canada.
And when it comes to Israel, his position is clear, disturbing and in sharp contrast to Harper’s policy and general geopolitical guiding principles.
So much is at stake in the Canadian federal election, being held on April 28. And among the many issues is the fate of the Canadian Jewish community. This country has become one of the most hostile jurisdictions in the west for Jews.
Vivian, it seems as though Poilievre's chances have significantly deteriorated since Trump was elected. Do you think most Canadians are voting for Carney because they don't want to see Canada "go Right" like so many other countries?