Both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party are trying to woo Jewish voters, promising to seriously address the rampant antisemitism that has plagued Canada since the October 7th massacre.
By Rachel Avraham
On April 28, 2025, Canada will host federal elections. As the elections are fast approaching, antisemitism has become a hot campaign topic, with both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party vying for Jewish votes, as the Jewish vote can play a decisive role in as many as 14 districts in Canada. Following the October 7th massacre, Canada’s Jewish community endured a surge of antisemitism, including shootings, fire-bombings, vandalism and violent protests outside synagogues, JNS reported.
In its annual audit on antisemitism released this month, B’nai Brith Canada reported a 124.6% increase in antisemitic incidents from 2022 to 2024 in Canada. The total number of reported cases in Canada reached 6,219 in 2024—the highest since the organization began tracking antisemitic incidents in Canada in 1982. The antisemitism survey highlighted numerous incidents, ranging from Quebec daily La Presse publishing a cartoon depicting Netanyahu as Nosferatu, a vampire associated with Jews in Nazi-era propaganda and a pro-Hamas protester at the University of Toronto shouting at a Jewish student that Hitler should have “murdered all of you.”
In May, Fox News reported that an arsonist ignited a fire at the entrance to the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver as prayers concluded. According to the report, the same month, shots were fired at the Bais Chaya Mushka girls’ school in Toronto, and the school has since been targeted two more times by gunfire. In August, Fox News reported a bomb threat affected Jewish institutions across Canada. In December, according to the report, a firebomb struck Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal, the second such attack since Oct. 7, 2023. The Jewish community in Canada now wants a leadership that will address this surge in antisemitic violence.
Last week, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, the main challenger to Prime Minister Mark Carney, accused pro-Hamas protesters of staging “hate marches” and vowed to deport antisemitic foreigners from Canada, Fox News reported. “The rampaging chaos that we see in our streets, the targeting of synagogues and Jewish schools with hate, vandalism, violence, fire bombings … these things were unheard of 10 years ago,” Poilievre said. He also had a warning for foreign agitators. “Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out lawbreaking will be deported from this country,” Poilievre said, hinting that he intends for Canada to follow in US President Donald Trump’s footsteps when it comes to deporting foreign nationals who support terrorism and intimidate Jewish students on campus.
“To Canada’s Jewish community,” Poilievre added, “you are not alone, you have friends. Canadians stand with you. You have the right to wear your Star of David, your kippah, and have your mezuzah on your door. You should feel proud to be Jewish and should never have to hide your Jewishness in order to stay safe.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that Jewish Community Council of Montreal executive director Rabbi Saul Emanuel issued a video calling for the Canadian Jewish community to support Poilievre to repay the unwavering support the politician had shown the community in the wake of the October 7 massacre and the campaign of arson and vandalism against Jewish communities.
“Our community was targeted simply for being Jewish. And in those painful, frightening days when our community was grieving, shocked, and searching for reassurance, Pierre Poilievre was there,” Emanuel told the Jerusalem Post. “More importantly, he stood with Jewish Canadians, clearly, firmly, and without hesitation. We remember who stood with us when it mattered most, and now, we can all make a difference.”
However, not just the Conservative Party is reaching out to Jewish voters in Canada. Liberal leader Mark Carney assured Canadians that his party would make it a criminal offense to threaten or impede access to houses of worship, community centers, and schools in a discussion about public security, the Jerusalem Post reported. According to the report, he added that he wished such legislation wasn’t necessary.
“There are people – we’re in Montreal – in Montreal, in Toronto, across this country, who fear going to their synagogue, fear going to their community center, fear taking their children, leaving their children in school, and this has to stop,” said Carney during Thursday’s debate. The prime minister’s reference to proposed “bubble legislation,” which has been introduced or debated across Canada, led Jewish Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather to praise his party’s leader on X/Twitter, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Bubble zones, as they are already implemented in Vaughan, Ontario, bar demonstrators from holding a “nuisance demonstration” within 100 meters of any “vulnerable social infrastructure,” including schools, community centers and religious institutions. Here, a “nuisance demonstration” is defined as a demonstration that is “likely, on an objective standard, to cause a reasonable person to be intimidated.” Now, the Liberal Party wants to implement them across Canada and not just in Vaughan.
Nevertheless, despite this positive policy recommendation, the organization Canadian Women against Antisemitism has endorsed the Conservative Party. Co-founder and vice president of Canadian Women against Antisemitism Revi Mula told JNS that the Liberal government “abandoned” the Jewish community over the past 18 months, and for this reason, she and her organization are supporting the Conservative Party.
Photo from TVO Today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irFnP7TKHug
