Canada's Critical Mass of Religious Extremism

"It  has been disappointing [appointed role by the federal government], in part because I don't feel that the rise in antisemitism is getting the attention or response from leadership across the country, at all levels, that it should be getting, and that's been very disappointing."

"And it's been quite troubling, because as much as I've worked in conflict zones before and difficult environments, to be here, in my own country and to experience the horrific rise, unprecedented rise, of antisemitism in Canada and the lack of a real response to it causes me to worry about the future of our country."

"I don't think the faith community has stepped up. I don't think we've seen the non-Jewish, non-Muslim faith communities step up to say, 'Wait a minute. This is unacceptable in Canada'."

"We don't endorse this level of hatred and animosity toward one another. This is unacceptable. This is not who we are as children of God."

Deborah Lyons, Special Envoy on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism in Canada 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was one of several speakers at the Holocaust memorial in Ottawa. He said 80 years after the Holocaust, Canadians are seeing 'the same ugly totalitarian ideologies' playing themselves out on campuses and in attacks on synagogues.

 

Deborah Lyons, for all her ferocity as a non-Jew in deploring antisemitism and her determination to instill a sense of responsibility in the general public in Canada, and awaken in the slumbering consciousness of religious leaders a faith-obligation to recognize their religion's social conscience in a critical matter of outright racist obloquy against the the world's perennial scapegoat, speaks with caution, lest she alienate the very religious extremism that has worked assiduously to awaken slumbering Jew-hate by outright naming them.

Suffice it that she spoke of 'non-Jewish, non-Muslim' sources she would feel had a moral, religious obligation to come to the rescue of the Jews in Canadian society by condemning the spiralling antisemitic flow of hate speech, in support of their Jewish colleagues representing the origins of their own faith, namely Christians. That source would have a degree of moral authority. Much as governments at every level possessing political-social authority. Instead occasional sanctimonious rejection of the outright violent slander and threats that permeate the 'protests' alleging support of Palestinians to shield naked Jew-hate.

 

A counter-protester, centre, is forced out of the anti-Israel encampment set up on the University of Toronto campus on May 2. Photo by Chris Young/The Canadian Press

The infiltration within Canada of a steady flow of immigrants and migrants and refugee-class Muslims from the conflict-charged landscape of the Middle East may detest one another for their sectarian, political, cultural and tribal divisions of long standing but what does draw them together in a common purpose of rejection and hatred is the ideological/cultural detestation of Jews and the presence of Israel among Muslim-majority states.

 

Ms. Lyons calls upon community leaders, political leaders, business leaders, faith leaders, academic leaders to stand together and condemn the vitriolic surge of hate that targets the Canadian Jewish demographic, instilling fear and trepidation, as the violence of threatening speech along with viscious attacks against Jewish parochial schools, community centres, synagogues and private businesses speak to the level of hatred that drives people from their homes in once-proud communities.

 

There is no censure from government, from community leaders, when slogans of hate and threatening chants ring out in the streets from crowds of people devoting themselves to issues of conflict taking place half a world away. When a tiny sliver of a country is surrounded by bristling enemies decrying the presence of a Jewish nation in its ancestral home, in the midst of a huge gathering of nations devoted to Islam. One, a religion boasting four millennia of existence, the other one with less than half its existence in time and place which has in fact 'borrowed' heavily from Judaism, its sacred tenets and prophets.

"One of the things, again, as somebody who's travelled a lot internationally, is, why is Canada having this unprecedented surge in antisemitism right now? What is it about the makeup of our society? What is it about our push for diversity and inclusivity? And what is it about our demographics?"

"What is it about our country that is seeing such a level that has actually caused other countries to say, 'What's going on in Canada? We wouldn't have expected this from Canada".

Deborah Lyons, Special Envoy on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism in Canada

Police investigators examine the exterior of a synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que., where an incendiary device was ignited in November. (Francois Joly/Radio-Canada)