The vast majority of the incidents took place in Canada’s two largest provinces. Ontario recorded nearly half the total, with 808, while Quebec had 474. The rest were scattered among the nation’s eight other provinces.
Acts of antisemitic vandalism doubled to 322 from 158 — the audit called it a “whopping national increase.”
Antisemitic hate mail sent to synagogues in Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton and Edmonton on December 18, 2017. (B’nai Brith Canada)
The audit also saw as a “disturbing antisemitic trend” of a rise in antisemitism from both the far-right and far-left of the political spectrum.
Quebec, with Canada’s only majority francophone population, “is home to Islamist extremist enclaves, a sophisticated far-right scene, and many of Canada’s largest anti-Israel groups,” the audit said.
To counter these trends, the audit proposed an eight-point plant to increase resources for police hate crime units, a national “Action Plan” and other measures.
“Antisemitism has grown as a serious concern for Canadian Jews, affecting them at school, in the workplace and even in their own places of worship,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said.
“[W]e need a concerted national effort to ensure that antisemitic outbreaks do not become a fact of life for Jews in this country, as in other developed countries such as France and Sweden.”
