THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, December 1, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 4:01 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on antisemitism in Canada.
Senator Paulette Senior (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome, everyone. Good afternoon. I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.
My name is Paulette Senior. I’m a senator from Ontario and chair of this committee. Welcome to you all. I’m going to invite my honourable colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Karetak-Lindell: Thank you. Senator for Nunavut, Nancy Karetak-Lindell.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Senator K. Wells: Kristopher Wells, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Arnot: David Arnot, Saskatchewan.
The Chair: Welcome. Welcome also to all of you who are joining us for our deliberations today.
Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide a content warning for this meeting. The sensitive topics covered today may be triggering for people in the room with us, as well as for those watching and listening to the broadcast. Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 9-8-8.
Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the Senate’s Employee and Family Assistance Program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for personal and work-related concerns, as well as crisis counselling.
Today, our committee will be meeting under its order of reference to examine and report on anti-Semitism in Canada. This afternoon, we will have three panels. We will hear from the witnesses in each panel, and then senators around this table will have a question-and-answer session.
I will now introduce our first panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make a five-minute opening statement each. With us at the table, from Canadian Heritage, Mr. Andrew Brown, Associate Deputy Minister; and Erica Tao, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Multiculturalism and Anti-racism. From the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Mr. Mohammed Hashim, Chief Executive Officer. Finally, from Statistics Canada, we have Gayatri Jayaraman, Director General, Social, Justice and Indigenous Statistics; and Lucie Léonard, Director, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Social, Justice and Indigenous Statistics.
I now invite Mr. Brown to make his presentation on behalf of Canadian Heritage, followed by Mr. Hashim, and then by Ms. Jayaraman on behalf of Statistics Canada.
Andrew Brown, Associate Deputy Minister, Canadian Heritage: Thank you, chair, honourable senators and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear today as part of the committee’s study on anti-Semitism in Canada.
I’d like to begin by also acknowledging that we are gathered today on the unceded, traditional territory of the Anishinaabe people.
I am here in my role as Associate Deputy Minister of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The department’s mandate includes advancing multiculturalism and anti-racism, strengthening social cohesion and supporting communities in building a safer and more inclusive Canada. A key part of this mandate is confronting hate in all its forms, including anti‑Semitism.
Incidents of physical assault, synagogues vandalized with graffiti and demonstrations displaying openly anti-Semitic symbols and slogans are becoming more frequent. The increase in incidents is disturbing. Recent Statistics Canada data on police-reported crime statistics are of great concern.
In 2024, Jewish Canadians, who make up only about 1% of Canada’s population, were the most frequently targeted group for hate-motivated crimes, accounting for 19% of all police-reported hate crimes and 68% of religiously motivated hate crimes.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, this is not the Canada that we want.
These incidents have real impacts on the Jewish community’s spirit of safety, belonging and participation in Canadian society.
As the federal department responsible for promoting inclusion, diversity and Canadian identity, Canadian Heritage plays an essential role in this area of work.
Our department led the creation and implementation of Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy and Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate.
[English]
Through the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program, which is a key Canadian Heritage lever to advance the strategy, over the last three fiscal years, the department has invested $5 million in funding to Jewish-led or focused organizations across Canada for projects focused on Jewish communities or anti‑Semitism.
In September of last year, the Government of Canada launched Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate to address the rise in hate across the country, representing an investment of $273.6 million over six years and $29.3 million ongoing. The action plan brings new and existing initiatives together to foster greater coordination and collaboration among federal organizations to prevent and address hate.
Through these frameworks, the Department of Canadian Heritage and partner institutions across the government continue to advance initiatives that build understanding, strengthen community resilience and address all forms of hate, including anti-Semitism.
As part of this work, the position of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism was created in 2020. The Special Envoy serves as a champion to support and enhance the federal government’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism here in Canada and internationally.
Before her retirement, we understand that the former Special Envoy, Deborah Lyons, heard a consistent and concerning message from Jewish communities across Canada — many feel unsafe, unseen and unprotected. Families, students, educators and professionals have shared that anti-Semitism is no longer a distant reality. It is now affecting daily life decisions about whether they can remain visibly Jewish, and some question whether they can remain in Canada at all.
The Government of Canada published the Canadian Handbook on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism in 2024. Led by the Special Envoy, the handbook provides practical tools and insights for Canadians to better understand and combat historical and contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism.
[Translation]
We also recognize the importance of memory and education as tools against hate. That is why the government introduced the new National Holocaust Remembrance Program, which supports initiatives to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and teach Canadians how they can play an active role in combatting anti‑Semitism.
Since the program was announced in Budget 2024, 13 projects have been funded, including the Montreal Holocaust Museum, which expands the study and the teaching of Holocaust history in French-language schools in Quebec.
[English]
We fully agree that combatting anti-Semitism is an urgent and shared responsibility requiring a coordinated, whole-of-government approach. Both Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy and Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate are designed to support collaboration with provinces and territories and community organizations to protect the safety, inclusion and dignity of Jewish Canadians. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Very good time management.
Mohammed Hashim, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Race Relations Foundation: Thank you, chair, and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to your study on anti-Semitism. My name is Mohammed Hashim, and I am the CEO of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, or CRRF.
Last month in Toronto, the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Shul was vandalized for the 10th time, either with broken windows or graffiti. At first, the synagogue installed cameras, and it continued. Then they reinforced the windows with non-break glass, and it continued. Then they put up a fence, and even after that, it appears the perpetrator jumped the fence and broke the windows again, for the 10th time.
In Toronto, a Jewish day school name Bais Chaya Mushka school was shot at three different times. Similarly, they did so again, at night, but they did so to send a message. All of these incidents across the country send one message — that Jews cannot be safe here.
I’ve heard from Jewish Canadians from across the country of how this moment, in particular, is one where their safety cannot be taken for granted. Over the past few years, we have seen a variety of public safety responses to this rise.
In Toronto and Montreal, the communities have created security networks, on their own, both of which are partially funded by Public Safety Canada. In Toronto, the police service has established a visible presence in areas where Jewish people live, set up mobile command stations, and increased patrols in communities where ongoing physical presence is not possible.
At a federal level, the government introduced Bill C-9 this fall in response to rising anti-Semitic and other hate crimes. This bill has the potential to better define hate crimes and hold people accountable when they commit them.
In 2024, the federal government released Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate. This is the first federal action plan on hate and is central to the work of the CRRF, and our partners. As co-chair of the Hate Crimes Task Force with the RCMP, we work directly with law enforcement, crown prosecutors and communities across the country to support the administration of justice in a wide variety of ways, including raising awareness of and countering anti-Semitism. We have developed and implemented trainings and capacity-building programs for police and prosecutors. That includes an immersive training that equips officers with victim-support approaches and provides specific material addressing anti-Semitic hate crimes.
We have participated in Federal–Provincial–Territorial initiatives to strengthen hate crimes prosecutions, and have provided examples of case law related to anti-Semitism for training purposes. We also support research, public education, reports, local campaigns and events to respond to hate in many coordinated ways. At a community level, we have not only developed and delivered training for hundreds of community organizations, but we have also supported dialogue between different communities, including dozens and dozens of conversations between Jews, Muslims, Palestinians and others to build a greater sense of connection and cohesion here in Canada.
One of our aims is to cultivate conversation spaces where people feel safe enough to be brave, and can walk away with new ideas that stretch their perspectives, spark deep reflection and create new relationships.
We look for people in this country who can speak for, with, and beyond their communities, creating bonds that inspire innovation and move us forward together.
But there’s still much more to be done to confront the rise of anti-Semitism in this country. Our written brief offers a fuller account of our recent and ongoing initiatives, which will be available to you in a week. These include long-term funding, and we have a variety of recommendations. These include long-term funding for victim support services; enhanced physical protection for synagogues, schools and community centres; major investments in education and public awareness campaigns for children, students and the wider public on hate; and dedicated support for dialogue programs.
Based on everything we have heard in our conversations with Jewish and other communities across the country, we’ve learned that people feel safe when they know those around them will stand with them.
To every Jewish Canadian who feels unsafe or alone, who fears they may need to be hidden, I want to say: Canada will always be a place of safety for you. That safety is rooted in continuing to strengthen dialogue and learning, build relationships, cultivate respect and increase protection for all of us.
Thank you again for this opportunity, and I’m happy to take questions at the end.
The Chair: Thank you. We’ll now go to Ms. Jayaraman.
Gayatri Jayaraman, Director General, Social, Justice and Indigenous Statistics, Statistics Canada: Thank you for your service and the opportunity to speak with you today about Statistics Canada’s data on hate crime. I, too, would like to recognize that we are on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation, and I thank them for their stewardship over these lands over the millennia.
My name is Gayatri Jayaraman, and I am the Director General of the Social, Justice and Indigenous Statistics Branch at Statistics Canada. I am joined by Lucie Léonard, Director of the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics.
We live in a multicultural and diverse country. For example, consistent with changing immigration patterns and other cultural shifts, data from the 2021 Census showed that a growing proportion of people reported religious affiliations other than Christianity.
At the same time, religion is a common target of hate‑motivated crime. From 2018 to 2024, police-reported crime data show that hate crimes targeting a religion have doubled, rising from 657 to 1,342 hate crimes.
These data are collected by Statistics Canada through the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, or UCR, and represents all crimes that come to the attention of police services across the country.
Hate crime data have been included in the UCR since 2005. Police report crime data according to a set of national classification guidelines. They use strict legal criteria to classify a criminal incident as motivated by hate, and it must be substantiated through investigation.
More specifically, hate crimes targeting a race or ethnicity increased from 793 hate crimes reported in 2018 to 2,198 in 2024, a 200% increase. Hate crimes targeting a religion, as I mentioned earlier, have doubled during this time period. Compared to 2022, in 2023, hate crimes targeting a religion went up even further, by 75%.
This increase was largely the result of more police-reported hate crimes targeting the Jewish population, up by 82%, and the Muslim population, up by 102%.
Information for 2024 suggests a sustained level of hate crimes following the sharp increase in 2023.
Preliminary data for the first two quarters — that is between January to June of 2025 this year — suggest that police-reported hate crimes have declined compared to the same period in 2024, from 419 hate crimes reported between January to June 2024 to 343 over the same period in 2025. However, to reiterate, these are preliminary figures. With our annual release of official crime statistics for 2025 occurring next summer.
Now, while police-reported data remained one source of information on hate crimes, it is really only one dimension, which might be considered to inform the environment or data landscape, if you will, of hate and discrimination in Canada. Like crime in general, many hate crimes go unreported to police. Self-reported data provides another way of monitoring hate‑motivated crimes, and so we do conduct surveys, most recently in 2019 with a general social survey on Canadian safety, where we found that only one in five crimes perceived as being motivated by hate was reported to the police. World events, large-scale social movements, as well as general awareness among local communities, and the expertise of police can play a role in whether and how hate crimes are reported. Victims of crime may also be influenced by factors such as language barriers, levels of trust or confidence in police and the justice system and fear of further victimization or stigma by the very act of reporting a crime.
Also, non-criminal hate incidents represent an important element in our understanding of hate. These incidents may not reach the threshold of a criminal offence, but they can, nonetheless, impact individuals and communities. This is why Statistics Canada, in collaboration with community organizations and subject-matter experts, is exploring the development of a standardized definition for non-criminal hate crimes.
In closing, police-reported hate crimes are best interpreted within a broader context of a given community or geographic area. Self-reported victimization surveys, qualitative information from affected communities and community dynamics, demographics and lived experience can all help to contextualize data on crime.
We do believe that the data that Statistics Canada collects benefits from continued engagement and collaboration, including with advisory committees representing various communities, the provinces and territories.
Thank you for your attention, and Ms. Léonard and I are available to address any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you all for your presentations today. We will now proceed to questions from senators. Just as a reminder to my colleagues, you have five minutes for both the question and the responses.
Senator K. Wells: My first question is for Mr. Brown. Hopefully, we’ll have time to get to the other panellists as well.
Could you speak to some of the programs that Canadian Heritage is funding to combat anti-Semitism currently, and if you know or if you feel that these will be impacted by the government’s comprehensive expenditure review?
Mr. Brown: Thank you for the question, senator.
In terms of responding first to the impacts of the comprehensive expenditure review, I should just note that we are one of the departments that does not actually have its final outcomes with respect to the expenditure review at this time.
That said, I think I can say with quite a bit of confidence that the programs supporting anti-Semitism are not being affected. I’m thinking specifically about the National Holocaust Remembrance Program that received funding through Budget 2024. There is separate funding that we have through Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy as well as Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate. We will need to have final outcomes of the comprehensive expenditure review before I can say anything more there.
With respect to some of the work that is ongoing to combat anti-Semitism, perhaps I can turn to Ms. Erica Tao, our Acting Assistant Deputy Minister.
Erica Tao, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Multiculturalism and Anti-racism, Canadian Heritage: The basis of our program comes from the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and so one of the first pieces of the programming that we offer is actually called In Support of Multiculturalism, so we offer events and projects to support multiculturalism.
About eight to ten years ago, we introduced Canada’s Anti‑Racism Strategy, and that represented a kind of doubling of the program dollars to support the first-ever Canada’s Anti‑Racism Strategy. That strategy was just renewed last year for a four-year period.
We use the basis of that act, then, to create a program to support combatting hate, which is what Mohammed Hashim talked about, and there is also funding attached to Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate.
The last program, also founded on the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, then, is the National Holocaust Remembrance Program. All four of those programs represent our holistic approach to supporting in this space.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Mr. Hashim, I am wondering if you could you speak in your view or the work that you have done. We have seen a few municipalities across Canada develop specialized hate crime units, and some provinces or territories have specialized hate crime prosecutors. I’m wondering if you see the value of that and if that is an area where your organization would see further opportunity and investment?
Mr. Hashim: Thank you for the question. Yes, absolutely. There is significant value in both of those.
For example, in Halifax in 2021, there were 16 hate crime incidents reported. In 2022, after they created a hate crimes unit and trained their front-line staff — both police officers, call intake folks and others — that number went from 16 to 286 in one year in terms of how many hate crimes or incidents were being documented by the police force. The introduction of a hate crimes unit is extremely valuable for them being able to understand it.
Similarly, we have been working with Crown prosecutors, and some of the provinces have dedicated Crown attorneys, and some of them don’t have dedicated Crown attorneys, so we have been working with the BC Prosecution Service to bring together a table of Crown prosecutors to do so.
We have created an entire tool where we have looked at all decisions on subsection 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code, which is where hate determination is adjudicated by a judge, and all decisions that are both publicly available as well as those that are unreported, we have put them on a database in order to help train prosecutors to understand hate crimes and what factors in hate crimes are being used by judges to do so. That’s been very helpful, I believe.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Senator Arnot: I have questions for all three agencies, so I might have to go —
The Chair: Second round.
Senator Arnot: Yes. The first one is actually to Canadian Heritage, and it is to Ms. Tao. I know you have been working in this area for a decade or more, and I just want to comment that the education curricula in the provinces and territories are more or less the same throughout Canada in the 13 jurisdictions. Do you have programs that teachers or teachers’ associations can access for their own professional development on these issues of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust?
I’m just wondering if there is any specific outreach you can make, because I know that the teachers that I speak to say that professional development needs a little more help. To me, that’s one area where I think Canadian Heritage might be able to make a big contribution to a more uniform approach to anti-Semitism education in the K to 12 system.
Ms. Tao: Thank you for the question, senator. As we know, the federal government is not in the jurisdiction of education, as that’s the provincial domain. Having said that, I think that we have created this suite of programs that would enable, for example, boards of education, schools, colleges, universities, chambers of commerce, law enforcement, police agencies, hospitals and other health care institutions to approach us to see if they can be eligible to apply. In this case, it does need to come from the communities themselves — these professional organizations — to come meet with us and talk to us about some of their planning and projects to shape that and also look at funding.
I would say, inherently, that is the space that we are occupying. We are looking to support community-based organizations to realize some of their projects in anti-Semitism.
Provinces, territories and regional and municipal governments may also be eligible for certain elements. Here I am speaking specifically about the National Holocaust Remembrance Program. In other cases with some of the other programs that we offer, not all aspects may be eligible for provinces or these public institutions, but there are elements of our programming which could be quite interesting for them as well.
Again, I think there is a suite of programs. It is the sort of thing that they would need to come up with some ideas about an event or a project that they are looking to achieve, developing curricula. It is something that we could definitely explore.
Senator Arnot: Mr. Brown, what concrete actions will Canadian Heritage take to ensure a national consistency in anti‑Semitism education across the provinces? What specific tools is Canadian Heritage working on to educate the Canadian public about anti-Semitism and hate propaganda?
Mr. Brown: Thank you for the question, senator. There are a couple of elements there in terms of the way that Canadian Heritage works to educate the public with respect to anti‑Semitism. In fact, one of the key elements hasn’t been — it has been through us, but I think it was led by the special envoy in terms of preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting anti-Semitism — and it was the work she led to develop a handbook on the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism.” That work was principally led by the special envoy but in collaboration with departments across the Government of Canada to make sure we would be able to apply it ourselves. It also, then, becomes a resource that can be used by communities and organizations across the country.
That’s an example of one very specific tool.
The other work has been — as my colleague, Ms. Tao, mentioned, thinking about some of the programs that we offer and that allow organizations to apply for funding and to do some of that education on their own. Ms. Tao, did you want to add anything about provinces and territories, and working toward consistencies?
Ms. Tao: We do have different mechanisms, for example — the minister might have gotten named earlier today — but there is a ministerial forum with provinces and territories. There is also an ADM-level committee where we meet to discuss and try to coordinate activities.
Again, there are mechanisms that we are exploring that we have built up in order to try to influence in this space.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to the witnesses who are with us.
I was very struck, Mr. Hashim, by the last statement you made, I believe, which was that, essentially, we can promise that Canada is safe. Could you tell us more about what leads you to be so sure we can make that promise?
Mr. Hashim: Hope. No one knows what the future will hold, but if we believe in a space and we project it, that’s the only way we can build people and rally people around a common understanding. I agree with you: I think it’s a difficult aspiration to believe that everyone can be safe in Canada, but it is certainly a hope that we must hold on to.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
I have a question for clarification from Dr. Jayaraman, please. If I heard you correctly, you are identifying a shift in the trend of the reporting and incidents of anti-Semitism statements and actions. Did I get that correct?
Ms. Jayaraman: Yes, you did. Thank you for the question, senator.
If we are looking back, using 2018 as a starting point, over the course of time, from 2018 to today, there has been an increase in the trend. As I compared the numbers between 2018 and 2022, there has been a 200% increase. We saw, then, when you compare 2023 to 2022, a further increase, 2023 being a fairly significant year.
But in 2024, we were then at the new high of 2023, but what we’re seeing for 2025, at least in the first two quarters — very preliminary data — is a modest reduction compared to 2024.
It is important not to make too much about that, but, as things are standing now, it either seems to be at a level or slightly lower. We will have more certainty around that as the numbers start coming in, and we will be reporting on this more officially; we need some time to pull this information together, standardize it and so on. That will be by next summer, and by then, we will have a sense of what 2025 looks like.
However, the general trend is up.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
This is an invitation to all the panellists. Would anybody like to speak to possible causes for what has been clearly identified as a tentative result for part of this year? If, indeed, we’re seeing a slight reduction, to what might you attribute that decline? Is anything that is being done and that has been done for the last number of years working?
Mr. Hashim: Thank you.
I would say the decline — most hate crimes units that we work with have a general rule that what happens in different places impacts what’s happening here. So when there are degrees of polarity that exist, that results in polarity here. There have been some shifts in the degrees of polarity that are being manifested here.
To be frank, Canadian Jews have been held responsible for the actions of a different government in terms of these instances where we’ve seen a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes. I think that, as that polarity has decreased to some degree, you’ve seen these numbers correspond as well.
But I also think that being in a relationship matters. When we are training hate crime units, we talk to them about how they build relationships with different communities and make themselves available. How do you build proactive relationships with different communities? Through those relationships, sometimes that increases reporting, but it also increases a sense of safety. I think that might be reflected in those issues, too.
Senator Coyle: Thank you to the witnesses for being with us here this evening. I will ask my first few quick questions to Ms. Jayaraman.
I want to confirm what you said, because I think I missed one word. You said you are exploring the definition for non‑criminal?
Ms. Jayaraman: Non-criminal hate crimes.
Senator Coyle: But crimes nonetheless, okay. That would be something — if they are non-criminal hate crimes, what do you mean by that?
Ms. Jayaraman: Without preempting the discussions on Bill C-9, because those are still progressing through legislation, what does one do, for example, if there is verbal abuse, harassment, bullying or something on social media that might not necessarily be coded in the Criminal Code and is not necessarily, per definition, hate-motivated, except when investigated potential for hate motivation? How do we standardize that in a way that there is a common understanding in the reporting against it? That’s very much a work in progress.
Senator Coyle: I would also like to, then, ask my second question to you.
I thought I heard you say that, in the surveys you have done, only one in five hate crimes is reported to police. Is that what you said?
Ms. Jayaraman: That survey is from 2019, and that’s the first point stated. That being said, I’m pleased to report that we are in the process of collecting data now about Canadian safety. By this time next year, we should have preliminary results.
Based on the 2019 survey, about 223,000 incidents were reported that were perceived as being racially motivated by the survey respondents. When asked whether they reported to the police, one in five of the incidents were reported to the police.
Senator Coyle: Do you have a breakdown of the racial background of the individuals who did that reporting?
Ms. Jayaraman: We do have that information. It was published, and we can provide that to you.
Senator Coyle: Yes, it would be interesting to see what that looks like compared to now in terms of official stats.
And you said “racial,” so that may not include Indigenous Peoples or 2SLGBTQIA+?
Ms. Jayaraman: I’m sorry; I’m not sure I understand.
Senator Coyle: Hate crimes can be more than for racial reasons.
Ms. Jayaraman: This is overall hate crimes, so it would include everyone, not necessarily broken down by religion. We have those breakdowns, and we can make them available to you.
Senator Coyle: Wonderful. Thank you. It would be good to get that information.
I will go now to Mr. Hashim. I’m curious, you talked about some of your remedies and recommendations. One is around education. I know my colleague asked about education, and we are all interested in it. I am curious about online, because we know a whole lot of hate happens online, increasingly so. At least I believe it happens increasingly so.
What are you finding online, and what are you trying to do to remedy what you are finding online?
Mr. Hashim: Nothing I tell you will give you any relief for what we are seeing online, to be absolutely frank. We were being briefed by the RCMP’s Ontario division head last month where we were talking about online harms, hate in particular. What is extremely concerning that is not getting a lot of attention is the amount of violence that kids are now perpetrating because of online hate that they are consuming. There are online communities that basically encourage kids to do violent acts. There was a 13-year-old girl who killed her 7-year-old brother because of people motivating her to do so online. There was a 14-year-old who killed an 81-year-old woman, also under similar circumstances.
We’re seeing the online space proliferate in extremely disturbing ways, and the safety belts that were even mildly present in previous times are now being taken off across the board. This is something that the CRRF deeply believes is a policy area that the government should and is encouraged to tackle because we feel very strongly that what we are seeing now is the beginning of what could be very disturbing times in the future.
The Chair: With the privilege of the chair, I have some questions. My colleagues have asked some extraordinary questions. We do have an hour and a half for this meeting, so don’t get anxious that I’m using up your time.
I want to pursue the online piece a little bit and ask about the impact of AI, if you have seen that.
I think that the focus in terms of funding makes a huge difference to communities that have experienced long-held hate crimes. I take stats from 2019. I think it is stark in terms of one in five, but I really look forward to there being some way to connect funding to the ability of communities to be able to make reports, particularly those communities that have historically not made reports to official bodies like policing and so forth. I wonder if you can comment on that, Mr. Hashim.
Mr. Hashim: Thank you, Madam Chair. I have travelled the entire country, and one of the first questions I ask any community group that I meet with is: Do you report hate crimes to the police? The answers that I get are extremely varying, from Black communities saying, “Probably not.” In Indigenous communities, one respondent in Yellowknife said, “It was a nightmare. Why would we want to do that?” We hear varying responses across this country in terms of being able to report to police.
Therefore, when we see hate crime statistics, to be frank, I see that being more of a reflection of how comfortable people feel about reporting to the police than a reflection, necessarily, of hate in the country because that varies differently for different communities if they have a sense, or not, of anything being done by the police if they do report.
There are some improvements, and we’ve been trying to find different programs and partners within different communities who can help elaborate and construct those relationships to a deeper degree. There is a massive gap between the hate that Indigenous communities experience and what they report to the police. It’s a huge gap. If there is one area that we definitely witness where hate crimes are not being reported, it is in those communities where that is most certainly present. We are trying to look for different partners who can help us work with different organizations.
What it comes down to is how functional relationships are between community groups and their trust of police. That is the nucleus of whether or not that success could be made possible or not.
The Chair: I want to add one more element. Maybe, Ms. Jayaraman, you can comment on this when you get a chance, which is regarding gender and inclusion. Ms. Tao?
Ms. Tao: At the Department of Canadian Heritage, we offer a program called the Digital Citizen Initiative. It recognizes that citizens, especially younger people, need to have more investments to help them discern when they are exposed to harmful online content.
We’ve been exploring this mis- and disinformation space and what kind of measures we could apply some programming levers to. We are also active on a special journalism initiative, which is trying to support local journalism and reporting facts outside of American for-profit entities and how folks are now consuming news online as opposed to other mechanisms and, of course, the support for the CBC and Radio-Canada. In this space, the department is recognizing that these are growing concerns.
It is difficult to track between the reporting. When we invest in, for example, anti-racism work, it is difficult to track how that attributes to one lesser act of racism. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation and Environics has some surveying that shows that race relations has seen an improvement in recent years in terms of Black and Indigenous survey respondents indicating that they are finding race relations in Canada have been improving recently.
We are starting to develop a bit more sophistication in the measurement of our impact, but we definitely do recognize that it is not just around incidents happening in the community; there needs to be attention at the level of mis- and disinformation.
The Chair: Thank you. Based on several witnesses that we’ve heard from over the past few weeks, particularly from Jewish women who have talked about the issues around attacks they have experienced because of their gender and their religion, I would love to hear some comments from you on that.
Ms. Jayaraman: Thank you for the question. It is an important one.
Intersectionality is, in part, what you’re referring to. Through informed crime reporting, there is the ability to collect, as perceived by the police and as reported, the types of motivation, if you will, that could be associated with the hate crime.
I’m looking at numbers from 2022 to 2024 as an example. About 69% of the reported hate crimes in 2022 were related to race ethnicity compared to 57% that had a sex or gender component to it. If we look at 2024, the same types of stats are around the same: 71% related to race ethnicity on a confirmed hate crime compared to about 65% gender or sex that is associated with a motivating factor for the hate crime.
The question that you ask, can we further look into the religion with sex, with maybe geographic location, it is possible to do that. The problem with doing that is that the numbers get really low, really small, and so the level of confidence we can have by way of percentage and what it represents is something that we have to be mindful of, the quality of the data.
This does not take away in any way the experience that the individual might have had. From a statistical point, we have to be mindful of low sample size, low numbers, in a particular category where we need to be mindful of the context of data quality.
Senator Osler: Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. I will pick up a bit on the mis- and disinformation and a bit on what Senator Coyle was talking about and a bit about what Senator McPhedran was talking about.
Certainly, there is a generation past mine that is a digital generation. They are online; that is their life. We have heard about the proliferation of mis- and disinformation online and how that is contributing to polarization within society. Whether it is correlation or causation of online hate, there is certainly, at the very least, correlation.
If that is driving anti-Semitism, online hate, some of the solutions would need to be online. I would appreciate hearing, certainly, from Canadian Race Relations Foundation and Canadian Heritage. In your work, have you come across positive strategies and solutions to combat online hate?
Perhaps we will start with Mr. Hashim.
Mr. Hashim: Thank you for the question. We have seen interesting interventions. On social media, there is a degree of content — when I say “degree,” please take that with a grain of salt — of at least some moderation that’s happening. The areas that are the least moderated are gaming platforms. Fifty per cent of kids are using Roblox today, and Roblox has very little moderation at all. You can create a chat with anybody and start talking to them. You could be acting like a kid and offering somebody Roblox and luring them into online spaces.
What we have seen is that there are a number of programs that are focused particularly on the online gaming space that have made interventions for people who are in that space to be able to deter that. Where community-led interventions are happening, there is an organization in Quebec whose name escapes me right now, but we’ve seen some of that work.
In the deradicalization environment, there are a few community organizations that Public Safety Canada works with that have done some effective work, but it is very few, very late. What we’re seeing is that in our conversations with police services, they are getting flags, consistently, from international partners of kids who are between 11 and 14 saying horrific things. Now those investigations are happening here locally because they are getting flagged from somewhere else. We think that’s a huge area of concern that definitely needs more attention.
Ms. Tao: For the Digital Citizen Initiative, since 2020, there has been $31 million invested in 146 projects to better understand and build citizen resilience based on our policy analysis.
It is not where government tries to go in and provide an authoritative fact. It is actually enabling citizens to be more resilient when they are exposed to online harm, for them to recognize it and to challenge it.
Additionally, for the trustworthy news component, our program is called the Local Journalism Initiative, and another $58.8 million over three years was announced in Budget 2024.
These are efforts that the department is making, recognizing that this is a huge evolving space.
With Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate, that was launched last year, we are also encouraging projects on the ground, community-based projects, and recognizing that, historically, some of our multiculturalism programs were very community-based. But we are starting to recognize that to have a bigger national online and international impact, we need to invest in larger organizations which have a greater reach and that are more active at the digital level. Those are some of the activities that we’ve been pursuing.
Senator Osler: I would like to hear from StatCan.
Senator K. Wells: My question is for our witnesses from Statistics Canada.
Over the course of the study, we have heard from some witnesses that have expressed scepticism about the data surrounding increase in hate crimes, and, in particular, an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in general. The argument that we heard is that without a clearer definition, the statistics captured too many incidents that aren’t actually anti-Semitism or hate.
Generally, could you speak about your methodology and the accuracy, the validity, of the statistics that you collect and the reports that you issue?
Ms. Jayaraman: Thank you for the question, senator. I will start off and then turn to Ms. Léonard.
There are, obviously, multiple ways to collect information. There are two that I have referenced, and I will speak to the both of them.
One is through the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, which are reports from police. In order to be included in this particular data collection vehicle, the incident must be a criminal incident under Canada’s Criminal Code or other federal statute. The criminal incident must be directed against a person or property. The incident must be motivated by hate, bias or discrimination. That hatred can be in whole or in part, and it must be targeted against one of the enumerated groups in section 718.2 of the Criminal Code.
The point I am trying to make here is that there is specificity to the definition.
There is an element of judgment that the police exercise, because it is a police-reported motivation, which is why, even if it is not in the Criminal Code, there is a hate motivation component to it. A hate crime is defined if there is the Criminal Code component plus the hate motivation. That is a hate crime. Now, if it is hate motivation without the Criminal Code direction, then it becomes a hate incident.
There are ways in which we are trying to add a little more nuancing to the way in which the reporting is done. That’s on the UCR.
In order to facilitate not just the understanding of the Criminal Code but also in the motivation, the hate motivation component of hate crime reporting, we have, in collaboration with partners, engaged in extensive training, training that goes back to 2004, but that we certainly, through funding from CAPCH, have upped the ante on.
At this point, nearly 50% of all police services, of which there are over 900 across the country, have received the training, and the intent is to make this training available for free through the Canadian Police Knowledge Network. I am probably not quoting the network appropriately, but through their Knowledge Network.
There is more work that can be done, no doubt about it, including what I had expressed earlier around the non-criminal hate crime component. That’s where the engagement around a standard definition, does it make sense in the field, in how you are conducting your services, your duties. Does that make sense? That’s the work in progress on the UCR.
The other area in which we are very much engaged is asking people directly, and that is through the General Social Surveys that we conduct. The last one on Canadian safety was conducted, as I mentioned, in 2019. But thanks again to CAPCH funding, we do have funding to conduct the survey, not every five years but every three years. So the frequency has increased. We’re in the field now, and in this scenario, senator, we ask people directly: What are your perceptions? What has been your experience? It is fairly detailed. This is not information that people complete online because it’s sensitive information, it’s actually information that is collected in-person or on telephone with an individual on the other line.
That’s another way in which we can collect information. There is always the intent to continue to engage and continue to improve. This is why we rely on advisory committees to help inform the work that we do. Advisory committees not just comprising of police, but also of community stakeholders as well as community organizations, including working with our colleague here in the race relations task force.
Senator Arnot: I’d like to ask Mr. Hashim what national public education tools does the CRRF believe Canada urgently needs to address anti-Semitism whether online or otherwise.
Mr. Hashim: We do an enormous amount of community outreach through our Building Bridges program. It is our national program on hate crimes, where we have trained hundreds of organizations on how to report. We give them the entire continuum around “here’s what a hate crime is,” “here is how you report it,” “here is who you speak to,” and there is a component to it where we introduce them to local hate crimes detectives as well as give them their contact information and build those bridges. That’s why it’s called Building Bridges. But that’s one of our main areas around hate crimes. In terms of other public education work, we do significant amounts of work on our policing and Crown prosecution environments. Our hate factors work has been used widely by Crown prosecutors, which collates every single decision around 718.2(a) into one database so you can actually look at all hate crimes where the victim is Jewish and then you can look at all the different crimes or the judgments that judges have weighed in on. We use that to train. We don’t ever say this is hateful or not, other than what jurisprudence has taught us. So we use that.
We have another program that we just launched called the Immersive Training Program. We know that going and doing presentations with police one time doesn’t really make a lot of sense. We have a former hate crimes detective that we have hired and he goes and sits with them for an entire week to build up the hate crimes unit. We did a whole mapping from call intake to transfer of a file to prosecution. There are 14 different hand-offs of a file from the initial moment to where it goes to prosecution, where the hate motivation could be lost. So we use that as a training guideline, to see, as the hand-off goes through an organization, how do you make sure that the hate motivation is not lost? We have a variety of ways we inform the public, but mostly around the administration of justice. We think that doing a better job will help give people a better sense of safety, and there is a long way to get there.
Senator Arnot: This question is for Ms. Jayaraman. I have heard some of your testimony with Senator Wells, but do you believe that there are more reforms that could improve the quality, consistency and timeliness and of hate crime data across provinces? Is StatCan planning any new surveys or methodologies to better capture anti-Semitism, especially online or unreported incidents?
If you don’t have time to answer that right now, answering in writing would be fine with me.
Ms. Jayaraman: We always want to be improving. I would never sit here and say we have figured it out. There are data gaps, there are caveats, senator, so thank you for asking that question. We know that there are gaps in the data when it comes to courts and how hate crimes are prosecuted. That’s an area we are engaging in quite purposefully with our crime reporting court system.
We also know that the data that we are collecting through the UCR, as I mentioned earlier, is only on criminal hate crimes. There is the non-criminal we need to figure out how to standardize in consultation and sort that out.
We know that there is a human element, if you will, in perception of hate crime. While there is some subjectivity, which we need to be mindful of, it’s in having transparency around the subjectivity, when it comes to reporting that we are very purposefully getting our head around. These are just some examples of areas where we are focusing.
In terms of new types of ways where we are at least doing some analysis, there is work underway to link our data system, using data linkages without compromising confidentiality and privacy. For example, what happens over the course of a journey in the judicial system from the time the police reports to the time of the prosecution, can we use data linkages to address that question? That’s an example of what we are trying to pursue.
Senator McPhedran: We have not as a Parliament, yet, successfully pursued the Online Harms Act. I was actually quite shocked by the reference to using a platform that I would never have thought would become a conduit for training children to such violence and hate-motivated conduct as well as commentary. Is anyone focusing on this as a particular emerging area that seems to be generating such extremes in human behaviour, in children’s behaviour?
Mr. Hashim: This is an area that the government has paid attention to in the past. We are not sure it is currently on the agenda or not. We would hope that it would come back, because the floodgates are about to open. It feels like right now, there are a lot of people being impacted by this.
We hear about youth violence from police across this country. Obviously, they don’t make the news most of the time because of a variety of factors around young offenders, but it is happening out there and is certainly an area where we would like to see more regulation.
We don’t let people drive without seat belts. We don’t let people watch horrible things on TV at four o’clock. But we give kids an iPad because we are busy and we have to make dinner. Sometimes that iPad is a conduit to some of the worst things that are happening in society, and there are no checks and balances to that.
Senator McPhedran: Would anyone else care to respond?
Mr. Brown: Perhaps I can comment as well, just to say that certainly the Online Harms Act was something that was introduced in the last Parliament, and died upon the Order Paper. We continue to pursue work in this area at Canadian Heritage. Certainly, it will be for the government to decide whether or not to bring forward new legislation. A piece of that original legislative package was introduced through Bill C-9, which is preceding separately, and we recognize there is another piece which is not yet addressed.
Just to talk a little bit about that online area, it is an area, as Mr. Hashim has indicated, without regulation, and that does open up a certain area of vulnerability for Canadians, particularly for younger Canadians. It may be important to think about the kind of safeguards that can be put in place. We note that, in some countries, they have recently introduced different kinds of measures to limit social media, specifically, for younger people.
We ourselves have tremendous challenges at Canadian Heritage, particularly in terms of the two representatives that we support: the special envoy, regarding whom we are awaiting the appointment of a successor, but also Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. Almost every post they will make on social media attracts a barrage of hate.
We at Canadian Heritage have a responsibility in terms of supporting each of them in their roles, and, very frequently — almost by default now — we have to disable the comments sections because of the kinds of reactions to the messages they are sharing that are intended to be positive. It is something that is very real for governments as well as ordinary citizens.
Lucie Léonard, Director, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Social, Justice and Indigenous Statistics, Statistics Canada: In terms of what we are doing, I will state the statistics that we have around conversations here around women and misogyny culture. Women or girls accounted for a larger proportion of victims of violent cyber hate crimes at 47% versus 37% for non-cyber hate crimes in 2022. Additionally, these statistics tell us that people accused of cyber hate crimes were 27 years old, median age, but they tend to be younger than those accused of a non-cyber hate crime.
In terms of the conversations we have had recently — for example, at Public Safety Canada — there are some organizations that are looking at that, because there are links with the radicalization aspect and extremism. That is not only looking at data but we are trying to work with outside organizations, because there seems to be a younger age group around radicalization.
So there are some of those bigger trends that, when you see, how we are looking at this, internally, we are having conversations with the Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence and outside groups, as well, that are doing consultations with youth to see what kinds of work can be done online to prevent more cyber hate crimes.
We definitely see that it is a younger population in terms of age, and that is very concerning for the public.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: We could be here all night; there are so many questions to ask. I will just pick up on that last point.
We talked about victims of hate crimes, but we have not talked a lot — although we just started to talk about the youth profile of some of the perpetrators of hate crimes — but I am curious whether we have good data on either the online perpetrators and/or the in-person perpetrators of hate crime, what that data would tell us and if there are any trends that we should know about.
Ms. Jayaraman: We have information based on what is police-reported by hate crime. I don’t want to take up too much time, so can we come back to you with the breakdown of what we have? There are some tables by perpetrators and by victim.
Senator Coyle: We would love to get that in writing.
Ms. Jayaraman: To the extent it is available, we are happy to share that with you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
Mr. Hashim: To also answer Senator Arnot’s question. The biggest gap we have for statistics is that we don’t know how many hate crimes have happened. We know police-reported hate incidents or crimes, but we have zero data that is cumulative or definitive about convictions. Of all the biggest data gaps we have, I think that’s the one that needs to be fixed most urgently.
Senator Coyle: If you don’t know the true picture — you’ve told us some horrible stories, and we have heard stats of trends going up, anti-Semitism, et cetera. However, we have also heard from the survey that only one in five was at that point in 2013 reported to police. You yourself have spoken about the reluctance of certain people and groups to report to police. Maybe we are developing good programming on anti-Semitism, because maybe those are well reported — I don’t know. Islamophobia — maybe that is well reported. But are there some that are not well reported? Who are they?
Your point is a really important one, because if we have policy and programming fixes, we want to make sure we’re scratching where it itches. We do know it itches, to a certain extent, here and here, so we are doing what we can, but we don’t have the whole picture. So thank you for that.
However, in terms of programming and policy fixes, which is something we’re really interested in here, are there examples in other countries or across international efforts that we can learn from that can help guide us? Are there some leaders out there to whom we can look?
Mr. Hashim: I will give you two examples.
Germany has a robust system on addressing anti-Semitism because of their history. Each of the different states in Germany has a network of victim service organizations that states provide funding to. Individuals can go there to report. If they want to report there, then they walk with them to the police and then provide holistic supports to victims that are community-centric and trauma-informed.
There is an entire infrastructure of supports for victims of hate, which definitely does not exist over here. It exists in some pockets. All provinces have a jurisdiction for supporting victims of crime, but their responses to hate crimes are very different. Our Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime has done a report on that.
Regardless, I would say there are significant gaps in that area.
Second, currently in Bill C-9, they are talking about the definition of “hate.” Without getting too much into it, there is a definition for “hate speech” that is created by the Supreme Court, and then there is a definition for “hate motivation.” Most of the jurisdictions where hate crimes are being adjudicated, such as Greece, for example, their definition is on hate motivation, not on hate speech, attached to the crime, versus what we are currently talking about, which is the definition being attached to hate speech. That bar is significantly higher.
Senator Osler: I want to go back to Statistics Canada — not to exclude you on my first-round question on successful online strategies to combat hate and anti-Semitism.
Ms. Jayaraman: Thank you, senator.
We are in the data world, so I will speak to it from that perspective. Then I will leave it to my colleagues here on the policy program front.
We do collect data, as Ms. Léonard mentioned, on cyber hate crimes. The numbers are not looking good; Ms. Léonard shared some of that with you. As we start getting information by asking people through the general social survey that’s in the field, we will also continue to have a better idea as to the spaces where people feel safe or not, which include online platforms. There is certainly more to come, and this is an area that we will continue to flag as being a space we need to be mindful of and continue to collect data on to inform scopes of work for both programming and policies.
I hope that addresses your question.
Senator Osler: It does. Thank you very much.
The Chair: That ends our second round, and I believe Senator Wells wanted to be on a third round. On the third round, you will have two and half minutes each.
Senator K. Wells: I wanted to return to StatCan. Thank you for your comprehensive answer to my earlier question.
You mentioned the challenge with the definition of hate crimes and what some police jurisdictions are using versus others. I’m just wondering if you can or are free to comment on Bill C-9 that looks to impose a standardized definition of hate in Canada.
From a data collection standpoint, do you feel that standardized definition will improve the reporting, the recording and the accuracy of data that Stats Canada would receive? How would that definition change what Stats Canada is able to do?
Ms. Jayaraman: I’m not going to comment directly on Bill C-9. I will say, though, that we are committed to applying legislation as it exists, so if there are any changes to the legislation, what it will help us do is reapply and re-engage with police reporting so that it can then be taken into consideration when applying.
For example, if there is some clarity brought to what is now within the Criminal Code and it is “X plus,” then we would work with police departments and with the training to incorporate the “plus” in the standard definition of what we would work with police to get reports on.
I think that to the extent there are changes made to the Criminal Code, it would be our responsibility to both understand them and to apply them, to the extent that we are able, in consultation and collaboration with police services. That would be the commitment that we could bring forward.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Senator Arnot: I have one question for Canadian Heritage and one for Statistics Canada. I don’t expect the answers tonight, so I will ask that you perhaps consider it and put it in writing to the clerk, and we will all see it later.
To Canadian Heritage, what metrics do you use to evaluate whether anti-racism and anti-hate programs are actually reducing real-world anti-Semitism?
To Stats Canada, how can the federal data that you collect be better communicated to help Canadians understand the scale and nature of anti-Semitism?
The Chair: We will look forward to those responses.
Senator Coyle: The question I asked last time to Mr. Hashim, I would also like to ask of Canadian Heritage. In terms of policies and programming that you look to internationally, where do you see leadership in the world? Hopefully, some of it is right here in our own backyard, but as we are looking for those to help us move the needle, who is effectively moving the needle? Where are they, and what are they doing?
Mr. Brown: Thank you for the question, senator. Perhaps I can start there just to say, first off, certainly, we do work to look at what else is happening around the world and try to assess what is working effectively and what perhaps is not as effective. It is, actually, one of the areas where it was so important for Canada to appoint a special envoy because one of the roles — in fact, the international component of the special envoy’s role — is exactly to engage with the special envoys of other countries and understand what is happening, but also to learn best practices and take away things that could be applied back here in Canada. Hence the role of the special envoy in terms of providing support not only to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but to our Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who has the leadership role on multiculturalism and anti-hate.
In terms of our own programming, I would leave it to others to comment on those rather than ourselves. I would say, for example, the development of the handbook — I brought a copy of that with me. That was developed, again, by the special envoy. This is something that, when she shared it with other countries and special envoys around the world, has been seen as a leadership piece for Canada. Certainly, if that’s not something that the committee has, we would be happy to share copies of it.
That would be the first thing I would say. We also recognize — and this gets back a little bit to the online piece, but it is the in-person piece as well. What some of the polarization has resulted in, along many different lines, is that people only have conversations with other like-minded individuals and not with other communities. The algorithms with social media reinforce that, for example.
Just to say, the kind of work that we’ve been looking at — I think some of the work that the Canadian Race Relations Foundation has been doing as well — has been this aspect of building bridges or really trying to promote dialogue among different people and find ways to bring Canadians together. I just wanted to say that’s one of the things that we think is really important, whether it is addressing anti-Semitism, racism or simply addressing issues that are dividing Canadians.
The Chair: Okay, perfect. We’ve now come to the end of our session. That was truly informative and substantive, so thank you all sincerely for agreeing to participate in this important study today. Your assistance is greatly appreciated, as well as the information that you will forward along. Mr. Brown, we will certainly be interested in receiving that leadership piece that you referred to. Thank you, all.
I will now turn to our second panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes each. This will be followed by questions from senators.
With us at the table today, we welcome Artur Wilczynski, Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs from the University of Ottawa. With us by video conference, we have Ms. Mira Sucharov, professor, Carleton University. And also with us we have Ivan Kalmar, Professor of Anthropology.
Artur Wilczynski, Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs, University of Ottawa, as an individual: Thank you very much chair and senators for the opportunity to share views on the state of anti-Semitism in Canada.
I want to share more information about who I am and why these issues are important to me.
I was the inaugural executive champion of the Jewish Public Servants’ Network. I served as Canada’s Head of Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when the organization adopted its definition of anti-Semitism.
I was also one of Canada’s negotiators during the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban in 2001, a process widely seen in my community as a milestone in the legitimization of anti-Semitic discourse in the UN system.
I retired from a 32-year career in public service, places such as Canadian Heritage, Public Safety Canada, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, and I am currently a member of the Board of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship here in Ottawa where we are working on countering anti-Semitic hate crime at a local level here in the city.
I’m the son of Holocaust survivors and came to Canada in June 1969 as a young boy, a refugee from Communist Poland that in March 1968 launched a virulent anti-Semitic campaign under the guise of anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism then and today is a Soviet-inspired hate movement that profoundly affected Jews and continues to affect Jews worldwide.
As a Jew and a gay man, I grew up with experiences of both anti-Semitism and homophobia. This intersectional experience has guided my personal and professional commitment to combat all forms of discrimination.
What is happening today is a level of anti-Semitism never experienced in my 56 years in this country. The targeting of Jewish institutions – shooting, firebombing vandalism — are frequent. The demonization, incitement to violence, the erasure of Jewish experiences with racism, and our exclusion from measures to combat discrimination inside our institutions contribute to the anxiety and fear being felt by Canadian Jews. These experiences started before but have intensified after the attacks of October 7, 2023.
We spend too much time talking about anti-Semitism and not enough time fighting it. Debates about definitions detract from action. Canada and more than 40 other countries have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, definition. Eight provinces have either adopted or endorsed it. Prolonging debates about definitions while ignoring the lived experiences of Canadian Jews is unacceptable.
To reopen a debate about a definition that has been accepted by all major Jewish organizations as well as the federal and provincial governments would be a massive step backward. In fact, it’s an act that would harm efforts to confront anti‑Semitism.
Institutions need to live up to their obligations to protect members of the Jewish community. Our Charter rights are not diminished by our identity, yet institutions are failing to protect Jews. Police, Crown prosecutors, federal institutions — and, yes, including the Senate — have not done enough on anti-Semitism. The fact this committee amplified views of groups such as Independent Jewish Voices Canada in its examination of anti‑Semitism tokenizes a marginal group that has consistently dismissed the concerns and experiences of an overwhelming majority of Jews. The demonization of Israel and Zionism is intimately intertwined with skyrocketing anti-Semitism.
Jews are increasingly pushed out of public spaces, and this is happening everywhere from Pride parades to the public service. Jews have a right to expect that institutions designed to protect all Canadians will do their jobs.
Equity, diversity and inclusion must include Jews, or the phrase is meaningless. The fact that almost five months have now passed without the government naming a new Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism is unacceptable. If the government doubts the effectiveness of the role, it should eliminate all such positions.
We need to strengthen laws against hate, particularly online — and we had a lot of conversations about that already — but, more importantly, we need consistent enforcement of existing laws, those countering intimidation, promotion of hate, mischief and vandalism. Jews are tired. Most are angry. Many are scared. Some of us are giving up on this country and leaving for the U.S. or elsewhere.
Years ago, my mother was concerned when I told her I would study political science and pursue public service as a career. She worried my chosen field would not be portable when I needed to flee, to run. My family already had to run twice in my parents’ lifetime — first from Nazis and then from communists. My mother never took for granted that we will be perpetually safe in Canada.
I told her then, and I tell her now, “I’m not going anywhere.”
I am Canadian. I love this country. It has given my family and I everything. I will continue to fight to make it better.
I hope Jews can count on you to ensure all Canadians, including us, can live together in peace, prosperity and wellness. Anything less is a betrayal of the promise of Canada.
Thank you.
Mira Sucharov, Professor, Carleton University, as an individual: Honourable senators, anti-Semitism in Canada is real and is increasing. It appears in workplaces, on campuses and in schools. It has even reached levels of attempted murder, as was the case in an Ottawa grocery store last summer.
Let me address the elephant in the room: No matter their citizenship, Jews in Canada should never be held responsible for the actions of another state, in this case the state of Israel. At the same time, some Jewish institutions here in Canada need to realize that they may be fuelling this wrong-headed assumption by presenting all or part of their mission as being to support Israel.
About anti-Semitism in K to 12 schools, my thinking is informed by the very disturbing data in the study conducted recently by sociologist Robert Brym. At the same time, there were some incidents included in the report that are better understood as anti-Zionist rather than as being anti-Semitic. In general, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing. Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews. It can be expressed as discrimination or prejudice or violence or social ostracism of and against Jews for being Jews. Anti-Zionism, on the other hand, is opposition to a particular state ideology.
All national and political ideologies have always been and always should be subject to critique. These include capitalism, communism, socialism, social democracy, even Islamism, by which I mean a state structure that draws on its views of Islam for governing. What’s more, Zionism is understood very differently by different people.
When I surveyed American Jews in 2021, I found that most considered themselves Zionist but that when presented with a series of different definitions of “Zionism,” the number varied wildly. When I said that Zionism means an emotional attachment to Israel or that it means a belief in a Jewish and democratic state, the numbers of surveyed were in the low 70s. But when I presented them with the definition of “Zionism” that I know from my own research is what Palestinians have and do experience at the hands of the state of Israeli, the number plummeted. When I said that “Zionism” means the privileging of Jews over non-Jews in Israel, only 10% of my survey respondents of American Jews said that according to that definition, they are Zionist.
Because of its near conflation of anti-Zionism with anti‑Semitism, I believe the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism” should be reconsidered by the Canadian government. I am a founding signatory of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, or JDA, and I also serve on the Nexus Task Force on Issues Related to Israel & Antisemitism. Both the JDA and the Nexus documents attempt to clarify what anti-Semitism is and isn’t. I would urge Canadian leaders to consult these two definitions.
Next, anti-Semitism should be taught, I believe, as both separate and linked. This also goes for equity, diversity and inclusion, or EDI. Anti-Semitism should be included alongside all the other important types of equity and diversity imperatives. This doesn’t mean erasing the singularity of any group’s experience, but it does mean understanding how human rights and civil rights struggles are related.
We need more dialogue, not less. There has been much hand‑wringing about the slogans used by Palestinian Canadians and their allies in their protests on Canadian streets before and especially since October 7, 2023. Before claiming that certain phrases are anti-Semitic, we need to ask protesters what they mean by their words “freedom,” “Palestine,” “intifada” and “globalize.”
Similarly, locations of protest should be chosen with one goal: policy change, not intimidation of Jews. It is not only possible to view our joint futures — Jewish Canadians and Palestinian Canadians — as intertwined, it is an imperative. At the same time, the responsibility for dialogue should not rest solely with Jewish leaders. The push for what has become known as anti‑normalization by some Palestine solidarity activists has, unfortunately, weakened many of these lines of communication. As a solution, I would offer the term “co-resistance,” a term that means pushing back together against all oppression, so that everybody’s basic rights are honoured.
Finally, there has been much discussion about whether Jews are the most targeted minority in Canada or not. This is a distraction. Our energies are better placed focusing on the problem itself — in this case anti-Semitism — and on enabling Canada to fulfill its 21st-century promise.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Sucharov.
Ivan Kalmar, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto, as an individual: Madam Chair and esteemed senators, I’m deeply grateful for the chance to speak to you and contribute to the deliberations of this committee.
I was gratified to hear on the previous panel Mr. Hashim refer to the need to maintain conversations among affected communities as a necessary means for fighting hate and discrimination. My research on anti-Semitism asserts that it has always been intertwined with Islamophobia. The two hatreds have been — as Edward Said put it — “nourished at the same stream.” That stream is the Christian tradition of imagining both Jews and Muslims as a rival with origins in the birthplace of the Bible, the Middle East.
Today still, when events force attention to either Muslim or Jew, these old suspicions return. Both are continuously asked to prove their virtue and to demonstrate that they are the right kind of Muslim and the right kind of Jew. In the words of Mahmood Mamdani, after 9/11, “unless proved to be ‘good,’ every Muslim was presumed to be ‘bad.’ This pressure on Muslims to demonstrate their non-terrorist virtue continues.
In the wake of the most recent violence in Gaza, some now also strive to distinguish a “good Jew” — meaning a critic of Israel — from a “bad Jew” — meaning a “Zionist.”
I do not argue for false moral equivalences. The suffering of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s brutality is incomparably greater than that of a Canadian-Jewish academic worried about being told to be a good Jew.
However, I was asked to testify about anti-Semitism, and that I will. Though I speak in my individual capacity, I know that my personal experience is shared by many others. We want to condemn Israeli violence, especially since it is perpetrated in our names as Jews. What we don’t want is to speak as an accused party, guilty unless proved otherwise.
This committee has heard criticism, including by Jewish groups, of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, definition that appears to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. I agree wholeheartedly with that criticism. Yet, when some anti-Zionists reduce the term “Zionist” to little more than a slur against a bad Jew, and demand from every Jew that they speak up against it, then that can be anti-Semitic, indeed.
In academia and other creative fields especially, Jews feel pressured to publicly declare their anti-Zionism, even when Zionism is used in this indiscriminately pejorative sense. If they don’t, they risk isolation, loss of status and opportunities and microaggression by former friends. A recent study of anti‑Semitism at Harvard University found that experience pervasive. I find it so in Canada as well. What makes it worse is that declarations of anti-Zionism don’t suffice to allay the suspicion that one is a bad Jew.
They require repetition at every turn. For this is a suspicion nourished not only by recent events but by deep history, by the “ancient stream” spoken of by Edward Said.
An anti-Zionism that insists on declarations of compliance from Jews is racism. It should be combatted along with similar demands on Muslims.
There is no getting away from the fact that, in Israel and Palestine, Palestinians have become, to quote Edward Said again, “the victims of victims.” However, without making false moral equivalences, by comparing the notions of the good Jew and bad Jew to those of the good Muslim and bad Muslim, I mean to provide a small example of what one can do to restore mutual recognition, without which a just way forward will never be possible.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kalmar. We will now invite the senators to engage in a question-and-answer session. We have five minutes each for your question and your answer.
Senator K. Wells: My first question is for Mr. Wilczynski. Thank you for being with us in the room today and sharing your opening remarks.
In your remarks, you said that there has been too much time talking and not enough action. I’m wondering about your thoughts on the government’s proposed Bill C-9 and the role that legislation, if passed, might play in countering anti-Semitism in Canada.
Mr. Wilczynski: The legislation is helpful and is a step in the right direction. It does identify and cover a number of important issues and focuses on where the problem is moving forward, and it is evolving quickly. I hope it does pass.
My issue is that focusing just on legislative responses to hate crime, and specifically to anti-Semitic hate crime, is not enough. I heard some of your previous witnesses talk about rates of reporting. One of the folks from Statistics Canada mentioned that the rate of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2025 seems to have dipped. There are many reasons why hate crime statistics vary over time, but I would argue that one of them is an increasing frustration with members of the Jewish community about their perceptions of police responses to anti-Semitic hate crime — the fact that they will not be responded to or that they will be diminished.
When I reported a crime, I received death threats that were very specific. They weren’t anti-Zionist. They said, “This Jew must die.” I received those at the University of Ottawa. I reported them to the police. The police took the information, but very quickly told me that there would not be anything they could do about it because of the online limitations of anonymity of email death threats. People react to their experiences, and that will affect the effectiveness of things such as the Online Harms Act. A lot of it will be in how it is implemented and what the lived experiences of the victims will be in terms of the environment they create.
Senator K. Wells: Outside of legislation, what suggestions do you have or what would be your key recommendations to address anti-Semitism in Canada?
Mr. Wilczynski: There are a few things. Number one, education. The fact that Canadian heritage is here is very important in terms of making sure that people know who Jews are. Since my retirement, I have been going to schools and various institutions to talk about anti-Semitism and Holocaust education. One of the first things I realize is that people have no idea who Jews are. There are perceptions and stereotypes, but they don’t know who we are as a people. What our experiences are as Canadians, as Jews in Canada, is something that most Canadians don’t know.
As part of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, we received a grant from the Province of Ontario to develop a very specific program for the city of Ottawa to counter anti-Semitic hate crime with an emphasis on developing online tools, but also to target specific subgroups that we understand are more likely to engage in anti-Semitic hate crime. Those are the kinds of initiatives that empower local communities and recognize the diversity of the lived experience of Jews across this country. My experience as a Jew in the city of Ottawa is not the same as that of a Jew in Montreal, Toronto or in the North.
How do we engage those communities to actually create the tools and create that better understanding between communities that my panellists have spoken about, but that also reflect their lived experiences and empower them to work with various stakeholders, whether it is the United Way, the police service, school boards or mental health services to target their responses in a more effective way?
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Senator Arnot: These two questions are for Professor Kalmar. Professor, how does anti-Semitism operate differently from other forms of racism? Why does this matter for policy and education?
My second question is as follows: What role should museums, cultural institutions and public broadcasters play in combatting anti-Semitism?
Mr. Kalmar: Thank you very much for these important questions, which ultimately can be answered from many angles. I will answer them just from my angle, because I have experience researching the connection specifically between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
The first question, I believe, was how anti-Semitism relates to other forms of racism and discrimination. Professor Sucharov pointed out that it is best to study anti-Semitism both as different and as an example of other forms of hatred. I would add that there is, I believe, a specific relationship between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. This is because these two hatreds stem from a very long tradition in Christianity of imagining the enemy as the other, and even though we live now in a more secular society, the bank of images, representations and the stories that are passed on at home informally from generation to generation are the same. I think, therefore, that recognizing that connection between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism more would be not only important in terms of general knowledge but also important for Jews and Muslims to recognize each other because, let’s face it, due to the Israel-Palestinian situation, anti-Semitism is high among Muslims and Islamophobia is high among Jews. We need to recognize it is a complicated issue that has to do with the political situation. To bridge it, an emphasis on this common history of othering might be useful.
That leads me to your second question, senator, which is about museums, public events and so forth, that if their purpose is to combat hatred, I would recommend exploring the possibility that they be staged together by Jews and Muslims so that both they and the public can form an opinion about these two hatreds that are so central to civilization in countries with a Christian heritage such as Canada.
Senator Arnot: This question is for Mr. Wilczynski. Sir, how should Canada and Canadians understand anti-Semitism as a security threat, not only a social issue?
Mr. Wilczynski: Thank you very much for that question. It is an important one. I would refer folks to the presentation just a couple of weeks ago by Dan Rogers, the head of CSIS. When he talked about his threat assessment and the rise in threat, he mentioned anti-Semitism as one of the specific drivers of national security threats to Canada.
I would look at it through the lens that you have already talked about, which is the radicalization of youth. That’s another thing that Director Rogers spoke about in his presentation. I think one in ten of the national security investigations that CSIS is looking at is youth who have committed that. Here in Ottawa, we have youth charged with counterterrorism, two young individuals targeting the Jewish community here. We need to look at it through a youth-radicalization lens.
We also need to look at it through the lens of foreign interference, disinformation and misinformation. From a foreign interference perspective, we need to recognize that there are malign actors for whom breaking down social cohesion in Canada and other Western countries is a strategic objective. Amplifying anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination is a mechanism by which those states and other hostile actors achieve their outcomes. Looking at the role that Canada’s national security and intelligence apparatus plays in giving insight to policy leaders about the nature of the threat, whether it is online or in real life, is increasingly important. It is important for those institutions to be far more transparent with communities that are affected by things such as anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination as well.
Given the history that exists between many of these national security institutions and those communities where trust has not necessarily been at the forefront, they need to understand, again, the lived experience of the victims of these kinds of activities and how they manifest themselves and compound people’s sense of vulnerability in their own homes and in Canadian response to these types of hate crimes.
Senator Coyle: Thank you so much for all of our witnesses for being with us. I have a quick question for you, Mr. Wilczynski.
It is around the issue of Holocaust education in particular. I have been reading about this and thinking about it as well. Your parents’ generation and my parents’ generation are those who either fought in the Second World War or were victims of the Holocaust in the Second World War. Those people are few and far between. I am curious now about whether there is any — this is just something that has occurred to me lately — relationship with the Royal Canadian Legion, for example? The Canadian Legion has incredible tentacles reaching into schools and communities at every level. I just wonder: Has there been any collaboration with the Legions themselves? They want to keep alive the legacy of the heroes of the Second World War, and those heroes of the Second World War were doing something that is related to the Holocaust. I’m just curious whether there is any link there at all.
Mr. Wilczynski: My experience specifically with the Legion, is very limited in terms of its intersection with Holocaust education. Organizations that I have been involved with have worked with, for example, the Canadian War Museum and other institutions that commemorate Canada’s contribution to the war effort, and that’s important.
As part of those conversations, we also hear that many veterans, particularly World War II veterans, historically, have been reluctant to make the connection that the reason why they went to fight in the Second World War was linked to any kind of response to the situation of Europe’s Jews at the time. The problem that you set out is a fundamental one for organizations such as the one that I’m a member of. At the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, we are tackling that directly. We have a program called Through Their Eyes, and that program helps the descendants of Holocaust survivors tell their stories effectively. Because as those survivors die, being able to have that very direct connection to that history where individuals can speak to the intergenerational effects of that trauma on themselves, their families and their communities is fundamentally important. It is a key element of our programming here in the city of Ottawa.
Senator Coyle: It’s just something that occurs to me because they are very effective. We want to be effective at anti-Semitism education.
I have so many questions. I have got to narrow it down. I am very curious, Ms. Sucharov. I completely agree with you that Jews in Canada should never be held responsible for the actions of Israel, and we keep hearing, from a number of our witnesses, that this is actually at the root of some of the growth in the problems we’re seeing with anti-Semitism in our country.
You have talked about the importance of dialogue, and we have heard about this before from some other witnesses. We need more dialogue and not less. I am curious and would love to hear more about how to do that. Dialogue between — it is hot. The temperature is really high with that. How do we bring that temperature down and actually bring people who are expressing anti-Semitism and people who are expressing Islamophobia together? How does that happen?
Ms. Sucharov: I gave one suggestion: Adopt the term “co‑resistance,” but that implies a commitment before entering that room and that dialoguing space to recognizing each other’s humanity and recognizing a baseline of rights. Sometimes that can bring down the temperature and reduce the defensiveness right away before the actual talking begins.
The other suggestion I have is to make sure that one is defining one’s terms and one is inquiring to the other about what they mean: What do you mean by Zionism? What do you mean by saying, “Palestine shall be free”? What does that mean to you? That can help a lot. It is also really important. I don’t think there is a unit necessarily on Zionism in the elementary or high school curricula, as far as I know, but I think maybe there needs to be. That could be brought into a world history unit on all sorts of global ideologies, I am sure. There is a desire for students to understand what communism is or was, and what socialism is and what social democracy is, which is something Canadians and Europeans talk about a lot. There needs to be a nuanced understanding of what these terms mean to others, and what they mean to someone who is using them.
I agree with you that the large uptake in anti-Semitic incidents is a function of what Israel is doing in Gaza. At the same time, there is a lot of classic anti-Semitism that was gone. It seemed to be erased when I was growing up and now it is back with a vengeance. My own kids have been on the receiving end of both those forms of anti-Semitism, the classical kind and the more Palestine-solidarity-motivated kind.
Senator McPhedran: I am very interested in hearing more about — I think we have different points of view on the panel, and I find that enormously helpful. But if you each feel inclined to respond a bit more, not only on the IHRA definition itself but on the utilization of the definition, and where you think it may be fomenting further division or where it may be actually clarifying and helping.
Professor Wilczynski, you look like you are ready to go, so I will ask you.
Mr. Wilczynski: I have been ready to go for this for a while. Look, I have spoken to those who have raised the profile of the IHRA definition in a way that is unhelpful and have spent a lot of political capital talking about how important it is to implement and for various institutions to adopt it. As someone who was in the room when we negotiated it, adopted it, and through the process of negotiation, amended it a number of times, I think their expectations of what it would do are unrealistic.
I also think that critics of the IHRA definition overstate what they perceive to be the negative effects, particularly what they argue is a stymieing of the ability to have a legitimate critique of the Government of Israel.
I can say, from my perspective, when we were negotiating this, what came to us as an intergovernmental, multilateral organization as a draft is not what left. We added significant changes to the text in order to recognize the nuances associated with how anti-Semitism manifests itself and how people experience it.
That’s why the language in the text has many conditional words, such as “may,” “could,” and “subject to interpretation,” and why it separates the core definition from a list of illustrative examples, and then implores those who use it to use good judgment and good sense in order to then effectively bring its intent to whatever policy question, whatever incident, whatever domain is relevant, whether it is hospitals, police forces or other governmental institutions. It is about having good sense to interpret it.
Senator McPhedran: Could we ask the other panellists if they would like to respond, please?
Ms. Sucharov: Sure. The same reason that some people, like my fellow panellist, are in favour of the IHRA is the same reason that people like me are opposed to it. It is not incidental that this happens to be a document that exists and it happens to be okay. The reason I believe that people are on the opposite sides of this issue is the degree to which Zionism is brought in and folded into the definition. The examples are a core part of the way the definition is implemented and thought about. Otherwise, we could just say let’s use one of many other thoughtful, I believe, definitions.
With respect to my fellow disciplinary political scientist, it is more than the government. I would urge everyone to take a look at a recent article by another colleague of mine at Penn State named Ian Lustick, a political scientist who talks about the difference between state, government and regime. In this case, I think we are talking about something that goes beyond which government is elected at any given time in Israel. There is something more fundamental that people are pointing to, just the way people are pointing to the settler-colonial roots of Canada and the more serious work that has to be done with the Indigenous Peoples on the land; and the same anti-racism work that people are talking about doing in the United States; the same anti-apartheid work that was done in South Africa. All these kinds of discourses can and often do apply to Israel. That’s what I have to say on IHRA.
Senator McPhedran: Second round please to our third panellist.
Senator Osler: I would appreciate hearing from our two online witnesses. We heard earlier comments on the threat to national security, how mis- and disinformation, malign actors and foreign interference all increase disruption of social cohesion, increase polarization and increase radicalization. I would appreciate commentary from our two online panellists with that in mind and the lens of anti-Semitism. Can we start with Professor Sucharov?
Ms. Sucharov: Yes. What is your question exactly?
Senator Osler: Are you able to provide your thoughts, your commentary on mis- and disinformation, malign actors and foreign interference with the lens of anti-Semitism and the aim to disrupt social cohesion in Canada and increase polarization? Just your thoughts.
Ms. Sucharov: I have hypotheses about it but I don’t have evidence because I have not investigated this directly. This is certainly something that I would advise our security agencies could and should address. As to external interference, yes, we do understand that many actors outside of our country and perhaps some inside view sowing chaos and sowing divisions as a divide‑and-conquer type of goal. I appreciate that this issue was raised by my fellow panellist. Certainly, anti-Semitism is a long‑standing hatred that has often been deployed by those who want to undermine social cohesion. It is very important that we look to that as a possible source, yes.
Mr. Kalmar: I do have some data. I have for many years studied conspiracy theories about George Soros. As you know, George Soros is a famous financier of left-wing and progressive causes, and he is Jewish. The conspiracy theories have many varieties. In one of them, Soros funds Muslim migrants who come to Europe, but Soros is also part of a Jewish conspiracy, so it is the collective Jewish people, headed by Soros, who fund these Muslims to come to Europe and to replace the White population. It is a version of this great replacement theory.
Now, it is widely suggested that the Soros conspiracy theory was spread by two American publicists who advised the Israeli government. The Israeli government is also very anti-Soros in much the same way as the Hungarian and Russian governments, and much the same way as parts of the public in Western Europe and the United States are.
I actually had an opportunity to harvest tweets when it was Twitter. We collected more than a million of them having to do with Soros and looked at other kinds of materials. I believe I can prove that the idea that George Soros fomented migration came together from Russia and from the United States. It was proposed first in Russia, but the same day, it was already known by some right-wing commentators in the United States — Lyndon LaRouche, specifically. The conspiracy theory began to spread, and we have records of this in many languages, not only English, but also Spanish and what have you.
I’m not referring to specifically Canada — and I don’t mean to digress too far or to sound like a conspiracy theorist myself — but the same networks have lately been agitating against Canada as a country that is a seat of liberalism, soft on migrants and so forth. Yes, I think it is a very good question, and there is very much to be discovered there.
Senator Arnot: My question is for Professor Sucharov. You are a professor at Carleton University. What trends in campus anti-Semitism concern you the most right now? How do you believe it should be addressed?
Ms. Sucharov: Certainly, classic anti-Semitism, students I’ve heard who are name-called, and also, social shunning and social ostracization, feeling very uncomfortable in their skin as Jews on campus. I think a large part of what we need to be doing on campus is dialogue. This is what campuses are best at. We need to have more panels and more events. I know that many universities are very nervous about this.
For my part, I have a research partner down in the United States. I am a Canadian Jew, he is a Palestinian American, and we have gone around to many campuses. Most of our invitations come from the United States. We have had some Canadian invitations and we’ve had some invitations rescinded, including from Canada, because of nervousness as to what kind of worms will be opened in the can. I think opening these cans are exactly what we need to be doing, and we need to be modelling.
It is more than just me and my research partner. There are many pairs out there doing this kind of work. We need to be modelling this kind of discourse for our students and allowing them to pose questions, to make mistakes, to inquire and to protest.
I think closing the quad to protests is not the way to go. If protests are being heard by other groups as hurtful, we need to dig in and ask, “What do you mean by Palestine shall be free?” It is not at all obvious to me that calling for a free Palestine means pushing Jews out. I call for freedom across the land, and by that, I mean for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. Let’s talk about what is meant and what is heard, with an aim toward increasing our campuses to what I really like to think of as learning communities. Thank you for this important question.
Senator McPhedran: If I may, our panellist who didn’t get a chance to answer, please, could we start with you on the definition?
Mr. Kalmar: Are we speaking about IHRA?
Senator McPhedran: Yes. Do you feel clear on the question? I can summarize it again.
Mr. Kalmar: I think it was about the IHRA definition.
Senator McPhedran: Yes, and it was about your perspective on its usefulness and/or perhaps not.
Mr. Kalmar: Well, I don’t think it’s useful. To save time — thank you for noticing that I was overlooked — but I would say I really do agree very much with Professor Sucharov.
I think it comes down to the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The IHRA definition, no matter how much you tweak it, amend it and so forth, has already gotten itself such a bad reputation for encouraging — indeed, stymieing — pro‑Palestinian voices, that I think it would be better not to be wedded to it. Perhaps Parliament should look at making its own definition based on consultations like this one and definitions that do exist. Personally, I like the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism very much. Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Professor Kalmar, could you expand a little bit on that last point about preferring the Jerusalem declaration?
Mr. Kalmar: The Jerusalem declaration, which I haven’t read for a while but Professor Sucharov is a signatory, is very liberal on the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It does not include anti-Semitism — and Professor Sucharov could correct me here — even arguing against the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. It is not necessarily anti-Semitism, according to the Jerusalem declaration, but I think it would very much be anti‑Semitism under the IHRA definition. That is to give an extreme example.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. This brings us to end of our second panel. I would like to sincerely thank you as witnesses for agreeing to participate in this important study. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
I will now turn to our third panel. With us by video conference, we have Kenneth Stern, Director, Bard Center for the Study of Hate. With us at the table, we have Mr. Mark Berlin, Professor, Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University. Welcome. Finally, appearing by video conference, we have Annie Ohana, Equity Department Head and Anti Oppression Curriculum Specialist.
We will now invite Mr. Stern to make his presentation.
Kenneth Stern, Director, Bard Center for the Study of Hate, as an individual: Thank you for inviting me, honourable senators. I’m Kenneth Stern. I direct the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. I also worked at the American Jewish Committee for 25 years, where I directed the division on anti-Semitism, and in 2004 was the lead drafter of the text of what is now known as the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. That definition was created primarily to help data collectors across Europe gauge the level of anti-Semitism across time and borders.
Many of the examples were about Israel because then, as now, there is a correlation between certain expressions about Israel and the level of societal anti-Semitism.
Unfortunately, since 2010, proponents of the definition have used it as a de facto hate speech code targeting expressions about Israel, particularly on campus going after text faculty assign and political speech.
Proponents say anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. But, of course, not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Among Jews, most are Zionist, but for some their Judaism leads them to anti-Zionism.
In Germany, IHRA was used to label Jews protesting the war in Gaza anti-Semites. One commentator noted the irony of Germany again defining what it means to be a Jew, what’s a legitimate Jewish position. No state should be deciding this internal religious issue.
In education, the adoption of IHRA violates academic freedom. It’s also unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and has been held so by U.S. federal courts.
If there’s a definition of anti-Semitism, why not, to be fair, also adopt a definition — which came out of Canada — of anti‑Palestinian racism? And if you do that, what can administrators do when someone says, “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” or “Israel has the right to a Jewish state between the river to the sea”? Why not adopt one for every other type of bigotry that some believe are associated with political speech? How would that work?
What do you do as an administrator on a campus if there’s a fundamentalist Christian group that believes in the gospels? IHRA includes an assertion of Jews killing Jesus as one of its examples.
And consider Columbia University’s Marianne Hirsch, a tenured genocide scholar from a family of Holocaust survivors. She said she may quit because she doesn’t know how she can teach with IHRA in place. IHRA is being used to limit what professors can teach, similar to what happened in the McCarthy period in the U.S.
When I speak to synagogues about what worries me most about anti-Semitism today, I point to two things. First, the vilification of anyone among us creates a conveyer belt to anti‑Semitism. Anti-immigrant hysteria was the background to the 2019 mass murder of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans at a Walmart in El Paso. No one would call that an act of anti‑Semitism. But a few months earlier Jews were gunned down at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. That shooter knew that a synagogue had hosted a pro-immigrant event. The two shooters had the same ideology, just chose different targets.
And think of Charlottesville. This was a protest over the removal of a Confederate statue. Why did they chant, “Jews shall not replace us”? Anti-Semitism at its core is two things: a belief that Jews conspire to harm humanity, and that conspiracy is the explanation for what goes wrong in the world.
If you’re a White supremacist believing you are losing to inferior people, how can that be? Someone must be putting their finger on the scales. That would be Jews.
Second, our ability to fight hate, including anti-Semitism, is directly related to the strength of our democratic institutions. Jews have been particularly vulnerable during times when free speech, academic freedom and due process were under duress.
In the U.S., we are seeing the government prescribing what can be taught about race and gender, and a good part of the Jewish community, which likely objects to those efforts to silence speech and teaching, is asking, unfortunately, for the government to do something similar regarding Israel.
We are losing the distinction between actual harassment, true threats and bullying on one hand, and hearing ideas that may disturb us on the other.
Instead of defining what political speech we would like the government to chill or suppress, we should be working to underscore that we are all human beings first, and encourage students — and the rest of us — to have the emotional empathy and intellectual curiosity about why our classmates and neighbours might have views we detest.
In my 2020 book, The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, I outlined courses on Israel/Palestine, hate, anti-Semitism, free speech and so much more — that are designed to do just that. Now, there’s even an AI program called Sway that pairs students in discussions of contentious topics like Israel and Palestine. No raised voices, no eye rolls, just text back and forth. It’s fun and effective.
Let’s empower complexity and empathy and more speech, not target speech some might want the government to suppress.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stern. We will now go to Mr. Berlin.
Mark Berlin, Professor, Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University, as an individual: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good evening, senators. It is wonderful to see some friendly faces, people I have known and worked with in the past.
Let me begin by introducing myself to you. Like many of you, I wear several hats. I am currently a professor of practice at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development, a board member of the Justice Education Society in British Columbia, and perhaps of some interest to you, I am a member of the Board of Trustees for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. You may have heard of us lately. I emphasize, however, that I speak in my personal capacity alone and not on behalf of any institution with which I am associated.
Of particular relevance to this committee, I want to let you know that I previously served as the Director General of International Development at the Department of Justice where I had my career for over 30 years. In that role, I oversaw several Justice sector reconstruction initiatives, most significantly a long-term technical assistance project in the Palestinian Authority from 2008 to 2016. Under my leadership, the Department of Justice actually established a physical presence. We actually had a satellite office of the Department of Justice in Ramallah. The goal of my office there was to establish a functioning Attorney General’s office.
I also served as Special Advisor on the Middle East to then‑Attorney General Irwin Cotler as we embarked on several peace initiatives in Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
I share this background with you only to underscore my familiarity with the region, its institutions and its people.
Through this work for more than a decade, I dedicated much of my professional life to facilitating dialogue between Muslims and Jews in Israel and the Palestinian territories. We operated on the premise that coexistence required functioning governance on the Palestinian side, and that dialogue, trust and shared objectives benefited both communities. Those were, in many respects, the golden years of relationship building in the region.
Having witnessed what true, genuine collaboration looks like, it is deeply disheartening for me to contrast that experience with what I and many Jews have encountered in Canada in recent years. The environment of mutual respect I helped nurture abroad stands in stark contrast to the shocking rising hostility and anti-Semitism we face here at home.
I was thinking in the last session of incidents in the past year, like the Davis Cup in Halifax, where they had to ensure that there was no audience in the stands because an Israeli team was participating. I think of the TIFF where a film was banned because it detailed the events of October 7. Then, of course, there was the Pride parade in Montreal, where it stated clearly that Jews were not permitted to be part of that Pride parade until, of course, there was some backlash after that.
Now, allow me to share three personal examples that reflect a very common thread: the erasure of Jews and diminishment of my very being. Whether that erasure is the result of individuals concealing their identity for safety, or institutions diminishing or ignoring Jewish experiences, the consequence is exclusion.
First, I will talk about my academic home. For over 18 months, the encampments at McGill and the conspicuous lack of law-enforcement response created a climate of insecurity for Jewish students and faculty. Intimidation became a daily reality. Across North America, such encampments generated headlines, but McGill distinguished itself as being both one of the most dangerous and one of the longest-lasting.
Second, let me share with you a simple personal story. For years, I wore my Magen David — my Star of David — quite openly at work, at leisure time, at the gym. I never took it off. Now when I go out in public, I conceal it. At the gym, I consciously cover my neck with a towel out of fear that it may provoke hostility. This is new in the last couple of years.
My husband and I, along with our extended family and friends, spend our winters in south Florida. When asked why we continue to go to the United States, our answer is simple: For six months, we do not have to hide who we are. There are no demonstrations at overpasses or in Jewish neighbourhoods calling for the death of Jews, death to the IDF or death to Israel. Please don’t underestimate the profound significance of that peace of mind that we have for six months.
I can honestly say that we do not experience that same sense of security here in Canada. Why is that? We have strong laws, bylaws and regulations, perhaps even strengthened by the recently proposed Criminal Code amendments. What we lack, however, is the willingness to enforce them. Why are police and prosecutors reluctant to act when Jews are harassed, threatened or intimidated?
Third, let me talk about the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. As all of you know, there is now a significant controversy surrounding a planned exhibit on the Nakba, the very term being a source of hostility according to some. The exhibit I have not seen, and I cannot comment in terms of content. As a board member, I do not dictate content, and I have not seen the content. My responsibility is, however, to safeguard the reputation and integrity of that institution. At this moment, I believe that reputation is at risk.
For several years, I have unequivocally stated at board meetings that I support the creation at the museum of an exhibit on Palestinian rights, full stop. I repeat this now publicly lest there be any confusion. My twofold request remains the same and is the same request I have made over the last long period of time: One, I am asking for an exhibit to be grounded in balance, rigorous scholarship and historical accuracy; and two, in this case, it would involve hearing from the mainstream Jewish community. I am looking for a robust consultation plan, as happens with other exhibits as we routinely implement them.
No matter what side one comes down on in this instance, what is undeniable, according to the duelling op-eds and the opposing newspaper articles in the two national newspapers, more than 20,000 emails have been received pro and con. The outreach that I’ve received from Jewish organizations, the undeniable truth is that the proposed exhibit is deepening divisions between Muslims and Jews in Canada. We have seemingly created a space where mistrust is cultivated, passions inflamed and hostility heightened, and this all for an exhibit that will not open until spring 2026.
How have we arrived at a place where Jews are excluded from this conversation and otherwise erased? As some Muslims would say, “These are our stories. You don’t get to weigh in.” So where is the assurance that the research underpinning this exhibit is trusted, objective, balanced and historically sound? Where is the confidence that no one community will be demonized? Why are we not creating an exhibit that brings us together through our shared humanity rather than driving us further apart?
It is a painful irony that a museum dedicated to human rights may exacerbate tensions instead of serving as a gathering place for dialogue and common ground.
Honourable senators, it is with these small glimpses into my recent life experiences that paint a picture of someone who is ill at ease in his own home here in Canada. These are my anxieties as a Jew in the 21st century. They are not theoretical; they are lived. I am only one person, but I know many in my community share these fears.
I’m not asking for special treatment. I only ask to be able to walk in my own country without fear, without erasure, without need to apologize for who I am.
We have the tools to safeguard these rights. We have the laws. What remains is the courage to enforce them and the leadership to simply and unequivocally declare, “Enough.” We deserve no less, and Canada must demand no less of itself.
Thank you.
The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Ohana.
Annie Ohana, Equity Department Head and Anti Oppression Curriculum Specialist, as an individual: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me.
Anger, trauma and fire will not put out anger, trauma and fire. This is the morass we find ourselves in: The fact that the fight against anti-Semitism is and can never be one-sided, exclusionary and erasure-based.
I come to you from the lands of the [Technical difficulties] Nations, unceded Territories of Peoples who saw their lands ripped away and, till this day, fight against colonial elements in Canada that demonize and criminal Indigenous sovereignty as some sort of existential threat, as we see with the current rulings in terms of the Cowichan Tribes and the continued denial of residential school realities.
I am a first-generation Sephardic Arabic Jewish White-presenting person. My family goes all the way from Casablanca, Marrakesh, all the way to the Amazigh region which you might know from the colonial term Berber [Technical difficulties]. Some may suggest, as I have heard before, that we are fringe; Sephardic Jews have faced anti-Semitism even within our own ranks in the sense that we don’t belong in the mainstream Judaism because we have roots in Arabic countries.
I have a Master’s degree in Equity Studies, and I am anti‑oppression curriculum specialist who has worked on curriculum programming from the local to international levels. I also work in K to 12 public education and have for the past 21 years. I have a long history of international solidarity work to include schools across the West Bank of Palestine, such as Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron, East Jerusalem and other places.
I also wear many other hats. I am the President of Sher Pride, and I am on a variety of boards. However, I am here on my own accord today.
I do want to address a specific reality of October 7 as I think it is a mindful practice to do. Unfortunately, my family lived through October 7. My family lives throughout the 1967 Green Line Israeli State, and a lot of my family are in the Negev region, from Be’er Sheva to Sderot. They, along with my parents, witnessed and faced horrific realities on October 7 as Hamas stormed towns and kibbutzim. I had a family member taken hostage. Thankfully, she was returned alive. I am forever thankful to the Canadian government and MP Randeep Sarai for working tirelessly to get my family out on one of the military flights.
Sadly, my dad would develop severe health consequences through blood clotting that would lead to his death. There is obviously the trauma of my hundreds of family members who were innocent bystanders.
If the very same statement were read by someone who was not Jewish or had ties to Israel but a Palestinian, a Muslim or any other person, I hope that your emotions and beliefs in justice would not change. I do not blame the Palestinian people or the concept of a Palestinian state. I am also supremely uncomfortable with letting any state, be it Canada, Israel, America, et cetera, use my family trauma to score political points and engage in xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, pink-washing and other colonial measures to keep widely known truths out of our curriculum, programs and legislation meant to solve hate, not continue it.
I hope to speak to the committee with an intersectional lens and respond to specific questions that were raised in previous panels. For example, I have worked on a curriculum from B.C., which I knew was mentioned a couple weeks ago, and I can speak directly to the creation of that curriculum. There were also comments made that were worrisome as they proved to be too narrow and, in my worst fears, reduced the focus on systemic discrimination so narrowly that we will destroy the structures needed in education, government and society to respond to anti-Semitism in all of its forms.
Hate, in a weird way, does not discriminate.
As an educator and a citizen, I, in no way, shape or form, want to erase the experiences of any Jew in Canada — all lived and living experiences are valid — but the breakdown of a solution is just as nuanced and does not need to fall to blind faith to governments and states in criminalizing in broad strokes against all Palestinians. Yes, you can, indeed, separate your religion from your allegiance to any one state.
I will close with the fact that I am often the smallest of minorities anywhere I have lived or taught, and yet, even in the aftermath of October 7, an amazing community of Indigenous Peoples, Muslims, Sikh, Hindu, Christians and others came together, not to attack but to form incredible groups that would show support to orphaned children across all lands and areas where there was a conflict, including Gaza. I have put up a four‑foot menorah every year before October 7 and since, and I am one of two Jewish people in my entire school. In my classes, when discussing the 10 stages of genocide, looking at everything from the Balfour Declaration, to Vichy France, to the Holocaust, to discussions on the thousands of years of history of anti‑Semitism, helps builds bridges with other communities that face brutal violence of all forms, including colonial oppression.
How we keep Jews safe from anti-Semitism is to teach critical thinking and include critiques of government so that they build positive citizenry that builds strong, nuanced accountability toward our own government. I am sure many of you know of how the world and even Canada turned its back against the Rwandan genocide, all too willing to escape legal accountability. I am sure former Canadian senator Romeo Dallaire can certainly speak to that truth.
I do feel that, as educators, it is absolutely crucial that we learn and teach the dialogues and find ways to come together and to have the hard conversations. We need not erase terms like Naqba; we need not erase any terms. Instead, let’s trust our students to become leaders where they can come across hard times and conversations, overcome trauma and find ways to not continue the cycle of violence, abuse, discrimination and hate; rather, they can be the ones to actually stop it. I fear that, in some ways, we have failed, as you have heard from so many individuals who do not feel safe in Canada.
Deep and multi-faceted understandings of diversity will allow us to do the work that is needed now, all in the name of —. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Ohana, and thank you to all our presenters. We will now proceed to questions from senators. Colleagues, I just want to remind you that we have five minutes for both your question and answer.
Senator Coyle: Thank you to each of our witnesses this evening. My first question is for Kenneth Stern, and it is about the definition.
The definition is where you started our conversation this evening. The core IHRA definition says:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
We have also heard about the Jerusalem Declaration, and that definition is a little more succinct:
Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).
Could you speak to those two definitions and tell us where you land or whether you are just telling us that a definition in itself is not a helpful thing to establish when we’re looking at anti‑Semitism?
Mr. Stern: Thank you for the question.
I think the proponents and the people who object to the IHRA definition focus not on the core beginning of it but actually the examples and the examples about Israel. That’s where the rubber hits the road. The JDA one is less likely to be abused on that front, but I think it is inferior in some ways in terms of thinking about hate crimes and selecting people to be a victim based on intent rather than motive. There is the Nexus Task Force definition, and the national strategy that came out of the Biden White House had its own definition. There are other definitions around it.
To me, the question isn’t about which one is better; it is just how they are being used in ways to suppress speech. That’s my problem. The IHRA definition, or what was originally called the EUMC definition, had been used as the data-collecting purpose that it was intentionally set for and to give some clarity on hate crimes.
For the major uses, that would have been fine, but I have learned something over the last 15 years: When you have something that is held up as a model for defining of a particular type of hatred that is connected to some political battles, people are going to weaponize it and take it out of context. I don’t want any of them used as a hate speech code on a campus or for other purposes like that to restrict speech. You heard from some of the other people who testified, especially at colleges and elsewhere, you want to mine the complexities as opposed to have a simple goalpost that this is okay and this is not.
Senator Coyle: Thank you. I thought that’s where you were leading us.
Could you speak specifically about what kinds of limitations you have seen emerge as a result of the literal implementation of the IHRA definition? I read you the core definition. What aspects of that definition are in place that is stifling the kind of free speech that you’re talking about?
Mr. Stern: Sure. I can give you a lot of examples. I have testified in front of the U.S. Senate on this and written pieces. I would be happy to send them to you.
I can give you a couple of short examples.
In the UK they adopted or applied it to universities. There was an Israel Apartheid Week event. It was not allowed to go on because it was said to be in violation of the definition. The Simon Wiesenthal Center basically said every university should do the same thing. Florida adopted it. In Florida state universities, they do a word search on courses being taught on Israel, Palestine and so forth. In Tennessee, they actually passed a law that requires that things cannot be taught that violate the definition. In Arizona, if you want to see something that is really frightening, they were going to adopt it, passed in both houses, it also gave an individual right of parents to sue if something violating the definition happened in a classroom. The Democratic governor vetoed it. I gave you the example about Germany. There are many other examples.
Look at Rashid Khalidi. I don’t agree with Rashid Khalidi about a lot of things, but I respect him. He is a leading Palestinian academic. It is important for students to engage in these ideas and to hear his perspective. He cancelled his class because now Columbia has adopted it and somebody is going to say he is teaching something that violates the definition and sue. Those are a small number of examples of the way I think it has been abused.
Then you also have, by the way, in the handbook for IHRA a desire to use it to decide what artists and other social programs get funded. They are using it in a way to limit artistic expression.
The critical thing here is that there are strong, different points of view inside the Jewish community, inside society in general, about Israel and Palestine. We should have more discussion and find ways to do that as opposed to giving tools for having people stop that speech and to bring the government in as a tool to suppress it.
Senator Arnot: To the chair and witnesses, I have questions for each one of you. I am only going to have time to ask the questions. I am hoping you will respond in writing; if you could do that, I would appreciate it.
To Mr. Stern, what are the most dangerous contemporary forms of anti-Semitic propaganda? What evidence-based approaches actually reduced hate according to your research in your institution?
To Mr. Berlin, these questions will be on education. It is disheartening to hear that Canadian Jews live in fear in their communities. It is antithetical to democratic values in Canada. To you, sir, what role does civic, democratic and human rights education play in preventing the emergence of hate in the K-12 system? Would be beneficial to focus on that?
I have talked in the past about the Concentus Citizenship Education program which talks about rights, responsibility, respect and the fundamental duty to respect your fellow citizen, also the five essential competencies of Canadian citizenship, which is called the five Es, that all Canadian citizens should be ethical, enlightened, engaged, empowered and empathetic.
To Professor Ohana, what training and professional development do educators in the K-12 system lack when confronting anti-Semitism and other forms of hate in the school and in their classroom, and would professional development augmented by the Department of Canadian Heritage help all teachers in Canada in the K-12 system to address those issues in the classrooms in which they teach?
Thank you very much, witnesses. I look forward to anything you can do to help the committee in the form of written answers. Thank you.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to all of our witnesses for bringing your particular expertise to this very challenging discussion. Time is limited.
I will focus primarily on Professor Berlin with my question, because I think, of our witnesses on this panel, you were the one who most emphasized the implementation of existing laws and procedures to counter anti-Semitism.
Before I ask the specific question, I do want to acknowledge the work that you have done for so long, over decades, the number of times when Canada was the only one leading on very significant issues of international human rights law.
As someone who has been involved in crafting many of these laws, that’s why I would like to ask this question of you: What could Canada be doing differently to more fully implement the existing framework of laws and policies on anti-Semitism?
Mr. Berlin: Thank you for your kind, overly generous comments as well.
First, there are two components. There are the international human rights obligations that we have, of course, the declaration and the two covenants. As we know, Canada does abide by our international declarations on human rights and the conventions. Of course, we use these declarations and conventions. They are referred to in judgments in courts. They are used in litigation.
But primarily the focus for enforcement in this country has to be domestic. The domestic tools and the laws that we have, it is interesting. The last couple of years gave us prime examples. In our cities, we have municipal bylaws and regulations, trespassing, nuisance and property damage. I’m not aware of any enforcement of the bylaws or these regulations in any of the cities.
I am aware that on McGill campus, the damage that was caused by the encampments, the defacement of buildings, broken glass. Ridiculous. They ripped up the lawns at tremendous cost. After they had been re-sodded, after the encampment was gone, they then went and demonstrated and tore up the very lawns on the campus. No charges were ever laid for mischief or property damage. Where was the bylaw enforcement or police officers there?
There are demonstrations in the city. There was a pro‑Palestinian demonstration in Montreal a couple of weeks ago. There was a lone Jewish protester standing on a platform. She had an Israeli flag. The police said, “Please leave. You are provoking unnecessarily and creating an environment that could cause hostility.”
So she was a lone voice saying here are Jewish rights, and she was the one who was asked to leave. This unbalanced enforcement or ignoring the real rights of individuals is stark.
When I look at the Criminal Code, and we look at the hate propaganda provisions of the Criminal Code, they are robust. They are good.
I was at the Department of Justice in the criminal law policy section when we were working on those sections. I’m proud of them.
People will say, “Oh, words are just words,” but when people are saying, “Death to Jews; death to Israel; death to the IDF,” you have to understand that all Israelis — the vast majority — have to serve in the Israel Defence Forces, or IDF. So when you say, “Death to the IDF,” you’re saying, “Death to Israelis.”
When people stand in parades, and they put up red hands of bloody paint, that symbolism means something. That’s based on an incident where a lynch mob went after two Israeli soldiers who were found in Ramallah. They were arrested. A lynch mob went in. They dissected the bodies. They put their hands in the blood of the bodies, and they put it up in their windows. That symbolism is real. That is a frightening symbol for me when somebody shows me a bloody red hand. That hurts.
Where is the enforcement? There has not been one enforcement in the last two years since October 7 that has stopped one demonstration, one protest or one intimidation anywhere in Canada. The laws are beautiful. My question is: Why is no one at the provincial, federal or municipal level enforcing them? It is a quandary. I don’t know.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Berlin.
Senator K. Wells: I will pick up a little bit on that conversation with Mr. Berlin here in the room.
One of the things we heard through this study is concerning the rising trend of Holocaust denialism. I wonder what you might feel is the best approach for us to address that in Canada. Is it criminalizing denialism? Is it education? Is it a combination? I would love your thoughts.
Mr. Berlin: It is such a great question, senator. I would like to think that at the end of the day, in this country, truth matters. Historical, undeniable events are truth, and how do you deny truth? I just don’t get that.
I do think it is a two-pronged approach. There are other countries that have criminalized Holocaust denial and Nazi symbols. Why not do that in Canada? Because once you have something like that on the record, then we can have a whole gamut of education. It could start in the schools. It goes to the universities. It is public education, right? Articles will be written about it. People will lecture about it. People will give talks about it.
I think it is very frightening, and the stats are astonishing, especially in the United States. They showed a majority of students from 18 to 21 don’t believe the Holocaust ever happened. Oh, my gosh. This is 2025. How is that even possible?
I think you start off with laws. What the law does is it is a statement of Canada’s moral authority. We’re saying, “This is what we stand for; we do not stand for hate; we don’t stand for discrimination; we don’t stand for Holocaust denial.” If you start with a principled statement, and you enshrine it in law, from that flows all the types of education that would be necessary.
Senator K. Wells: Building a little bit off of that, you mentioned how we have many hate crime laws on the books that are not being appropriately, perhaps, enforced at all levels of government. What are your thoughts about Bill C-9 trying to address some of that and adding new offences as well?
Mr. Berlin: I am 100% strongly in favour of it, I have to tell you. I think it needs to happen. It is not a panacea, but it certainly fills in some of the blanks that we have had in the last number of years.
What I applaud the government for acknowledging is that the laws that we had presently were not adequate, and they need to fill in some of the gaps. I think Bill C-9 does that beautifully. I would love to see that rapidly approved, brought into force and be part of the fabric of Canada’s laws combatting hate.
It’s wonderful. It’s a great opportunity.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: My first question is for you, Professor Berlin. You have mentioned that the rise in hostility and anti-Semitism has been really noticeable over the last couple of years, obviously since October 7 and the ensuing hostilities in the region. You’ve also said that Canada has the tools to safeguard the rights of Jewish Canadians. You’ve just responded to Senator McPhedran about the fact that there has not been enforcement at any level.
Why do you think there has not been enforcement at any level, and what do you think needs to be done to ensure enforcement so that safety for Jewish Canadians can be ensured?
Mr. Berlin: It is a profound question, and I wish I could adequately respond to that. I can give you some thoughts.
Senator Coyle: It is really two questions: Why are we not seeing enforcement, and what needs to be done to ensure we are?
Mr. Berlin: The question about why we are not seeing enforcement is a quandary to me. Why are prosecutors’ offices not taking these issues up? Is there direction from Auditors General offices? Is it coming from on high?
When an incident happens, the police go on the scene. They can witness what is happening. They bring their evidence to the prosecutors, and they could determine to lay charges. What is happening between witnessing the activity, speaking to the prosecutors and saying, “Here is my evidence,” and the prosecutors determining that they should not go forward? Is there something going on that I’m not understanding? Is there something, a societal issue that says, “Well, you know what? Jews. Doesn’t really matter.”
I wonder. I seriously wonder.
Senator Coyle: If I may interrupt, do you mean that —
Mr. Berlin: Jews are targets.
Senator Coyle: — there might be systemic discrimination within the criminal justice system?
Mr. Berlin: Yes. I would say so.
It would be no different than me wondering in a similar situation, if there are hordes of protesters saying something negative about Black Canadians or Indigenous Canadians and demonstrating against the reserves and saying that the reserves never existed, and they were a good thing, or saying something about slavery, I don’t think that would be acceptable.
I have to ask myself, “Well, why is it acceptable when it comes to the Jews?” I do think there is a systemic issue across the country, and I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know if it is our rich history of anti-Semitism.
It started off in World War II when Jews were not allowed to get off the MS St. Louis into Canada, when the deputy minister of immigration said, when asked how many Jews will be let in, “None is too many.” I wonder if there is a prevailing threat out there that still oversees Canadian society.
What can we do to enforce? I would like to think that moral leadership shown by a justice minister, an attorney general, a provincial attorney general and a provincial minister of justice to say, “Not acceptable in my jurisdiction; this is not allowable. We have to treat all citizens with due respect, and we don’t ostracize one community over another.”
I think it starts with moral leadership and conviction from our political leaders.
Senator Coyle: Would Bill C-9 be an indication of that?
Mr. Berlin: I think so. I think that is the starting point that gives us another opportunity. I think what happens is that we become sanguine and lackadaisical about our existing laws, so let’s turbocharge it. Let’s reassert our authority in this area and give ourselves another opportunity to re-engage combatting hate. Bill C-9 could give us that platform.
While I talk about the fear of living in this country, I am nevertheless an optimist. I look for opportunities. Out of my fear of anti-Semitism, I’m looking for opportunities to make things better, to bring people together and to look for further dialogue. I think Bill C-9 gives us that platform.
Senator McPhedran: I would like to direct my question initially at least to Mr. Kenneth Stern and Ms. Annie Ohana. My question is this: In the differentiations that you offered to us about not only a definition, the definition, but also the nature of the work that you each do, could you share with us if you have some hopefulness about a particular approach or particular information? Anything that really stands out for each of you for what is most constructive, most helpful in addressing this very serious issue.
Mr. Stern: Thank you for the question. It is a great one. There is not one silver bullet that will answer this. That’s one reason I hesitate over the IHRA definition, because people look at as a silver bullet. Holocaust education is important, but it’s not a silver bullet. There are a lot of things to do.
One of the things the Bard Center for the Study of Hate did this year, which was published by the University of Toronto Press, was put out a book called Simply Human: A Guide to Understanding and Combatting Hate. It pulls from different academic fields and gives instruction on how to deal with hate crimes. There is a chapter informed by some friends of Barbara Perry, who is doing some great hate crime work in Canada.
One thing that really resonates with me is the philosopher, the ethicist, who says, basically, “Should we have some sort of Hippocratic oath equivalent when we’re fighting hate, at least to be able to articulate that we are not doing harm?” I don’t think we are really doing that. We are reacting mostly from frustration, anger, fear and other things. There is a set of principles in the book — I’ll send you a checklist — of how to think through those things. There are ways to think through these things. There are ways to build coalitions and build them on campus. I absolutely want to emphasize this. The campus is a great place to break down these barriers. The AI program Microsoft Sway gives people ways to have different discussions. There are opportunities here for faculty too.
At Bard, we had a colleague who saw students flinging around terms like genocide, Zionism and colonialism and he said, “Why don’t we have a class on this? How are people hearing this differently? Why? What do they mean?” We can build the environment that says let’s focus on the complexity and why that otherwise friendly student who has a view that you detest. Why do they have that? How could you put yourself in their shoes? How do we as an institution build that? Finally, the national strategy that came out of the Biden White House focused less on definitions asked how we could build a whole-of-society approach. How can AmeriCorps deal with this? How can different government agencies think through how we can build bridges among our citizens for all the divides? Anti-Semitism was the primary one, but the tools were useful for others. The more we do that, the better off we’ll be.
Ms. Ohana: Gosh, before I have hope, I need to have truth. I think dialogue and conversations are so key to that. For example, for me, one way that can happen is if when we think about genocide as a whole concept, there are 10 stages. Anti-Semitism comes through a lot of those stages whether that’s polarization, classification or dehumanization. There is a list of our behaviours, like taking away the labels, that we can teach students of any age, adults as well, so they can see that any kind of harm that we label as systemic discrimination, racism, whatever the title might be, that concept is something we have to look at through people’s actions.
I have to speak for students across Canada. The doctor was so right in saying this: We’re having fewer conversations. We’d rather shut it all down than actually have the conversation. I have to be honest with you. There have been secondary schools where posters have been taken down for simply having a Palestinian flag on them. Not the shape of what we see as modern-day Israel, not some slogan. We have had kids attacked. To me, it always is a problem. As a Jew, that’s a red flag because the second you attack one person, one day it will turn around toward you. I feel we are not understanding this.
We have had teachers, including myself, who have faced certain labels because we dare speak. A teacher of mine at a public event said to even talk about this is to support Hamas — I have witnesses who can tell you that happened — or that Jewish children could never understand Palestinian children. That’s such a bad example of dehumanization, which is actually part of anti‑Semitism. We have to look at the root behaviours, and the fact that our governments do criminalize. They do misuse definitions. They do criminalize in ways. My fear is that we are weaponizing our trauma and anger toward other groups.
I do have hope because when we have conversations and when students see the humanity in other students, again, at any age, the conversations are more mindful. There is less erasure. Even in something like the Nakba, you can absolutely have students who, like me, have older family members or family friends who may have fought in that war or later wars, and they can bring forward their stories. Other people can bring their stories. Two things can be true at once. We need to be having those nuanced dialogues. That’s why the [Technical difficulties] is important — which I will bring forward in a written response — because people are afraid and feel they can’t speak. That’s one way can start doing that. It is helpful to have libraries, museums and all kinds of institutions come together.
I’m trying to do that work in interfaith circles through a variety of incredible groups in B.C., and it is keeping that train going and, hopefully, reaching enough voices that can overcome what are very valid concerns and fears. We need to validate everybody’s feelings. To me, shutting down one side will never get us there. I forget the bill that was introduced before the election. It was the bill that was meant to criminalize the denial of residential schools. I feel that’s a good start because we need to start going hard on that idea that no denial of genocide is welcome on these lands, especially unceded lands for the most part.
I do think those kinds of legislations can go forward. Because I am a critical criminologist by wayback academic expertise, it needs to be nuanced. Overall definitions can be misused. Larger definitions are unwieldy at times. The more specific we are about hate crimes and hate speech and all of that, the better we are. But I want to make sure we hold strong to freedom of expression, that we don’t deny them expressing their anger, anguish and pain and teach them to do that so they don’t minimize. I’ve had many Palestinian colleagues tell me anti-Semitism hurts the fight for a true and long and lasting peace. It hurts the fight. Islamophobia hurts the fight for free and safe Jews. We can’t let ourselves fall for these really lazy arguments, honestly, that really don’t do anything to fortify the human rights structure that Canada has been doing for many decades.
Finally, I have to note, going back to the MS St. Louis and the immigration codes of the early 1900s where Jews were listed at the bottom of those they were likely to accept, alongside, with my apologies, Gypsies, or Roma and Blacks. Unfortunately, Canada has always been anti-Semitic, racist and white supremacist. Let’s get to that truth and then we can move from there.
The Chair: That brings us to the end. I want to extend our collective appreciation to our witnesses, those who have testified today on all the panels. This is a difficult topic. We’ve heard different perspectives. We just want you to know that everything that you’ve contributed is appreciated. We hear you. We thank you. On behalf of the committee, thank you sincerely for taking part in our study. Honourable colleagues and guests, that concludes our meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)