By Joseph Marshall
Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in a Toronto synagogue Monday and said what Canadian Jews have been saying for years.
Canada is failing them.
It was a blunt admission from a Liberal prime minister whose government is now trying to show it understands the scale of anti-Jewish hate in this country. But for many Jewish Canadians, the question is not whether Ottawa can finally find the right words. The question is why it took this long.
Carney announced new federal measures to combat antisemitism and hate, including the launch of a Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion. The council, chaired by Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller, will begin its work by studying antisemitism, its causes, the federal response, hate incident data, and whether government programs are actually working.
That is the problem.
Jewish schools have been shot at. Synagogues have been firebombed. Jewish businesses have been vandalized. Jewish students have been harassed on campuses. Jews wearing kippahs or Magen David necklaces have been forced to make security calculations before walking down Canadian streets. And now, after all of that, Ottawa’s answer begins with another council.
Carney said antisemitism has surged in Canada to levels not previously seen in the postwar period. He said the crisis is specific and severe, and requires a targeted response. The government also noted that Jewish Canadians make up about one per cent of the population, but were the target of more than two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes last year.
Those numbers are not new to Canadian Jews. They have been living them.
B’nai Brith Canada’s latest audit recorded 6,800 antisemitic incidents in 2025, the highest number since the organization began tracking them in 1982. That works out to more than 18 incidents every day. The number was up from 2024 and dramatically higher than before the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel.
Statistics Canada has also documented the same ugly reality. Police-reported hate crimes more than doubled between 2018 and 2024, rising 169 per cent. In 2024, Jewish people were the target of 70 per cent of all religion-motivated hate crimes reported to police.
This did not happen overnight.
For years, Jewish organizations warned Ottawa that anti-Jewish hate was moving from the margins into the streets, campuses and public institutions. For years, Jewish parents watched security become part of the normal routine at day schools. For years, synagogues had to think more about cameras, guards, locked doors and police cars. For years, Jewish students were told, directly and indirectly, that their safety and dignity depended on how loudly they identified as Jews.
The Liberal government heard those warnings. It issued statements. It condemned hate. It promised action. But the situation kept getting worse.
Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, is now being presented as part of Ottawa’s response. The bill would amend the Criminal Code by creating new hate-related offences, including intimidation or obstruction meant to block access to places such as houses of worship, schools and community centres. It would also create a specific hate crime offence for illegal acts motivated by hatred. The bill passed the House of Commons in March and is now before the Senate.
Carney also pointed to an additional $75 million for the Canada Community Security Program, which funds security upgrades, training and personnel for communities at risk of hate-motivated crime.
Security funding matters. Hate crime legislation matters. But neither changes the central fact that Canadian Jews were left to live through this crisis while Ottawa moved too slowly.
Even the structure of the new response has raised concerns. Earlier this year, the federal government moved away from separate special envoy positions on antisemitism and Islamophobia and folded those issues into a broader advisory council on rights, equality and inclusion. The government says the council will begin with antisemitism. But Jewish groups have repeatedly called for a targeted response to a targeted crisis.
That is where Carney’s announcement becomes politically difficult.
He is trying to speak directly to Jewish fear. But he is also leading the same Liberal government that watched Jewish life in Canada become less safe, less secure and less visible. The same government that now says antisemitism is a national crisis is the government under which synagogues, schools, campuses and community centres became front-line security concerns.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Carney should begin with “a big apology” to the Jewish community and accused the Liberals of allowing violence, terror and fear to grow in Canada over the last decade.
Carney’s words on Monday were stronger than the usual government language. He did not pretend the problem was vague. He did not bury Jewish suffering inside a generic statement about intolerance. He said Canada is failing Jewish Canadians.
But the admission itself is damning.
Because Canadian Jews did not need another announcement to know they were being failed. They knew it when their schools needed armed police nearby. They knew it when mobs took over streets. They knew it when Jewish students were abandoned on campuses. They knew it when politicians found careful language for everyone else but suddenly became cautious, balanced and procedural when Jews were the target.
Now Ottawa says it is ready to act.
The Jewish community has heard that before.
This time, the measure will not be the announcement. It will not be the council. It will not be the press release. It will be whether Jewish Canadians can walk into a synagogue, send their children to school, attend university, open a business, wear a kippah, speak Hebrew, support Israel and live openly as Jews without being treated as acceptable targets in their own country.
