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Letter from Denise Montague: A Call for Accountability — PM Carney's Response to Antisemitism Lacks Clarity

  • Writer: CAEF
    CAEF
  • 2 hours ago
  • 3 min read

To Prime Minister Carney,


I am writing in response to your "Covenant Speech" on June 1 to share my concerns over your failure to demonstrate the moral leadership required to meet this watershed moment.[1] After more than two and a half years, your government has finally acknowledged Canada's antisemitism crisis - synagogue firebombings, bullet-ridden schools, vandalized businesses, and physical assaults - an existential threat the Jewish people have not faced since the Holocaust.[2] Yet instead of sharing an actionable, zero-tolerance strategy to protect a community under siege, you engaged in rhetorical gaslighting. Your empty platitudes and sham "Unity Council" not only betray Jewish people but also every Canadian you are sworn to protect.[3]


In refusing to name this existential threat openly, you signalled that this crisis is an unexplainable phenomenon.[4] Your speech failed to mention the October 7 massacres and the wave of anti-Jewish violence it unleashed across Canada; that Israel is Canada's longstanding democratic ally and the Jewish ancestral homeland; and that Zionism is the Jewish right to self-determination.[5] While you naively remarked that newcomers must "leave behind [their] animosities," the lawlessness on our streets proves this is not the case. Contemporary antisemitism is driven and defined by antizionism. Imported by Islamic extremists from Arab countries who sheltered Nazis after the Holocaust, this hate movement has been weaponized by today's far-left and genocidal terrorists, dedicated to demonizing, delegitimizing, and applying double standards to Israel.[6]


Hatred of Israel has become the modern, mutated vehicle for the world's oldest hatred. Antizionism has maliciously hijacked the language of human rights and social justice to justify the elimination of the world's only Jewish state.[7] We are living in a culture that has decided that an essential, core component of Jewish identity is an inherent evil. Extremists have successfully normalized the exclusion and harassment of Jews, convincing the public that targeting Zionists is a moral virtue rather than explicit bigotry. More than 90% of Jewish Canadians recognize Israel as an irrefutable part of their Jewish identity--a connection enshrined in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which your own government adopted in 2019.[8] Your failure to condemn the weaponization of antizionism to excuse antisemitism only protects the perpetrators of hate at the expense of the democratic principles this country was founded on.


Additional egregious failures of your government's response to this crisis is the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, also known as the national "Unity Council" to study antisemitism. It is extremely discriminatory and patronizing to "All Lives Matter" Canadian Jews, especially during a press conference on antisemitism, and dangerous to task non-Jews with questionable credentials to determine what constitutes antisemitism. Appointing Omar Alghabra and Avnish Nanda, individuals with histories of incitement, anti-Jewish sentiment, and ties to organizations that lost federal funding for supporting terrorist entities, reveals a profound lack of judgment and undermines confidence in your government's commitment to combating antisemitism.[9] This not only minimizes the unique and insidious nature of antisemitism but also echoes the same institutional moral failure that paved the way for the Holocaust, when Jewish voices were silenced and the warning signs of a collapsing democracy were willfully ignored.[10]


Canada's leading Jewish organizations have made their position clear: if this National "Unity" Council is to possess any credibility, your government must immediately remove compromised appointees and replace them with qualified members who truly represent the Jewish community.[11] Given the unprecedented crisis we face, Canadians deserve absolute assurance that this Council remains objective, explicitly understands how contemporary antisemitism materializes through hateful weaponization of antizionism, and is composed of members dedicated to combating hatred, not inciting it. We need a government willing to enforce the law and confront extremist ideologies at their root. Jewish Canadians cannot afford to wait for another study to tell them what they already endure every day. The time for empty rhetoric has passed. We demand immediate and measurable action, accountability, and results.


Sincerely,

Denise Montague


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