Petition Calling on Mayor Olivia Chow to Retract False and Harmful Statements About ‘Genocide’ and Issue a Public Apology

Mayor Olivia Chow

Office of the Mayor

City Hall, 100 Queen Street West

Toronto, ON M5H 2N2

Subject: Deep Concern and Disappointment Regarding Your Remarks on Israel

Dear Mayor Chow,

We write to you with deep pain, disbelief, and disappointment following your recent remarks at the National Council of Canadian Muslims event in Brampton, where you referred to the situation in Gaza as a “genocide.”

For Toronto’s Jewish community — and for all who value truth, compassion, and responsible leadership — your words were profoundly hurtful. At a time when Israel is navigating a fragile ceasefire with Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization that openly calls for the eradication of the Jewish state, such a statement feels not only unjust but dangerously misleading.

Mayor Chow, clearly define the word genocide?

The use of the term “genocide” in this context is deeply troubling and negligent. It diminishes the weight of a word forever tied to the darkest chapter in Jewish history — the Holocaust — when six million Jews were murdered simply for being who they were. To hear that word applied to Israel, the homeland that rose from those ashes, retraumatizes many in our community and undermines the gravity of real genocides.

Mayor Chow, your comments do not exist in isolation. In the same week, we witnessed a shocking attack on Jewish students at TMU targeted for being Jewish. Around the same time, a synagogue near York Mills and Bayview was desecrated with hateful vandalism for the 10th time.

We expect our city’s leaders to foster unity, not deepen divisions. Toronto is home to one of the largest and most vibrant Jewish populations in Canada — a community that contributes to every facet of this city’s life. To feel misrepresented and dismissed by our own mayor is profoundly unsettling & fires up antisemitism!

We strongly request a formal public apology and retraction of your statement — broadcast clearly and unequivocally on national television and radio. We urge you to take meaningful steps toward healing, including reaching out directly to members of our community: children, youth, and Holocaust survivors who were deeply impacted by your harmful words.

Toronto prides itself on being a multicultural city of empathy, fairness, and respect — values, you yourself have championed in declaring that “there is no place for hate” in our city. We ask you to reaffirm those values not only in words, but through actions that restore trust and demonstrate true leadership.

Sincerely,

Freedom Force of GTA Jewish and Allied Communities