There was a time when Canada was seen as a triumph of tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism. Those days are gone.
In 2000, public intellectual Michael Ignatieff asserted that Canada’s success in reconciling individual and group rights within a multinational, multilingual state served as an international standard-bearer. Many scholars – me included – wrote how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being used as a model by countries ranging from South Africa to New Zealand to Hong Kong to Israel.
Canadians boasted that all of this contributed to the country’s “soft power.” But that ideal of Canada as a model multicultural country has been shattered. Canada is not simply a country fraying at the edges; it is undergoing an unparalleled assault on its core values.
Canada is experiencing an epidemic of hate, and Jews are at its center. Over the past decade, police reported hate crimes in Canada more than doubled from 1,951 incidents in 2014 to 4,882 reports in 2024. These numbers are staggering, but the situation on the ground and in the community is much worse.
According to police and statisticians, only about one in five hate incidents are reported to police. So it is entirely possible that in 2024, there were close to 20,000 hate incidents in Canada.
Until COVID, the rise in hate crimes in Canada was a slow and relatively gentle one. Then COVID triggered a sharp worldwide upsurge which the UN termed “a pandemic of hate”.
While antisemitism was also on the rise in Canada during this period, an unprecedented tsunami of hate was unleashed against the Canadian Jewish community after the October 7 massacre.
Jews are the largest target of hate in Canada
By any calculation, Jews are the single largest target of hate in Canada. In raw numbers, the largest number of hate crimes are committed against Jews.
When adjusted for population, the picture is much worse. Despite making up only approximately 1% of the Canadian population, Jews were the target of nearly 19% of all police-reported hate crimes in 2024. This represents 21 times the proportion of Jews in the Canadian population.
The numbers and the speeches of political leaders reveal a crisis of dramatic proportions. The actions of governments, police, prosecutors, and judges, far less so.
To date, the responses of Canadian politicians have been anemic, leaving most Canadian Jews feeling alienated, insecure, and pessimistic. Canadian efforts have been overly bureaucratic: create more committees, collect more data, pass more laws, etc. None of these are likely to stem the flow of hate and antisemitism.
Canada has had laws prohibiting hate speech since 1970. They prohibit advocating or promoting genocide against an identifiable group; the public incitement of hatred against an identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace; and the willful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group.
In 2022, the Canadian Parliament added a new crime of willfully promoting antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust. There have been at least four reported instances of charges laid under this new provision, leading to at least two convictions.
The Supreme Court upheld the hate speech provisions as reasonable limits on the constitutional right to freedom of expression in 1990.
These hate speech laws look great on paper and in reports and speeches by parliamentarians and government officials, but their efficacy has been questioned for decades.
These provisions have stringent requirements and numerous procedural safeguards (or obstacles). Until recent years, there were relatively few prosecutions under these sections. And the rate of convictions for hate crimes is lower compared to other crimes.
This led some experts to characterize Canada’s hate crimes law as “an empty symbol”. Others acknowledged the limits to their effectiveness, but defended the importance of their symbolic effect as signaling the public’s disavowal of hate.
The problem in Canada is not so much a lack of laws, but a lack of will on behalf of police to enforce the law and on prosecutors to pursue charges when police do in fact lay charges.
The capabilities and the possibilities of legal institutions outside the criminal justice system are not much better. Canada suffers from sclerotic legal institutions across the justice system.
More than 25 years ago, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Rosalie Abella wrote about the sorry state of affairs in Canada’s courts. Noting how lawyers and judges in Canada had become obsessed with process, leading to increased complexity, costs and delay, Abella quipped that “people want their day in court, not their years.”
The Canadian human rights system is not any better. It may even be worse. In 2020, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against a Toronto eatery that posted a sign that said, “Zionists Not Welcome”. The hearing in this case is not scheduled until January 2027. That is not a typo. It is entirely possible that it could take a decade for the case to be resolved.
The message is clear: the Canadian human rights system is where discrimination cases go to die, not to be vindicated.
All of this adds up to a very bleak picture indeed.
Canadian Jews are looking for leadership and action from their political leaders and government officials. To date, there is no indication that they have the willingness or the ability to provide either.
The writer is a Professor and Dean Emeritus at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law and a Senior Fellow of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.