The number of antisemitic events recorded in Canada in 2022 dropped by an “almost insignificant” one percent from the previous year—but the situation is still disturbing, representatives of B’nai Brith Canada said at the release of the organization’s Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents on April 17.
B’nai Brith documented 2,769 incidents, compared with 2,799 in 2021.
“We don’t take a great deal of joy in that. It is the second-highest number of incidents we have reported in the 41 years we have been auditing,” Marvin Rotrand, national director of the League for Human Rights, B’nai Brith’s advocacy arm, said at a press conference.
“A decade ago, in 2012, the number of incidents was 1,345. In a decade, the number of incidents increased by nearly 106 percent.”
Nearly three-quarters of the incidents reported last year occurred online, the audit found.
“The haters have discovered anonymity and the ability to reach a large audience and spread misinformation and disinformation,” Rotrand said. “The level of online hate underscores the need for legislation that can effectively blunt online hate.”
Canada should consider law reforms similar to those adopted by Germany and France, the audit states.
The number of antisemitic incidents dropped in every province in 2022, compared to 2021—except in Saskatchewan, and in Ontario, where it grew from 821 to 1,353. While any increase is “worrisome” Rotrand said the increase in Ontario, was in part due to greater recognition of what constitutes antisemitism by law enforcement officers and civil servants, after Ontario adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in 2020.
Violent attacks decreased significantly from 75 in 2021 to 25 in 2022, but are still higher than numbers that had been recorded previously, Rotrand said.
The 2021 war between Israel and Hamas was a trigger for many of the physical confrontations in Canada, while the following year was notably more peaceful. Incidents of vandalism, which includes graffiti, and destruction of property, however, increased from 264 in 2021 to 404 in 2022.
Antisemitism is a growing global concern, according to a report released by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League. Numbers of antisemitic incidents soared in 2021, triggered by COVID conspiracies and the war in Gaza.
However, even as those crises abated in 2022, the number of incidents remained high, according to the report, released the same day as B’nai Brith Canada’s.
“In 2021, antisemitism reached new highs; 2022 did not mark a universal reversal of the trend, and in some countries, most alarmingly the United States, it intensified. This is despite significant and welcomed legislative, judicial, and educational efforts by governments and NGOs worldwide to fight antisemitism,” the report from Tel Aviv University stated.
In the United States, antisemitic incidents increased from 2,721 in 2021 to 3,697 in 2022, the ADL reported.
In Canada, MPs at the B’nai Brith press conference spoke about a worrying complacency about antisemitism and the fact that social media has become an unrestricted platform for online hate.
“The Jewish community often feels that others don’t recognize anti-Jewish racism or antisemitism in the same way that other types of racism or other types of hate are easily identified and easily condemned,” Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said.
He referred to the controversy surrounding consultant Laith Marouf, who was awarded federal government contracts to conduct anti-bias training, but was found to have made vile and violent remarks about Jews on social media.
“The Laith Marouf incident this year was one example where Jewish MPs were calling upon our colleagues to condemn something and it took much too long for it to be condemned,” Housefather said.
The Montreal-area MP also mentioned the annual Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto, which occurred on April 15, where speakers called for an end to the State of Israel.
“It’s perfectly okay to criticize Israel, to criticize its government, but to call for its destruction is antisemitism,” he said.
NDP MP Alistair MacGregor, who sits on the Standing Committee for Public Safety and National Security, which recently released recommendations on combatting radicalism said that “the online space is not a safe space for Jews.”
Governments must do more to hold social media companies accountable for how their algorithms “push this hate onto people’s screens,” he said.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who represents Thornhill, Ont., the riding with the largest Jewish population in Canada, said the audit provides the statistics for what residents are experiencing.
“There are some bright spots in these numbers, but overall, they are extremely concerning and alarming,” she said.
“Tonight marks the beginning of Yom ha-Shoah the remembrance of the Holocaust. We need to recognize the same forces of intolerance… continue to rear their ugly heads in our communities, they are on our streets, they are in our schools, they are in our unions and they are even in these hallways here in Ottawa.”
