Toronto city councillor James Pasternak said he and his staff were shocked when they heard a “profanity-laced hate rant” message on the office answering machine on March 9.

“It was antisemitic, it was a hate-filled rant,” Pasternak said.

Toronto police have charged Mehboob Rajwani, 64, from Markham, Ont. with uttering threats, indecent communication and criminal harassment. The alleged offence is being investigated as a hate-motivated incident, according to a police news release

The voice mail was left after an interview Pasternak gave at an anti-Israel protest outside the Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto synagogue in Thornhill on March 7.

Pasternak, who has been a councillor for 14 years, said he had never received such a hateful message as a politician.

“We’ve had a lot of nasty emails over city decisions, city policy but even though they might have been people who were upset and angry, they knew restraint and civility and they kept their comments to the issue at hand,” he said in an interview with The CJN.

Pasternak said it was “upsetting” for his staff who heard the message. “It’s a difficult thing to digest… but you have to continue on with your daily routine. You can’t be intimidated about going to your place of worship or sending your kids to a faith-based school or daycare.”

The city passed a resolution five months ago, just days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, prohibiting demonstrations near schools and houses of worship. But the regulations have not been enforced, because the city has yet to draft bylaws, Pasternak said.

 He intends to move the process along at the March 20 council meeting.

As Pasternak was speaking on an unrelated matter in city council meeting on the morning of March 20, he was interrupted by a protester chanting about the war in Gaza. Security officers were asked to remove the protestors from the council chambers.

In Vaughan, Ont., Mayor Steven Del Duca announced on March 18 that he was bringing forward a resolution that would prohibit protests within 100 metres of religious institutions, schools and hospitals.

Del Duca cited two large anti-Israel protests outside synagogues in Thornhill as well as antisemitic vandalism at a Chabad House and a bomb threat at a mosque when he announced the resolution.

The protests occurred while the synagogues were hosting expos about buying real estate in Israel.

Toronto Police have reported a dramatic surge in hate crime investigations. Since Oct. 7, police have attended 989 hate crime calls, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said at a police services board meeting on March 18. This year, the force responded to 304 hate crime calls, an increase from 225 calls during the same period last year.

Since Oct. 1, there have been 203 confirmed hate crimes, a 93 percent increase from the same time last year. Antisemitism accounts for 56 percent of all hate crimes, the police chief said.