Canada Records Highest-Ever Level of Antisemitic Incidents Amid Criticism of Government Response

Canada's Jewish communities are living through the worst period of documented antisemitism in the country's modern history. B'nai Brith Canada's 2025 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, released on April 28, 2026, recorded 6,800 incidents over the course of 2025 — an average of 18.6 per day, a 9.3 percent increase over the previous year's record, and a 145 percent increase from 2022 [1]. The numbers arrive as Prime Minister Mark Carney's government faces intensifying criticism from Jewish community organizations, senators, and opposition parties who say Ottawa's response has been inadequate in both speed and scope.

Source: B'nai Brith Canada Annual Audit

Data as of Apr 28, 2026CSV

The Numbers: What the Audit Found

The 2025 total breaks down into three categories: 6,491 incidents of harassment, 299 cases of vandalism, and 10 incidents of violence [1]. The digital realm remains the primary vector, with 91.9 percent of all documented incidents occurring online [1]. That online concentration is one reason the raw numbers have climbed so sharply — expanded monitoring of social media platforms by B'nai Brith's reporting infrastructure has captured hate speech that previously went unrecorded.

Source: B'nai Brith Canada Annual Audit

Data as of Apr 28, 2026CSV

The trajectory is striking. In 2022, the audit recorded 2,769 incidents. The following year — the first full year after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza — that number more than doubled to 5,791. It climbed again to 6,219 in 2024 and now stands at 6,800 [2].

While the post-October 7 period clearly marked an inflection point, B'nai Brith's 2025 report emphasizes that the surge is "so widespread it can't be attributed to a single cause" [1]. Longer-term domestic trends — including the amplification effect of social media algorithms, growing ideological polarization, and what the organization describes as a culture of impunity — are also at work.

How Canada Compares Internationally

Canada is not alone. A 2025 report by the ADL's J7 Task Force, which tracks antisemitism across the seven countries with the largest Jewish diaspora populations, found that all seven recorded spikes to record levels following October 7 [3]. From 2021 through 2023, antisemitic incidents increased 227 percent in the United States, 185 percent in France, 83 percent in Canada, and 82 percent in the United Kingdom [3].

Source: ADL J7 Annual Report

Data as of May 7, 2025CSV

On a per-capita basis, the picture is more complex. Canada's Jewish population of approximately 400,000 represents about 1 percent of the national total, yet Jews accounted for roughly 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes recorded by police in 2024 [4]. Statistics Canada data shows that a Jewish Canadian was 25 times more likely to experience a hate crime than the average Canadian that year [4]. Police reported 920 antisemitic hate crimes in 2024, making Jews the most targeted religious group in the country [4].

The gap between B'nai Brith's figure of 6,219 incidents and Statistics Canada's 920 police-reported crimes in 2024 reflects the difference between community-based reporting (which captures harassment, online abuse, and incidents that victims do not report to police) and official police statistics (which require a formal report and a determination that the incident meets the Criminal Code definition of a hate crime).

The Carney Government's Response — and Its Critics

Prime Minister Carney took office pledging to "fight the horrifying rise in hate and protect our communities" [5]. His government's concrete actions have included:

• Legislation: Introduction of Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, which creates new Criminal Code offences including criminal prohibitions on obstructing access to places of worship, schools, and community centres, and on displaying hate- or terrorism-related symbols to promote hatred [6].
• Security funding: A dedicated $10 million investment through the Canada Community Security Program (CCSP) to help Jewish communities enhance security at schools, daycares, overnight camps, and synagogues, announced in March 2026 following gunfire attacks on synagogues in the Greater Toronto Area [7]. The CCSP's total annual funding reached $20.5 million in 2025–26, nearly four times the $5.8 million allocated in 2022–23 [7].
• Community engagement: Carney met with Jewish community leaders in September 2025 [5].

Critics argue these steps fall short. The most pointed criticism centers on Carney's decision in February 2025 to eliminate the position of Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, along with a parallel envoy on combating Islamophobia, folding both roles into a new advisory council on rights, equality, and inclusion [8]. Canada's Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights issued a report with 22 recommendations, directly calling on the prime minister to reinstate the antisemitism envoy and characterizing the government's approach as insufficiently focused [9].

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has pressed Ottawa to increase the CCSP's annual budget beyond its current levels, arguing that the Liberals' election platform pledged a more significant expansion than what materialized [10]. Since the CCSP's launch in 2024, it has provided $3.3 million to support 81 projects in the Jewish community — a fraction of what organizations say is needed to secure the more than 1,000 Jewish institutions across the country [7].

Michael Mostyn, CEO of B'nai Brith Canada, has stated that while money matters, the primary gap is enforcement. "The justice system needs to become more effective in prosecuting hate crimes," he said, noting that while about 30 police forces across Canada have hate crime units, "similar dedicated resources don't exist in the prosecution system" [2].

The Enforcement Gap: From Report to Conviction

The data on hate crime prosecution in Canada reveals a systemic bottleneck. According to Statistics Canada, violent hate crimes in the 2022–2024 cohort were cleared (meaning a charge was laid or recommended) at a rate of 47.1 percent — comparable to other violent crimes. But non-violent hate crimes, which constitute the vast majority of antisemitic incidents, were cleared at just 13.8 percent, compared to 30.6 percent for other non-violent crimes [11].

Conviction rates are lower still. An analysis of 37 completed hate crime cases from 2009–2010 to 2016–2017 found that only 41 percent ended in a finding of guilt, while 35 percent were withdrawn, dismissed, or discharged, and 8 percent were stayed or acquitted [11]. The challenge is structural: proving that hatred motivated a crime beyond a reasonable doubt is legally complex, and prosecutors sometimes decline cases they consider unlikely to succeed [11].

Reporting barriers compound the problem. Fifty-eight percent of hate crime victims cited the belief that the accused would not be convicted or adequately punished as a reason for not going to police [11]. The result is a cycle: low prosecution rates discourage reporting, which in turn limits the data available to justify increased enforcement resources.

Bill C-9: Fighting Hate or Chilling Speech?

The government's primary legislative response, Bill C-9, passed the House of Commons in March 2026 with a vote of 186–137 and is now before the Senate [6]. The bill has become a flashpoint in the broader debate about how far the state should go in restricting expression to combat hate.

More than 40 civil society organizations — including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council — have raised concerns [12]. The CCLA warned that the bill "threatens the rights of every Canadian," arguing that its definition of "hatred" removes key qualifiers related to intensity and extremity, potentially lowering the threshold for criminalizing speech [12].

The bill's passage required the Liberal government to secure support from the Bloc Québécois, which demanded the removal of two safeguards: the good-faith religious speech defense and the requirement that the attorney general approve hate-propaganda charges before they proceed [13]. Critics say these changes dramatically expand the scope of potential prosecution while stripping away protections against ideological enforcement.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has described Bill C-9 as "part of a wave of anti-protest legislation in Canada," warning that its provisions creating "bubble zones" around community and religious centres could criminalize lawful protest that is not hate-motivated [14]. This concern is particularly acute for pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who have staged frequent protests at locations that could fall within the bill's scope.

Legal scholars note that the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently upheld the constitutionality of hate speech provisions under Section 319 of the Criminal Code, ruling that while they restrict expression, the restrictions are justified under Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms [15]. But groups like Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) emphasize that there is "no legal basis in Canada for equating criticisms of Israeli government policies with public incitement of hatred or with anti-Semitism" [16], and that expanded enforcement could blur that line in practice.

The Parallel Crisis: Islamophobia and Intersecting Hate

Any policy discussion about antisemitism in Canada is incomplete without addressing the simultaneous surge in hate targeting Muslim Canadians. Statistics Canada reported a 94 percent increase in police-reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2023 [17]. Between October 7, 2023 and March 2024, more than 1,000 incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism were reported nationwide, with some areas seeing increases of up to 1,800 percent [18].

Canadian Muslims have faced harassment, threats, vandalism, job losses, and exclusion from professional opportunities since the escalation of the Gaza conflict [18]. Canada holds the highest rate of targeted killings of Muslims among G7 nations — a grim distinction underscored by the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting that killed six worshippers and the 2021 London, Ontario attack that killed four members of a Muslim family [17].

The Carney government's decision to fold both the antisemitism envoy and the Islamophobia envoy into a single advisory council drew criticism from both Jewish and Muslim communities [8]. A February 2026 analysis in Policy Options described "national amnesia on Islamophobia" and argued that the restructuring signaled a retreat from dedicated attention to anti-Muslim hate [19].

This dual crisis creates a policy tension. Resources directed specifically to one community's security needs can be perceived as coming at the expense of another. Jewish community leaders argue that the disproportionate per-capita targeting of Jews justifies dedicated funding and enforcement focus. Muslim community advocates counter that Islamophobic violence — including lethal attacks — demands at least equal attention and that the current political discourse centers antisemitism while sidelining anti-Muslim hate.

Where the Incidents Concentrate

The geographic distribution of antisemitic incidents tracks closely with Jewish population density. Ontario — home to roughly half of Canada's Jews, concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area — has seen the largest absolute numbers [20]. Toronto police reported that 56 percent of all hate crimes in the city in 2024 targeted Jewish people [21]. Montreal, home to the second-largest Jewish community, recorded 131 antisemitic incidents between October 7, 2023 and January 30, 2024 alone [20].

But the sharpest percentage increases have occurred in provinces with smaller Jewish populations. Quebec and Alberta saw increases of 215 percent and 160 percent respectively compared to pre-October 7 levels [22]. Smaller cities — Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa — all recorded significant spikes, suggesting the phenomenon is not confined to major urban centres [20].

University campuses have been a particular flashpoint. Student groups, faculty, and administrators have clashed over the boundaries between anti-Zionist political expression and antisemitic targeting, with incidents reported at institutions across the country [23].

What Jewish Communities Say They Need

Jewish organizational leaders have been specific about what they consider the gaps:

1. Dedicated enforcement capacity — not just police hate crime units, but dedicated Crown prosecutors with expertise in hate-motivated offences [2].
2. Faster response times — the lag between incident reporting and any legal consequence undermines deterrence [11].
3. Restoration of the antisemitism envoy — the Senate committee's first recommendation, reflecting a belief that a dedicated federal voice is more effective than a generalized inclusion office [9].
4. Sustained CCSP funding — the $20.5 million in 2025–26 drops to $15.7 million in 2026–27, and organizations argue even the higher figure is insufficient given the number of sites requiring protection [7].

At the same time, some within the Jewish community have cautioned against overreach. The enforcement gap is real, they argue, but closing it through vaguely drafted legislation risks producing a backlash that ultimately makes Jewish Canadians less safe.

The Trade-offs of an Aggressive Response

If the government were to pursue the most aggressive version of the response its critics demand — reinstating the envoy, dramatically expanding CCSP funding, fast-tracking Bill C-9 through the Senate, and directing police and prosecutors to prioritize hate crimes — the trade-offs would be significant.

Civil liberties: The CCLA, the Canadian Bar Association, and dozens of other groups have warned that Bill C-9 in its current form risks criminalizing protest and religious expression [12]. An aggressive enforcement posture could produce test cases that reach the Supreme Court and potentially reshape Charter jurisprudence on free expression.

Resource allocation: Canada's hate crime enforcement infrastructure is already stretched. Prioritizing antisemitic incidents would inevitably draw investigative and prosecutorial resources from other hate crime categories — including anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate crimes — at a time when all categories are elevated [4].

Diplomatic consequences: Canada's position on the Israel-Gaza conflict has implications for its relationships in the Middle East, at the United Nations, and with domestic constituencies. An approach perceived as equating criticism of Israeli government policy with antisemitism could complicate those relationships.

Methodological questions: Independent researchers, including those at Independent Jewish Voices Canada, have raised questions about the methodology of community-compiled audits, arguing that expanded reporting infrastructure and broader definitions of what constitutes an "incident" account for some portion of the increase [24]. These critiques do not deny the reality of rising antisemitism but argue that policy responses should be calibrated to the most rigorous available data — which, in this case, means the lower police-reported figures alongside the higher community counts.

What Comes Next

The Senate is expected to begin hearings on Bill C-9 in the coming weeks. Jewish and Muslim community organizations, civil liberties groups, legal scholars, and law enforcement officials will all have opportunities to testify. The outcome will shape Canada's hate crime framework for years.

Meanwhile, the 6,800 figure — 18.6 incidents per day — represents a lived reality for Jewish Canadians who report encountering hostility at school, at work, online, and in public spaces. Whether the government's response matches the scale of the problem, without creating new problems of its own, remains the central question.