Jewish group calls on Ottawa to launch commission on antisemitism

People stand in an embrace as they listen during a ceremony marking Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, at the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA — The Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith has called on Ottawa to launch a commission on antisemitism and appoint someone to the envoy role that has been left vacant since July.

“The absence of the position undermines Canada’s international reputation and signals a lack of commitment to antisemitism,” the group’s CEO Simon Wolle said at a Monday press conference on Parliament Hill.

“If no actions are taken to address this bigotry and its harm to Canadian Jews -- and in turn, all Canadian values -- then we fear that this sends a really dangerous message to Canadians that hate against a minority group is not only acceptable but welcome.”

Wolle was speaking a day before the annual remembrance ceremony at the National Holocaust Monument -- an event which used to feature Ottawa’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.

That role has been vacant since Deborah Lyons resigned in July, three months before her term was set to expire.

Laura Scaffidi, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office, said the government is still consulting on what to do about that office.

“We are continuing significant engagement with the community about how to best build on this crucial work for the year ahead,” Scaffidi wrote in a statement.

She added that the government is acting against “a horrifying rise of hate, particularly since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack” in 2023.

She said those actions include educating Crown prosecutors to identify hate crimes and proposing a law to ban obstruction of religious or cultural institutions.

Wolle said his group has had “very minimal appropriate levels of engagement with the PMO.”

He said Ottawa is not doing enough to stop a rising number of hate crimes and dangerous rhetoric that could inspire deadly attacks, such as the shooting last month in Australia that killed 15 people at a Jewish event.

He said Jews are being blamed for the policies of the State of Israel -- which has been accused of pursuing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and whose head of government faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.

Wolle said there is a “collective and malicious punishment of the Jewish people across Canada for people’s opinions on geopolitical issues and foreign conflicts around the world.” He said his group’s preliminary data suggests there has not been a significant drop in antisemitic incidents since a partial ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last October.

He said Ottawa and the provinces should support the launch of a royal commission on antisemitism to investigate how anti-Jewish hate is being dealt with across the country.

“We’re seeing the problem permeate into every province and territory across our vast country,” Wolle said. “You can see the systemic national crisis that has emerged. It has to be addressed now.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is also calling on Ottawa to beef up staffing and laws to address violent extremism, and to expedite its funding for security at sites like synagogues.

“At a moment of heightened threat, it is essential that our public leaders reinforce the unequivocal message that exploiting a foreign conflict as a pretext to target Canadian Jews, or any other community, will not be tolerated in our country,” wrote the group’s CEO Noah Shack in an open letter to Carney.

CIJA is also calling for stronger Israel-Canada ties and says “relations are at a low point.” Israel’s envoy in Ottawa has suggested Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “hard line” on Gaza is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not had a conversation with Carney since he took office last March.

“Re-engaging at the highest levels is essential to restore this mutually beneficial and strategically important alliance,” says the letter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2026.