Canadian Human Rights in Shreds

"Across the past two years, multiple independent analyses and advocacy groups have documented patterns in CBC's reporting that exhibit a concerted pattern of bias against Israel -- not just occasional missteps. One detailed report released just last month by HR Canada Charitable Organization analyzed 2,789 CBC news articles published between October 7, 2023 and June 7, 2025, using large-scale textual analysis."

"It concluded that CBC's online coverage displayed consistent narrative imbalance, routinely minimizing Israeli and Jewish experiences while privileging Palestinian perspectives and framing them with more sympathetic language."

"The analysis identified what it referred to as a 'consistent pattern' in CBC's coverage that 'dehumanizes Israelis while humanizing Palestinians', raising questions about whether the [public] broadcaster met its own journalistic standards for impartiality."

Beryl P. Wajsman, president, Institute for Public Affairs, Montreal 

Canada does not recognize itself other than as a stalwart defender of human rights. Its history leaves that belief open to question on a number of fronts. In the late 1930s when German Jews fled Germany to seek haven from Nazi persecution, they discovered themselves being viewed in Canada as in the United Kingdom, as 'enemy aliens'. And, as enemy aliens, people who were in fact destined to be slaughtered during the Second World War as fascist Germany under Nazi rule determined to eradicate all Jewish life from Europe, they were a people in dire need of rescue from an existential fate of annihilation.  Yet close to 2,400 Jewish refugees were interned in Canada behind barbed wire. Ironically, Jews were forced to live in alien-prison camps alongside actual imprisoned German Nazis. 

Dr. Friz Bender (on the left sawing wood) was a Phase I internee who developed the technology to waterproof plywood.

"During the first phase, 711 German and Austrian Jews were interned here. Many were refugees of Nazi Germany oppression who had fled to England. British government not knowing where the loyalty of these Jewish people lay, asked Canada and Australia to house these refugees. After a year, the government of Great Britain realized that many people among the refugees could contribute to the war effort. The internees were given the choice to return to England and join their military, or obtain a sponsor to remain in Canada or the United States. Many contributed to the fields of medicine, the arts and business, some leading to international recognition."

New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum 

During the war when Jews were desperate to escape Germany for haven in any country that would offer them refuge, Canada refused to give that refuge to German Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis out of Germany packed with Jews pleading for rescue. No country responded to their pleas for haven, including Canada. The ship was forced to return to Germany with all the Jews hoping against hope that humanitarian impulses of Western nations would come to their aid, discovering that for Jewish lives there were no humanitarian impulses.

The St. Louis, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees, waits in the port of Hamburg.

 

It was not only Jews that were given the treatment of suspicion and alienation from the greater society. Over 22,000 Japanese-Canadians, citizens of Canada or the United Kingdom, were dispossessed of their citizenship, their properties confiscated, interned as enemy aliens, despite no evidence of having ever engaged in espionage or attempts at sabotage against the West on behalf of Japan. It was not until 1988 that Canada made a formal apology to its Japanese citizens and offered material reparation. 

 

Canada admitted fewer than 5,000 Jewish refugees before and during the war while the knowledge of Nazi atrocities were widely known. That number of Jews that Canada permitted to enter the country represented the least of any allied country of Western democracies. Prime Minister Mackenzie King's infamous statement of 'None is too many" summed up the political, governmental and population disinterest in rescuing a people that a profound sense of antagonism was aimed toward. 

 

Talia Ben Sasson, right, hugs Ayellet Tzur as they attend a rally in support of Israel in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

 

Since then, as a minority population of loyal Canadians, all Canadian governments have ensured that civil liberties embraced all its ethnic and religious groups with equal security and protection under the law. Canada's Criminal Code addresses provisions against trespass, hate propaganda intimidation and obstruction, assault and mischief. And that section of the Criminal Code is more needed to be enforced today than ever before in recent history. 

 

In the last several years, Canadian Jews have been subject to all of those attacks that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits in its guarantee of equal treatment under the law and security of the person. Despite which, law enforcement in Canada fails Canadian Jews against an unprecedented level of attacks on individuals and community institutions following the atrocities in southern Israel launched by thousands of Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. 

 

The immediate response to that horrendous onslaught of organized mass murder and hostage-taking has been an eruption on the streets of Canada of Palestinian celebration and support, degrading Israel's sovereign and human rights of existence, and embracing a generalized hostility against Canada's Jewish community. The two Liberal governments, one led by Justin Trudeau the second by Mark Carney have taken no notice of the persecution and attacks against Jews in Canada.

 

The demonstration outside the Israeli Consulate in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks became the first of many in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza over the next two years. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

 

Their inaction has led other levels of government, from provincial to municipal, to remain deliberately oblivious to the dangerous situation that unfolded and continues to this day to destroy Jewish security  in the place of their birth as Jewish Canadians. Police forces have followed suit. Illegal mass marches and street prayers that serve no purpose other than intimidation, and threats of accelerating the venomous hatred along with violently potentially lethal fire-bombing of Jewish community centres, schools and synagogues have failed to move authorities to react and uphold the law.

 

Hateful incidents directed against Jews in Canada amounting to 6,200 police reports in 2024 alone, far outstripping such acts against any other group in number, yet go unaddressed. Canada's inaction over the ongoing provocations, threats and violence make Canada the leader of such events over the U.S., France, the U.K. and Australia all of which have also been overwhelmed by Muslim-led pro-Hamas protests in the streets calling for a 'Final Solution' and to 'Globalize the Intifada'. 

 

Canada has, in essence, submitted itself voluntarily to accepting as normal ongoing attacks that seriously abrade its reputation as a country devoted to human rights. 

Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)