The Free Press
Hello from Ottawa, capital of the independent country still known as Canada. We’re electing a prime minister on Monday, with polls showing Liberal incumbent Mark Carney with an edge over his Conservative challenger, Pierre Poilievre.
The winner will have to deal with a series of crises—anemic growth, a divided citizenry, hockey teams that haven’t won a Stanley Cup in more than 30 years, and a trade war with our southern neighbor’s president, Donald Trump. “I love the Canadian people. I like Canada,” Trump said yesterday. And while we appreciate the kind words, what we’d really love to do is sell your country stuff like cars. We build good cars in Canada. We’re not just producing beaver pelts anymore.
More on that below.
But first, let’s talk about some of the more outrageous things that happened in Canada this week . . .
Jewish Businesses Vandalized in Toronto
Over Passover, three businesses in the predominantly Jewish Toronto suburb of Thornhill—an area that is considered generally quiet and safe with a strong sense of community—were broken into and vandalized. Among them were two Jewish-owned businesses, My Zaidy’s Pizza, a community staple since 1983, and the neighboring shop, Shaynees Gifts. Both had their cash registers looted.
My Zaidy’s Pizza, which is kosher, was founded by Joe Lantsman, grandfather of Thornhill MP, Melissa Lantsman. (Zaidy is the Yiddish word for grandfather.) A few years later, he passed the shop to Uzi Atia—an Israeli immigrant who had been helping out in the pizzeria.
Following the break-ins, Lantsman, who is a Conservative and co-deputy leader of Poilievre’s Conservative Party, took to X calling the incident a “a blatant attempt to intimidate and target our community,” adding that the “country is unrecognizable today.” The local mayor denounced the incidents as “a clear attempt to intimidate our Jewish residents.”
The police say there’s “NO evidence,” to classify the incident as a hate crime, but Leora Atia, 43, an employee at the pizzeria, isn’t convinced.
“In the more than 40 years I’ve been here, nothing like this has ever happened,” she told me. “This is an extremely safe Jewish community and we were targeted on Passover.”
Leora’s fear isn’t unfounded.
Earlier this year, a report by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism found a 670 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in Canada since October 7, 2023. In 2023, the police recorded 1,284 religious hate crimes; 900 of those were carried out against Jews, marking a 71 percent rise from the previous year.
Many of these attacks have been physical. There have been drive-by shootings at Jewish schools in Toronto and Montreal, and firebombings of synagogues in Quebec and British Columbia. One Toronto synagogue has been vandalized seven times.
Each week, downtown cores across the country are brought to a standstill for several hours as protesters, sporting Hamas bandanas, chant slogans such as, “Kick the Zios out,” “The streets are our streets,” and repurpose the Holocaust-specific phrase, “Never again,” all while calling for the destruction of Israel.
“Everyone in the community is walking on eggshells,” Leora added. “They’re scared for their children.”
The rising tide of antisemitism in Canada has left many Jewish Canadians, who represent only 1 percent of the population, questioning their future in Canada. Gad Saad, professor of marketing at Concordia University in Montreal and author of The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, fled Lebanon during Lebanon’s civil war for Canada.
“We escaped Lebanon so we could walk in Canada wearing the Star of David. Now we can’t. My city of Montreal has become, arguably, the most antisemitic city in North America,” Saad told me.
So, Where Are the Cops?
Last month, two uniformed police officers, constables Haroon Siddiqui and Farhan Ali hosted an episode of a podcast produced by the Toronto Police. It’s called Project Olive Branch, a title that suggests peace and reconciliation.
What followed was not that.
The officers—both of whom are liaison officers, a job meant to defuse potential conflict and build trust with the community—boasted about the “unbelievable” number of “reverts” to Islam after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. (The term revert reflects the belief by Muslims that everyone is born Muslim, and embracing Islam is a return to one’s Islamic roots.)
“A lot of people, after October 7, started learning about Islam. And they said, ‘Okay, well what is it with that religion? Why is it so hated? Why are they being attacked all the time?’ ” Siddiqui said.
The podcast, which has since been deleted, also discussed Islamophobia, implying that criticism of anti-Israel protests is Islamophobic.
“When someone labels a group as something they’re not, it suddenly takes on an Islamophobic undertone,” Ali said.
After public backlash, Toronto Police issued a statement apologizing for the podcast, stating that the officers’ conduct caused “significant upset and concern in the Jewish community and beyond.”
But Siddiqui and Ali both remain on active duty. (A spokeswoman for the Toronto Police told me that an “independent investigation” and a “comprehensive review” are currently ongoing.)
That episode reminded me of an encounter last fall at an anti-Israel protest in Ottawa—my city and the nation’s capital. A police officer—Muslim and of Palestinian descent, as he told me—very confident in his assumptions, assumed I was there to protest. Without hesitation he said: “You came for the protest. God bless you. Good for you for standing up for Palestine. If Ukrainians can fight for their freedom, why can’t Palestinians? There’s a double standard.”
He continued: “Palestine has existed for thousands of years—Canada’s barely 200. What’s happening to Palestinians is no different than what was done to Indigenous people here. It’s colonization.”
I asked him as a police officer, in his case, if his job is to literally protect parliamentarians, whether that meant he was enabling “colonization,” by working for the “colonizer.” Alas, our conversation abruptly ended there.
If this is what officers are saying in uniform to a reporter, should Canadians, especially Jewish Canadians, trust law enforcement to act fairly and impartially?
So, readers: What is your experience? Does mine seem like an exception or the rule? Would love to hear from you with stories or tips: Rupa@TheFP.com
Canada’s Biggest Decision in Decades: Mark or Pierre?
Many Canadians are calling the upcoming election on April 28 as the most important Canadian election of our lifetime. Incumbent Mark Carney, the Liberal Party leader and prime minister, is betting that fear sells. In this case: fear of Donald Trump.
Throughout the campaign, Carney has leaned heavily into Trump’s rhetoric, from Canada becoming the 51st state to slapping tariffs on Canadian goods. At last week’s leaders’ debate, Carney doubled down: “The biggest risk we have to this economy is Donald Trump.”
Yet, Carney’s strategy seems to be working. Advance polling over the Easter long weekend shows a record number of Canadians—roughly 7.3 million—have cast a ballot, up 25 percent from the 2021 election.
Most polls show the Liberals ahead. The electoral math remains challenging for Pierre Poilievre. Polling analyst Bryan Breguet notes that the Conservatives likely need a 4-point national lead just to win more seats—and a 6 to 8-point lead to form a majority, with their biggest obstacle being Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, where they still trail the Liberals by an average of 7 points.
Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper recently endorsed Poilievre for the second time. Harper lost the 2015 election to Justin Trudeau, not because of a faltering economy—Canada’s middle class had a higher level of income than their American counterparts—but largely due to voter fatigue with a three-term incumbent, and a surge of youth support for Trudeau fueled by his promises on climate action, indigenous rights, promoting diversity, and cannabis legalization.
A decade later, the political dynamics have reversed dramatically. An older demographic is fueling Liberal support in the polls.
The Liberals enjoy a strong edge among baby boomers, many of whom retired, mortgage free, with vacation homes in Florida, while Poilievre’s Conservatives draw their support primarily from millennials and Gen-X voters who are frustrated with soaring living costs and limited opportunities, and probably still living in their parents’ basement.
If that surprises you, consider that the per capita income is exactly where it was a decade ago, among the lowest among advanced Western countries, and the income of the average Canadian is less than three quarters of the average American.
On Thursday morning, Poilievre’s Conservatives might have caught a lucky break. During a phone call last month, Trump reportedly suggested making Canada the 51st U.S. state, contradicting Carney’s public claim that Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” during their discussion. CBC sources said Carney disagreed with the idea but chose not to escalate the moment, later telling reporters the conversation was “cordial” and “constructive.”
The vote is on April 28.
Unmarked Graves Hoax
No single story has captured the Canadian conversation over the past four years more than that of the supposed discovery of 215 unmarked graves on the site of a former Indian residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. I say “supposed” because no bodies and no graves were actually found. A First Nations community using ground-penetrating radar detected 215 soil disturbances underground, which they said was consistent with the shape and size of a grave.
Nevertheless, the story made international headlines and was widely reported as evidence of mass graves, despite the absence of any exhumed or confirmed remains, to this day. Flags across Canada were lowered at half-mast for months. The Biden administration announced plans to investigate federal boarding schools for potential burial sites of Native American children.
A few courageous journalists, such as Terry Glavin and Jonathan Kay pushed back, but they were smeared as “racists,” and “genocide deniers.”
But this week the state-owned broadcaster, the CBC, has had to walk back a claim its host Rosemary Barton made on air last week that “remains of indigenous children found in various places across the country.”
“It has become a sacred myth,” Kay told me. “I can only imagine how much hand-wringing took place at the CBC when they finally decided they had to admit no remains have been found, even in this obscure way.” Regardless, Kay believes this feels like “something of a landmark on the road to truth.”
While Canadians have been talking about mass graves, over the same period, churches throughout throughout the country have been burned. Since 2021, there were 40 confirmed cases of arson targeting Catholic churches in Canada. In all, some 120 Christian churches of various denominations have been vandalized and torched.
Why do so few people talk about this story—or even know about it? Maybe because then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the “anger” behind the church burnings as “fully understandable, given the shameful history that we are all becoming more and more aware of…”
The media followed suit by contextualizing what was clearly a hate crime. And several of these cases were closed with no information about the backgrounds of the perpetrators because, due to Canada’s privacy laws, the race of the perpetrator is not publicly disclosed. Still, some of those who were arrested were indigenous.
Should We Defund the CBC? I Debate.
On April 16, I took part in a debate at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, arguing that Canada’s public broadcaster—the CBC and its French-language counterpart, Radio-Canada—should be defunded by the federal government. Journalist Max Fawcett argued in favor of keeping the broadcaster. You can watch the full debate here.
The conversation felt especially timely given recent developments south of the border. Just days before, President Trump announced that he wants Congress to revoke $1.1 billion granted to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR. (Here in Canada, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has similarly called for defunding the CBC, calling it a “biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party.” By contrast, Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney believes that the CBC is essential to countering “misinformation and disinformation,” and has promised to boost its funding.)
When I first arrived in Canada over 25 years ago, I loved the CBC. I was especially hooked on Point of View, a CBC segment hosted by the late Rex Murphy. His fearless, unfashionable takes—from challenging the powerful to defending the seal hunt—were inspiring to someone raised in a censorious world.
But Canada and the CBC have changed. We have DEI-style diversity, but far less room for real dissent. I often wonder if someone like Murphy would even be put in front of a microphone today.
My view was the CBC was past its sell-by date, and in this digital age, there’s a plethora of content available to Canadians through new media such as Substack, YouTube, and outlets like The Free Press, which are proof that high-quality journalism can thrive without taxpayers’ subsidies.
Still, public opinion, in a closely contested election, complicates things. A recent poll shows that most Canadians, including 67 percent of those who identify as conservative, support government funding for the public broadcaster. Unsurprisingly, Poilievre has softened his rhetoric. Once promising to defund the broadcaster within his first 100 days in office, he now avoids giving a firm timeline.
What I’m Watching . . .
I’ve just begun watching North of North on Netflix, by Inuit filmmakers Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril. It’s a comedy about life in Canada’s Arctic region told through the story of a young Inuk mother. The show was developed by the commercial arm of the CBC, CBC TV. Which is my way of saying: The CBC makes some wonderful things! But that doesn’t mean it needs $1.2 billion in funding every year from taxpayers.
What I’m Listening to . . .
It was Easter. I’m Hindu and an atheist (yes, I realize that’s confusing, but Hinduism recognizes atheism as a path to “God,” also known as ultimate reality) to boot, but I spent the weekend listening to Bach’s St. John Passion, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, as I do every Easter. And no Sunday is complete without listening to some baroque music, my favorite genre of classical music. There’s something spiritual and grounding about listening to Bach, and if you’re into Bach as much as I am, do yourself a favor and listen to great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, his first and last recordings that bookended his career. Nobody gets Bach like Gould.
If you have tips, links, or story ideas, send them my way at Rupa@TheFP.com. I read everything.
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