Former general criticizes Canada’s failure to combat antisemitism

VICTORIA, Canada – Canada is failing not just its Jewish community but all of its citizens by fostering hate and violent rhetoric through the inaction of the country’s leadership, former Canadian Armed Forces chief of the Defense Staff Gen. (ret.) Rick Hillier told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Monday.

The ex-head of the Canadian military said he didn’t go far enough in a May 1 National Post article warning that Ottawa has deserted its Jewish citizens as antisemitism proliferates across the northern country’s cities and academic campuses.

“We didn’t just fail, and are not just failing 400,000 Jewish Canadians; we’re failing 41 million people. And to me, that’s bloody unacceptable,” said Hillier.

“You don’t build a nation on hatred. We have many diverse groups across our great land, which is wide and skinny and, therefore, very much prone to regionalism and separate factions. Those are lethal things to have for a nation; if you want to keep it together, we have many diverse factions that make up our nation. If you accept hatred in one faction, then it’s natural that you must accept hatred in other factions.”

Hillier is concerned that the same weeds of hate that have been permitted to grow in the country’s willful blind spot for Jews could spread in the cracks between Canadian society’s many cleavages. Canada’s First Nations, LGBT people, black people, and other groups would not just be at risk of being abandoned to such cultural cancer. Still, they could also erode the bonds between the provinces from Quebec to British Columbia to Alberta.

“If our leadership doesn’t stand up and take steps to prevent the hatred being articulated and used in our society, then we have to expect that it will start exploding elsewhere,” said the retired general.

Canada faces rising antisemitism crisis

As with many countries, Canada has seen an explosive growth in antisemitism and violent anti-Israel animus sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Antisemitic incidents rose by 109.1% in 2023 compared to 2022, according to B’nai Brith Canada’s annual audit. There was a 208% increase in violence and a 124% increase in harassment compared to the previous year. The phenomenon has continued unabated.

In Toronto, Canada’s largest city, where hate-motivated crimes have skyrocketed by 93% since the Hamas pogrom, there has been a series of defacements of synagogues since April. Jewish students were bullied relentlessly at a Toronto school; in November, one 13-year-old pushed and threatened by his peers said that they would “do to him what Hamas did to Israel.” On April 30, an Israeli high school student was beaten in the New Brunswick capital of Fredericton.

Commonplace had become “the chanting of ‘From the river to the sea [Palestine will be free]’ with its conclusion that Israel and the Jews there are going to be wiped off the map and it’s going to be a genocide,” said Hillier. “When we permit those kinds of things to occur, we are permitting now hatred and bias and prejudice towards Jews.”The intensity of the violent and pro-terrorist rhetoric at the Canadian anti-Israel protests, which often even exceeds that of its American counterparts, is usually ignored or unappreciated by international media.

Hillier referenced an activist at Parliament Hill who praised the October 7 massacre. At a March 10Parliament Hill speech, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network international coordinator Charlotte Kates praised October as “brave” and “amazing” as a protester wearing a shirt emblazoned with the face of Hamas Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida listened on.

Canada has become permissive of terrorist organizations, said Hillier, “thinking we’re once removed” from the designs of Hamas, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Indian terrorist groups. Hillier said that he is not privy to current Canadian intelligence. Still, based on information in the public forum, he is concerned about how Ottawa has ignored the operations of groups like Iran’s IRGC.

“We have permitted them to extend their tentacles in Canada, potentially fundraising in Canada, and to shape what occurs in Canada,” said Hillier. “And as we look at the demonstrations, they are too organized, prepared, and supported to be spontaneous things which occur or explode across the country.”

Like Canada’s southern neighbor, many protesters occupying college and university campuses are not students but professional activists.

“They can all afford to go out and live on the campuses. They got somebody who’s going to pay for the food that they’re ordering in while they are there,” said Hillier, who also noted how activists who could give speeches at Parliament Hill one day could be inciting in Vancouver the next. Kates, whose organization Samidoun is allegedly a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led chants of “long live October 7 in Vancouver on April 29

“Somebody is supporting them,” said Hillier. “And whether it’s Iran through the IRGC, or whether it’s Qatar, or whether it’s some other organization – I do not have all the details – this is not spontaneous. There is a structure to this, and there is financing.”

Hillier described systematic apathy among Canadian leaders against both antisemitism and anti-Israel terrorism that is not present for other breeds of hatred.

“If one of our indigenous nations, men, women, or children, showed up at the University of Toronto and were prevented from entering because they were indigenous, we would be in a tumultuous state, and rightly so,” said Hillier. “If a black man showed up and tried to enter and were denied entry because he was black, we would be angry. Equally, if somebody showed up who espoused the fact that they were gay and were denied entry because they are gay, we would be apoplectic, and rightly so. And we should be the same way with Jewish Canadians.”

In contrast to the reaction when there was swastika graffiti in Toronto or Hamas flags being waved at university encampments, “Look how, again, apoplectic the political leadership was when one Nazi flag was carried during the [2022 anti-COVID-19 mandates] truckers convoy. Yet we see the Hamas flag, which is designated by this great country as a terrorist organization – not a murmur.”

Many Canadian politicians had in the past spoken out against individual incidents and condemned the general trend of rising antisemitism and pro-terrorism, but “words mean nothing when you say those things and, on the other end, do something entirely different.”

According to Hillier, “It doesn’t mean anything when people use words to say, ‘This is not our Canada.’ Well, bull. This becomes our Canada if we don’t take action.”

“In my world – and I lived it all my life as a soldier – action stops and bulls*** walks,” said Hillier. “Actions speak loudly. Actions articulate your values. And actions articulate what you will or will not accept.”Not taking action is itself an action, which sends a message that Canada accepts such prejudice.

WHILE HILLIER said that many great elected leaders are serving the nation at every level and in every party, he saw partisan vote counting and cynical gymnastic performances to avoid offending a segment of the voting population rather than advocate for the enforcement of the law.

His warnings about the state of Canada have seen little response from politicians but got “a massive response from the typically silent majority, who are frightened about what is happening to our nation and don’t want it to continue.“Where are the leaders being in the synagogue and the Jewish neighborhoods when they are under protest and when they are threatened and when they are fearful?” asked Hillier, referencing a series of protests that occurred in front of synagogues in Montreal and Toronto in March. “Where are the leaders going out to our synagogue services, and where are the leaders with their attorney-generals, ministers of public security, and ministers who are responsible for police?

“Where are they in ensuring that our police forces are enforcing the laws that are on the books right now and making sure that this kind of hatred is not only not acceptable in Canada, it’s not tolerated in Canada.”

As someone who spent his life in uniform to protect the rights of Canadians, Hillier said that public demonstrations should be glorified. If citizens wished to protest, “Israel attacking in Gaza despite the horrible, brutal, barbaric actions of the 7 OctobeOctober 7cre, that’s their right in our great nation. That’s part of freedom of speech.” However, it was unlawful and unacceptable when demonstrations effectively turned into a pro-Hamas rally calling to spread intifada and “continue with the murder of Jews.”

Hillier said that federal and provincial laws need to be enforced, and if they are not, the rule of law will collapse.

“I want to see our police forces enforce the laws that we have on our books, the laws against hatred, the laws against trespassing, and the laws against destruction,” said Hillier. Law enforcement is “why we in Canada have such a law-abiding population. And if we start showing Canadians that we’re not going to do that, those kinds of things are going to be rethought by Canadians who will say, ‘Well, maybe we cannot depend on police forces to help us and defend ourselves.’”

Canada is pursuing extensive online hate speech laws, but Hillier said the current rules must be enforced in the interim.

“I would ask the courts to take a look at people who are breaking those hate laws and say, ‘There are certain things we are going to do to prevent you from doing that.’ One is we’ll put you on a no-flight list,” suggested Hillier. “We’re going to go after your sources of financing, and we’re going to go after your bank accounts, and we’re going to make sure that if you’re espousing hatred, you’re going to pay a huge penalty for that.”

Hillier called for the IRGC to be officially designated as a terrorist organization. Currently, the IRGC’s Quds Force is on Canada’s list of terrorist entities. Intelligence and police forces needed to crack down and diminish the organization’s operation and fundraising to zero.

CANADA HAS not just encouraged pro-terrorist rhetoric to increase at home. Still, Hillier said that the Canadian Parliament’s March 19 and March 19 nonbinding motion to cease arms trade with Israel and the correspondent March 20 policy change encouraged Hamas, even if there was no practical effect.

“It immediately encourages them by saying, ‘Okay, Canada is going to hammer Israel, and they’re on our side. Therefore, keep encouraging us,” said Hillier. “And that might not be what was intended, but that is the consequence.”

While there was no practical effect on Israel because Canada exported little in the way of defense materials to Israel, the decision could backfire because Israeli weapon systems could be denied to Canada for purchase in the future, endangering Canadian soldiers.

The Canadian reaction to Israel’s military operations, based on the general’s assessment of publicly available materials, did not understand the challenges of such a campaign.

“Any fight where there are civilians around, particularly if they’re being used as a [human] shield in many ways by one side, is going to cause the deaths of innocent civilians. And that’s tragic, and that’s brutal,” said Hillier.“When the Allies were getting ready to invade Normandy and France and destroy Nazi Germany, they wanted to isolate the Normandy Peninsula – they wanted to isolate that coast. So they bombed all the railway lines and the road centers and the bridges for a solid month. With their strategic and tactical air forces, they caused the deaths of 9,000 innocent French civilians during that month alone. And against that measurement, what Israel is doing has been more disciplined than any other military action that I know of.”

Citing the Battle of Falluja in Iraq and the Battle of Stalingrad, Hillier said the regrettable consequence of warfare is civilian deaths.

“This is a tragic consequence of fighting,” said Hillier, who was critical of Hamas casualty counts. “But if an enemy chooses to hide behind a population, there are going to be innocent deaths, and they simply cannot be avoided. The best way to avoid them now: Hamas, lay your weapons down. Surrender. Release those hostages. The shooting will stop in a heartbeat.”

The 400,000 Jewish Canadians are not responsible for dropping bombs in Gaza, said Hillier. “They are being hated because they are Jews.”

The officer added that “they’re being prejudiced against. They’re being hated, and they’re not being supported.“The silent majority in many countries, and I know here in Canada, has been silent too long now, and we need that majority of the population to make their voices and actions heard,” said Hillier. “And if their action is only to look at their vote on the ballots and determine who has been leading our country and on the side of right, then do that.”

The silent majority has to make its voice heard to prevent the backward slide away from the country they wish to live in. Hillier called for leaders to understand the responsibility of their role in society.

“Hold yourself accountable when you look in the mirror in the morning,” said Hillier. “Rise above the partisan political fray. Be on the side of right.”