The Jewish Community’s Two Years Of Hell
Allies for a Strong Canada CEO Michael Westcott on the hell Canada’s Jewish community has faced since Oct. 7, and why every Canadian should care about what’s going on.
Today marks the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
It was on this day two years ago that Hamas Islamist radicals stormed into the Jewish state, killing 1,200 people — including children, the elderly and those attending a music festival — wounding thousands more, and abducting over 250 as hostages, including the Bibas children.
What followed for the Jewish community in Canada and in other Western countries can only be described as a living hell.
In Canada, celebrations broke out in the streets soon after the attack. Since then, there have been weekly anti-Israel protests across the country, often featuring praise for Hamas, calls for intifada, and more celebrations of Islamist “resistance.” Some of these demonstrations have targeted Jewish neighborhoods, synagogues, Jewish community centres, and even Jewish hospitals. These protests continue to this day.
There have been multiple shots fired at Canadian Jewish schools, multiple synagogues have been firebombed and vandalized, and Jewish businesses have been hit with property damage and boycott campaigns. There has also been a coordinated bomb threat targeting over 100 Canadian Jewish institutions, and the national Holocaust memorial in Ottawa was desecrated.
On university campuses, Jewish students told me it was “best not to be visibly Jewish” amid rampant antisemitism and open support for Islamic terrorism, and Canada’s public schools have also seen an “alarming increase” in antisemitism.
Overall, Canada has seen a 124.6 percent increase in antisemitic incidents from 2022 to 2024, according to Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada. Canada’s Jews make up 0.9 percent of the population but are the victims of 70 percent of religious hate crimes.
Similar concerning trends have been seen elsewhere in the West.
Instead of standing with Canada’s Jewish community, the Canadian left, including the NDP and the Liberals, has abandoned them, most recently seen in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, effectively rewarding Hamas in the process.
In light of the second anniversary of Oct. 7, I am publishing a conversation I had back in September with Michael Westcott, Chief Executive Officer of Allies for a Strong Canada. The latter is an organization dedicated to combating the rise of antisemitism in Canada by mobilizing non-Jewish allies from all backgrounds.
Westcott and I discussed the antisemitic climate in Canada since Oct. 7, the role of his organization in combating antisemitism, and the information war between Israel and Hamas, with the Palestinian narrative capturing many in the West, including most of the left, some on the right, and much of Generation Z.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: Since Oct. 7, every single weekend across the country, radical anti-Israel activists have been shutting down streets. They terrorize Jews, chant extremist slogans, and it seems they’re just allowed to do this. Canada’s political class and law enforcement are allowing these people to act this way. Why do you think that is?
Michael Westcott: The protests are horrible, but there have been repeated incidents of violence. There have been assaults. A woman was stabbed in a grocery store in Ottawa. There have been instances of arson. There have been hundreds and hundreds of reported cases of vandalism targeting the Jewish community. And it all comes back to the same thing: when you permit people to do bad things, they will continue to do bad things.
Whether it is chiefs of police making operational decisions to allow illegal protests to happen, to shut down critical infrastructure, to block streets, to target daycares, senior centres, schools and religious institutions, there needs to be accountability. Right now, those chiefs of police are making those decisions because they think that is what is expected of them, and because there have been no consequences for those choices.
They need to hear from normal people that this is not okay and that this is not right. And the politicians who appoint those people need to know there will be accountability for them if we do not start to see some changes.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: There have indeed been many attacks on the Jewish community over the past two years. I’ve done a lot of reporting on that. I wrote a piece for National Review several weeks ago about Jews in Canada wanting to flee the country. Some are moving to Israel, while others are leaving for the United States, which many now see as a safer place. In your circles, are you hearing a lot of Canadian Jews saying Canada is not safe anymore?
Michael Westcott: Every single friend I have in the Jewish community right now is talking about this. I was speaking to a friend of mine just a couple of hours ago who said that at every Friday night dinner, the conversation eventually turns to: ‘Where are we going to go? It’s not safe here anymore.’
In fact, a big part of why I started this organization is because I had a friend who just couldn’t take it anymore. He left. He, his wife and his daughter have gone to Israel, and they’re never coming back. It breaks my heart, because he did that out of fear, he didn’t feel like he could keep his family safe in this country. That’s horrifying.
No one in this country should feel so unsafe, or feel that their governments and institutions, like police forces, have so utterly failed that they need to leave Canada in order to be safe. Our country was founded on principles of the rule of law and equal justice, and the fact that the Jewish community is being allowed to be targeted by, let’s face it, representatives of terrorist organizations is absolutely unconscionable.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: Tell me more about your organization, Allies for a Strong Canada. What is the organization, and what do you do?
Michael Westcott: Allies for a Strong Canada is a movement of normal, everyday Canadians who see what is happening to our country, who see how the values that make our country strong, prosperous and free are being continually eroded by bad decisions. Those bad decisions are being made by governments and institutions, from everything from local police forces to universities, colleges, Crown corporations and even businesses.
Most Canadians see what’s going on in our country and think it’s terrible. And when I say that, I mean they see people marching down the streets of our major cities dressed like terrorists, waving flags and shouting the slogans of terrorist organizations. They know it’s wrong, but they don’t know what to do about it. They say, ‘I know this is bad, but what can I do?’
Allies for a Strong Canada was created to give those people a voice, and to teach them how to use it.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: We’ve seen a lot of anti-Israel discourse in Canadian, American and other Western political circles recently. It started mostly on the far-left, then moved into the mainstream left. We’re also seeing it in certain ethnic and diaspora communities. But now it’s also starting to appear a bit on the right, particularly in the United States.
In my view, in additional to the real war, there an information war, and Hamas is very good at propaganda, especially around Israel and this narrative of ‘genocide.’
Do you think Israel is losing the information war to Hamas?
Michael Westcott: It’s bigger than just Hamas. Many of the institutions of civil society in Canada, and in the West generally, have been infiltrated and permeated by people who subscribe to an ideology, whether it’s the DEI narrative or, essentially, cultural Marxism.
The UN has been thoroughly weaponized against Israel. Most of our major institutions have been weaponized against Israel as well. If you turn on the CBC, or really any mainstream news outlet right now, all you see and hear is coverage framing the conflict between Israel and Hamas as Israel being bloodthirsty, genocidal murderers. It’s not true, but I’m not surprised that more and more Canadians are falling victim to this false and dangerous narrative.
The simple fact is that all of the institutions that should be standing up for our shared values are failing to do so. In the broader war for Western civilization, there are three front lines: Russia, China and Iran. We need to stand with our allies who are fighting those battles for us, including Israel.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: Why is the legacy media so fixated on Israel? Why aren’t they reporting on other human tragedies happening around the world? Why are they quick to report on the alleged influence of Israel and pro-Israel lobbies on politicians, but not on the influence of Qatari money? Why are legacy media outlets and institutions so obsessed with Israel in such a negative way?
Michael Westcott: Because they were trained and educated in elite institutions that have been similarly taken over and permeated by people who share those views. This all started mostly in the mid-1960s. It began in institutions of higher education, especially elite ones, and has now spread throughout civil society. The people who first took on entry-level positions in those organizations have, over the years, been promoted into leadership. This is what they were taught, and this is what they came to believe. So I’m not surprised.
If anyone remembers the expression ‘the long march through the institutions,’ we’re now at the tail end of that. We’re seeing the results where every element of elite leadership in civil society has been permeated by people who hold these beliefs and perspectives, and they allow their organizations to be used to drive these false narratives.
Elie Cantin-Nantel: Some people may say, ‘Well, I’m not Jewish, so why should I care?’ or ‘Why should this be a concern, especially when there are so many other issues, including economic ones, right now?’ Why should ordinary, non-Jewish Canadians care about Israel and antisemitism?
Michael Westcott: There are a few reasons.
First and foremost, this is not a Jewish issue. This is a Canadian issue. The fact that any group of people in this country is being targeted for harassment and violence should concern all of us.
Second, the enemies of the Jewish people in Canada are also the enemies of Canada. When those enemies stand up and burn our flag and chant ‘Death to Israel,’ ‘Death to the United States,’ and ‘Death to Canada,’ they draw no distinction. We have common enemies, and every single person in Canada should feel concerned about that.
And third, this is part of a larger erosion of the values that have built and sustained Western civilization. There is a small, but very vocal, active and aggressive minority in Canada that truly believes our country is a terrorist, horrible, racist state, and that it needs to end in one form or another. But that’s not how most Canadians feel.
If you’re reading this and thinking, ‘I love Canada. I love who we are. I love the values we share. I don’t want to see that go away. I don’t want to see that change,’ then you have a duty right now to stand up and talk about these issues. Because yes, today the Jewish community is being targeted, but you’re next.
To learn more about Allies for a Strong Canada, visit theallies.ca.
This conversation took place in September 2025 in Calgary. It has been edited for length and clarity.