Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. Some of the first Jewish settlers in Canada arrived in Montreal in the 1760s, among them was Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. His son Ezekiel Hart experienced one of the first well documented cases of antisemitism in Canada. Hart was repeatedly stopped from taking his seat in the Quebec legislature due to his Jewish faith, as members claimed he could not take the oath of office, which included the phrase "on the true faith of a Christian".
Influential figures of the age, such as Goldwin Smith, promoted antisemitic ideas in the 19th century, describing Jews in derogatory terms.Bendavid, I. B. (1891). Goldwin Smith and the Jews. The North American Review, 153(418), 257–271 Political leaders such as Henri Bourassa, publicly argued in the early 20th century against Jewish immigration. Quebec saw a strong anti-Jewish movement, particularly from the Catholic Church, which associated Jews with modernism and secular liberalism from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. Various Catholic publications and activists played a significant role in spreading anti-Jewish sentiment. One of the most severe incidents occurred in 1910 in Quebec City, where a violent attack against Jewish storekeepers was incited by an antisemitic speaker.
During the interwar period, figures like Abbé Lionel Groulx further fueled antisemitic views, influencing Quebec’s intellectual elite and leading to movements that boycotted Jewish businesses and employment, most notably the Days of Shame. Across Canada, antisemitism thrived in English-speaking regions as well, with various organizations promoting these negative attitudes. Significant events included the Christie Pits riot in Toronto in 1933 a violent confrontation arising from swastika displays. In the 1920s and 1930s, Jewish people still faced numerous restrictions across many areas of life, including employment and housing. Many were excluded from hospitals, universities, and professional sectors. During the Nazi Holocaust, Canada's federal government adopted restrictive policies against Jewish immigration. Despite desperate requests from Jewish refugees, many were turned away, most infamously exemplified by the MS St. Louis incident. Discriminatory practices and legislation were common, reflecting societal attitudes in Canada and internationally.
Since the end of World War II, antisemitism in Canada has been in decline as a result of the passage of human rights legislation as well as a result of the increasing acceptance of multiculturalism in Canada. Beginning in the 1960s legal barriers were removed, and Jews began to hold high-powered and high-profile positions in Canadian society. Despite Canada's progressive attitudes towards diversity in the 21st century, antisemitism remains a recurring issue in Canadian society, evident in targeted hate crimes and extremist groups. Notably, anti-Jewish incidents have surged since the October 7 attacks, which marked the beginning of the Gaza war. Particularly there has been a sharp rise in public demonstrations vilifying Canadian Jews by accusing them of complicity in war crimes and accusations of genocide since 2023.
1800s
On April 11, 1807, Jewish politician Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada over three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast. Hart refused to take the Christian based oath of allegiance and the legislature dismissed him. Hart petitioned the legislature, saying that, while he believed that he was justified in the law in taking a seat by means of the oath used by Jews in the courts, he was willing to swear the oaths used for those elected to the assembly. After some deliberation, on February 20, 1808, the assembly resolved by a vote of 35 to 5 that "Ezekiel Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish religion cannot take a seat, nor sit, nor vote, in this House." The events of 1807–1809 are known to many as the Hart Affair (French: L'Affaire Hart).
On March 16, 1831, a bill was introduced in the Legislative Assembly extending the same political rights to Jews as to Christians. The bill rapidly passed both the Assembly and the council and received the royal assent June 5, 1832.Jewish Encyclopedia
Early 1900s In 1910, Jacques-Édouard Plamondon encouraged the public to attack Jewish storekeepers and businesses in Quebec City. The shopkeepers took legal action against Plamondon, but were awarded minimal costs four years later.Sylvio Normand, "PLAMONDON, JACQUES-ÉDOUARD," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 6, 2021, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/plamondon_jacques_edouard_15E.html
In 1920, McGill University implemented a Jewish quota restricting the number of Jewish students admitted. This quota would remain active until the late 1960s.Gerald Tulchinsky, Canada's Jews: A People's Journey, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 2008, p. 132-133, 319-321, 410.
1930s–1940s Between 1930 and 1939, Canada rejected almost all Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, taking in only 4,000 of the 800,000 Jews looking for refuge, as documented in the book None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933–1948, co-authored by the Canadian historians Irving Abella and Harold Troper and published in 1983. The sailed from Hamburg in May 1939, carrying 937 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. The destination was Cuba, but officials in Havana cancelled Jewish passengers' visas. Immigration was strictly limited in Canada and the United States due to the Great Depression, so the passengers were denied entrance to Canada and the United States.
Outbreaks of violence against Jews and Jewish property culminated in August 1933 with the Christie Pits riots; six hours of violent conflict between Jewish and Christian youth in Toronto, Ontario. Swastikas and Nazi slogans began to crop up on Toronto's eastern beaches, and Jewish swimmers were attacked.Remembering Toronto's Christie Pits Riot Daniel Bitonti, The Globe and Mail, Aug.9, 2013Remembering the Christie Pits riot Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, Aug.10, 2013
In Ontario, many restaurants, shops, golf clubs, and resorts would only serve non-Jewish clientele and signs like "No Jews Allowed" or "Gentiles Only" were found on many beaches as well. Many Jewish people faced discrimination in employment or in buying a house or a property.
In 1934, Adrien Arcand started a Parti national social chrétien in Montreal patterned after the Nazi party. His party's actions resulted in antisemitic rallies, boycotts, propaganda and literature, and the inception of several other Nazi-like organizations throughout Canada.
Also in 1934, all interns at Hôpital Notre-Dame in Montréal walked off the job to protest the hiring of a Jewish senior intern, Dr Samuel Rabinovitch, who had graduated from the Université de Montréal. The four day strike, nicknamed the "Days of Shame", was resolved after several days when the new intern resigned his position after he realised that the other interns refused to "provide care to anyone, including emergency patients". The hospital administration did arrange another internship post for Dr. Rabinovitch in St. Louis, Missouri, where he remained until 1940, after which he returned to Montréal and a medical practice.
In 1938, a National Fascism Convention was held in Toronto's Massey Hall.
Antisemitic residential segregation was also prevalent during the 1930s and 1940s, and was accomplished through restrictive covenants. These were agreements among owners of properties to not sell or rent to members of certain races, including Jews, or were clauses registered against deeds by land developers that restricted ownership based on racial origin. At the time, restrictive covenants could be enforced by the courts. This changed in 1951, when the Supreme Court invalidated such restrictive covenants in its ruling in Noble v Alley.
A 1943 Gallup poll put Jews in third place, behind the Japanese and Germans, as the least desirable immigrants to Canada.Adelman, Howard and John H. Simpson, eds. Multiculturalism, Jews and Identities in Canada. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996.
During the 1944 Quebec general election, Maurice Duplessis who won the election, was appealing to antisemitic prejudices in Quebec by making a false claim in a violently antisemitic speech, that the Dominion government together with the Godbout government had made a secret deal with the "International Zionist Brotherhood" to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees left homeless by the Holocaust in Quebec after the war, in exchange for Jewish campaign contributions to both the federal and provincial Liberal parties.Knowles, Valerie Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540–2006, Toronto: Dundun Press, 2007 page 149. By contrast, Duplessis claimed that he was not taking any money from the Jews, and if he were elected Premier, he would stop this plan to bring Jewish refugees to Quebec. To further push the message, the Union Nationale handed out campaign pamphlets warning about the alleged plan to bring 100,000 Jewish refugees to Quebec, which featured a cartoon of the standard stereotype of an evil-looking, hook-nosed Jew handing bags of money to Godbout, while in the background a vast horde of dirty, disreputable-looking, hook-nosed Jewish refugees were ready to descend on la belle province.Abella, Irving & Troper, Harold. None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933–1948, Toronto: L & O Denny, 1986 page 162. Though Duplessis's story about the plan to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees in Quebec was entirely false, his story was widely believed in Quebec, and ensured he won the election. Duplessis's biographer Conrad Black argued that Duplessis was in no way personally anti-Semitic, but because the majority of Quebecois were at the time, Duplessis had merely used antisemitism to win the 1944 election.Black, Conrad. Duplesisis, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977 page 719
A 1948 article on antisemitism in Canada written for Maclean's magazine by Pierre Berton illustrates this racism: Berton hired two young women to apply for the same jobs, one under the name Greenberg, and the other under the name Grimes. While Grimes received interviews for nearly every application, positions available for Grimes were "already filled" when Greenberg applied, or Greenberg's applications were ignored. When Berton contacted several of these companies, he was told, "Jews did not have the right temperament", that "they don't know their place" or that "we don't employ Jews".
Berton, during his research on Canadian antisemitism, sent two different letters to 29 summer resorts, one signed Marshall, the other signed Rosenberg. "Marshall" was able to book twice as many reservations as "Rosenberg". Some resorts did not reply to "Rosenberg", and some told "Rosenberg" they were fully booked.
1950–2000 Ontarian university programs discriminated against Jewish students well into the 1960s.
In 1989, Alberta public school teacher James Keegstra was convicted under the Criminal Code for "wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group". Keegstra had taught in his classes that the Holocaust was a hoax and that Jewish people were plotting to take over the world, and would fail students who did not reproduce his beliefs in class or in examinations.David Bercuson and Douglas Wertheimer, A Trust Betrayed: The Keegstra Affair, Toronto and New York: Doubleday, 1985 Keegstra appealed his conviction, claiming that the law infringed on his freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with the Supreme Court of Canada eventually ruling in R v Keegstra that the infringement was justified and upheld the law.
2000–present