Anti-Semitism leaps in Canada

• Anti- Semitism has risen dramatically in this country, a Jewish advocacy group said Tuesday, calling it a “made- in- Canada” phenomenon.

B’nai Brith Canada, which has been tracking anti-Semitic incidents for 35 years, said 1,728 anti- Semitic incidents were reported across the country last year — a 26 per cent increase from 2015 and the highest number the group has ever recorded.

“That means an average of four to five incidents of anti- Semitic harassment, vandalism or violence occurring every day in our country, a country where we pride ourselves as being one of the most tolerant in the world,” said the group’s CEO, Michael Mostyn.

The numbers, included in the group’s 2016 report released Tuesday, were based on phone calls to their antihate hotline and police data.

Twenty per cent of the incidents involved Holocaust denial, a sharp increase from five per cent in 2015, said Amanda Hohmann, national director of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights.

“Unfortunately, Holocaust denial is no longer only coming from its traditional home in the extreme right,” Hohmann said. “More and more, Islamist extremists are also co- opting this position and spreading the rhetoric of denial, especially within Arab-language media right here in Canada.”

Of the 1,728 incidents reported last year, 490 occurred in Ontario, 249 in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, 121 in Alberta and British Columbia, and 74 in the Prairies. The number of incidents in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces dropped, proportionally, and Alberta and B.C. saw increases. The Prairie provinces also saw an increase in incidents, but B’nai Brith Canada attributes that to increased awareness of the anti-hate hotline.