Justin Trudeau condemns shots fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal
Justin Trudeau has condemned recent violence in Canada after shots were fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal and clashes broke out between proIsraeli and pro-Palestinian students at a university in the city.
Police on Thursday said they were investigating overnight shootings at two Jewish schools in the Côte-desNeiges neighborhood after staff reported finding bullet holes in the front doors of the schools.
The Israel-Gaza war has sharply divided Canada, with a growing number of residents calling for a ceasefire in the conflict that has claimed more than 11,000 lives.
“I know emotions are high, and people are scared. But attacking each other is not who we are as Canadians,” the prime minister said on Thursday.
“If anywhere in the world is going to start building the kinds of understandings that we’re going to need to see peaceful resolution in the Middle East ... it starts in a place like Canada,” he said.
On Wednesday, a violent altercation at Concordia University in Montreal between people aligned with opposing sides of the conflict in Israel and Gaza resulted in injuries and an arrest.
Administrators said that the university, like others, has witnessed “a concerning rise in acts of intimidation and intolerant behaviour” that has left students in fear.
Earlier this week, the remains of two Molotov cocktails were found outside a synagogue and Jewish community center. Montreal police say they’ve seen a spike in antisemitic hate crimes, as well as an increase in the same against Muslims in the city.
On Wednesday Trudeau decried a “terrifying” rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia across the country.
“Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogues, horrific threats of violence, targeting Jewish businesses, targeting Jewish daycares with hate,” he said. “This needs to stop. This is something that is not acceptable in Canada, period.”
He also lamented the “unacceptable” rise of Islamophobia including “against Palestinians, against anyone waving a Palestinian flag”.
He said Canada has a long tradition of peaceful co-existence among diverse peoples and that it was the “responsibility of every single Canadian to see how we are recognizing each other’s pain and fear and move forward”.
In Toronto, which has the largest Jewish population and Muslim populations in Canada, the city’s police chief warned of a “very significant rise” in hate crimes. For most of October, reports more than doubled compared with the same period last year.
In the British Columbia city of Surrey, a man threw eggs at a rabbi’s house and drew a swastika on it. In Ottawa, feces were smeared on the doors of a mosque.
“Canadians are scared in our own streets right now. We need to make sure that Canadians are doing what we do best, which is listening to our neighbors, understanding and acknowledging our neighbors’ pain, even though it may be diametrically opposed in its cause, to the same pain that we are feeling,” said Trudeau.
During the past month, police counted 73 hate crimes against people in Montreal’s Jewish community, or one more than in all of 2022 targeting all groups.
The current war in Gaza began after Hamas on 7 October carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and taking more than 200 hostages.
Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground offensive in Gaza, killing nearly 10,600 people.