Four more Jewish synagogues and schools in Toronto have been vandalized in the past 24 hours, and a community organizer who's against anti-Semitism joins us to talk about what he saw and why he thinks it's unacceptable.
00:07:25.240So why do you think this school bus caught fire at 5 a.m.?
00:07:31.240Anyways, my point is I'm just personally geographically surrounded by enough Jewish things that I'm starting to detect firsthand personally the anti-Semitic crime wave that has happened in Canada over the last 10 months.
00:07:47.240Now, perhaps some of that is unavoidable, but I don't think so.
00:07:51.240There were attempts to set up pro-Hamas hate marches on various campuses in the United States, too.
00:07:58.240And, of course, they have their First Amendment freedom.
00:08:00.240So even uncomfortable, brutal, hateful speech is protected by the First Amendment.
00:08:08.240But that doesn't apply if it is on private property, if there's other rules in place.
00:08:13.240And so there was some amazing footage of American universities clearing out these pro-Hamas mobs.
00:08:21.240Maybe you've seen some of this footage.
00:08:23.240I just love this guy in his kind of stetson. Take a look.
00:08:28.240This is the University of Southern California, one of many flashpoints across the country.
00:08:35.240The police have issued a dispersal order on the USC campus.
00:08:39.240They've warned students that if they remain here, they will be arrested.
00:08:52.240And I remember very early on in Florida, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, announced that if any university groups were materially aiding terrorist groups, they would be banished from any Florida university.
00:09:08.240And again, he did not censor First Amendment protected speech.
00:09:12.240He said if you are organizing, working with, financing, harboring, whatever, the kind of words that are in our Canadian criminal code, he would shut down those hate groups immediately.
00:09:22.240And indeed he did. And my reason for telling you that is it didn't have to be that Canada became home to these atrocious hate in Canada.
00:09:32.240I mean, of course, it happened in the United States and New York City as well, extreme universities like Columbia.
00:09:38.240But in Canada, it's been because every single institution has capitulated.
00:09:43.240I think there's been no moral leadership.
00:09:46.240Justin Trudeau, on behalf of the federal government, not only abetted and abides them, but he has sided in international forums with Hamas and has sent tens of millions of dollars to the Hamas front group called UNRWA.
00:09:59.240On the provincial level, you've seen most provincial premiers in Canada just wanting to stay very quiet about it because they know that the anti-Semitic vote is now quite large.
00:10:11.240Especially in Ontario, where Doug Ford is actually the political leader who has the prosecutors.
00:10:18.240As you may know, in Canada, the criminal code is written by the federal government, but it is prosecuted by provincial prosecutors.
00:10:25.240So that's Doug Ford's turf. That's Francois Legault's turf. You can't blame that on Trudeau.
00:10:31.240And of course, there's the local police departments.
00:10:34.240Toronto, led by a socialist mayor, Olivia Chow, is all too happy to turn a blind eye to Islamic extremism because she knows those are her voters.
00:10:45.240So I think we've had nine months of the Overton window shifting, nine months of protesters, university woke protesters, but especially foreign born, foreign visa holder nationals in Canada, realizing to their shock what they can get away with.
00:11:07.240And the answer is, they can get away with everything. They have yet to find a limit of what they can or can't get away with, like a baby testing limits.
00:11:16.240So how can I go this far? Can I get away with this? The answer is being in Canada, you can get away with everything.
00:11:22.240Everything. And so there's a new normal. And so thank God no one in Canada has been killed by these little acts of terrorism.
00:11:30.240But it wouldn't surprise me if one day someone is. Now, attacking a school or a synagogue in the dead of night with a Molotov cocktail is unlikely to kill someone.
00:11:40.240But it is a form of terrorism by definition. It's designed to terrify and terrorize people for political reasons and to aim at some sort of political result.
00:11:50.240Terrorism has become normalized in Canada. And speaking for the neighborhoods I live in, people are scared.
00:11:57.240People in Canada, Jewish Canadians who have had a life of total integration and harmony in the community are now talking about moving away.
00:12:06.240Some are talking about moving to Israel, even though they're in a war, at least they know who their enemy is and they'll call it out.
00:12:13.240Others want to move to places like Florida, where they know that there is a strong, freedom-oriented, nationalistic leader who's going to protect against especially foreign meddlers.
00:12:24.240It makes me extremely sad to see what I've seen in Canada in recent days.
00:12:29.240Today I went to a synagogue, I'm going to show you in a moment, and I saw a plaque on the front that it was this rock, this foundation stone was laid in 1980.
00:12:40.240So the synagogue is about 44 years old, and I thought to myself, 1980 was sort of the golden age for Jews in Canada.
00:12:49.240There was no anti-Semitism in Canada. I mean, one in a million. I grew up west of Calgary.
00:12:56.240My family was the only Jew for miles around. We never faced anti-Semitism. The opposite.
00:13:01.240People were genuinely curious. They wanted to know more. What does it mean to be Jewish?
00:13:06.240Everyone was so friendly. The friendliest country, so accepting, such a high-trust society.
00:13:12.240It was wonderful for Jews, and Jews shined. They excelled at whatever their professions were.
00:13:17.240They had synagogues and Jewish centers, and they were friends with their neighbors, and there was no animosity at all.
00:13:23.240That's changed very much. Not that old stock Canadians have changed, but the Canada of 2024 is very different than the Canada of 1980.
00:13:33.240Now, I think most immigrants to Canada do not bear malice or anti-Semitism towards the Jews.
00:13:39.240I don't think they do, but an enormous number do, simply because we are taking people from lands that are endemically anti-Semitic.
00:13:48.240Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia. These are places that hate Jews.
00:13:57.240And we're just bringing in people without screening them whatsoever for cultural fit.
00:14:03.240As you may know, to immigrate to Canada these days, you don't even meet anyone.
00:14:07.240You're not even interviewed. It's an all-paperwork, all-electronic application.
00:14:12.240I think Canada has swamped itself. Some of it is just economic free riders.
00:34:24.240A politicized police who sides with the Islamists would like to gaslight you to not believe your lying eyes.
00:34:31.240Look, I don't have all the information.
00:34:34.240I've had a lot of interesting observers say things to me.
00:34:38.240For example, a fireman just wrote to me and said, look, Ezra, actually, I think if the fire was beneath the window in that school, the fire would have broken the window.