Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Ron Przysucha/U.S. State Department
Parliament Hill Ottawa, Canada, on Aug. 22, 2019
(JNS) — Jew-hatred has been surging in Canada — as it has throughout the world — since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. One thing that the Great White North has that no other country does is a handbook on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
The federal government launched the guide on Oct. 31, reportedly fulfilling a 2022 commitment that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, made to create an educational resource for understanding, recognizing and combating Jew-hatred.
“Canada is the first single country to produce a government handbook on the IHRA working definition,” Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, told JNS.
Lyons said that her office, which led development of the handbook over 10 months, incorporated input from more than 150 stakeholders, including Jewish leaders, law enforcement, academia and many government officials.
The aim of the project was to guide school policies and campus codes of conduct, as well as “helping administrators and institutions draw the line as to what is and what is not antisemitism,” Lyons told JNS.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, praised the handbook.
“With antisemitism at historic levels, the need for governments, school boards, university administrations, unions and civil society organizations to identify and understand the phenomenon has never been more acute,” stated Richard Marceau, vice-president of external affairs and general counsel at CIJA.
