In the fifteen months since October 7, an absence of leadership has turned Toronto into a city that many don’t recognize. Even more upsetting, for some it has turned into a city where they don’t feel safe.
It seems almost weekly that a Jewish-owned business, community centre or synagogue is targeted by vandalism or protests. A Jewish girls’ school, Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary, has been shot at on three separate occasions. Neighbourhoods have been deliberately targeted for protests because of their Jewish populations.
In 2024, Toronto saw a 69 per cent increase in antisemitic hate crimes reported to the police. Over the holidays, hateful protests targeting Indigo, a Jewish-owned business, took over the Eaton Centre mall. On New Years’ Eve, Union Station was taken over by protestors throwing smoke bombs inside, impeding access to critical services. And just a few weeks ago, the CEO of the TTC had to appeal for help because he was alarmed by a significant rise in antisemitic graffiti across stations.
This is not a Jewish problem — it’s a Toronto problem. This is about our values and who we want to be as a city. Unfortunately, as we enter 2025, this crisis has been met with a lack of leadership at the highest level.
In the last fifteen months, I have convened and participated in dozens of meetings with Toronto’s Jewish community, including a broad spectrum of faith leaders and groups fighting antisemitism. And the message I’m hearing is that antisemitism has been tolerated for far too long, leaving our Jewish community feeling abandoned, ignored, and admonished for asking their city and its leadership to stand up for their safety. I am hearing from families that they feel Toronto is no longer a city they can call home, and are considering leaving.
In October 2023, City Council unanimously passed a motion from Mayor Chow to “Keep Toronto Safe from Hate,” which included a call to establish community safety zones around places of worship and cultural and religious daycares and schools recognized as a potential target for hate.
These words provided hope. But after more than a year, and despite repeated pleas from residents, these bubble zones still do not exist. Instead of action over the past year on this file, we have faced a pattern of doublespeak from the Mayor, her administration, and her allies.
Because of this inaction, I introduced a motion last May with Councillor James Pasternak requesting the provincial Attorney General to establish bubble zones around places of worship.
Despite moving and unanimously passing a motion supporting the same thing seven months earlier, Mayor Chow and her allies ran a disgusting misinformation campaign directly attacking me and making outlandish claims that implementing these safety zones would prevent AGO workers from picketing when they went on strike. Their aggressive campaign succeeded in having our motion defeated in a 13-11 vote.
However, their excuses collapsed as other municipalities including Vaughan, Brampton, Calgary and Ottawa have moved to enact the bubble zones our residents have been calling for.
Thankfully, the city’s top public servant, City Manager Paul Johnson, has stepped into this void left by the Mayor. The City Manager will report back to Council in the next few months with a draft bylaw that would protect vulnerable institutions such as places of worship, faith-based schools, and cultural institutions. But what will happen to our Jewish neighbours in that time?
I am hopeful that this will be the moment when Council will finally provide some of the protections the public has been calling for. But after Mayor Chow’s choices to date, including missing the first anniversary of October 7 and then spending a week making flimsy excuses, I worry this will be another moment when she will leave the Jewish community feeling abandoned.
On Jan. 27, we will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that day in 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, with over a million murdered left in its wake. On that date, you will see politicians of all stripes from every level of government post “never again,” while, no doubt, continuing to be passive and ignoring the lessons learned from the Holocaust. Real leaders will be demanding action that matches promises.
I have previously said that it’s never too late to do the right thing. But this failure of leadership has put the Jewish community in Toronto through months of harassment and terror, and we need to demand better in 2025 and beyond.
National Post
Brad Bradford is a Canadian politician and urban planner who has represented Ward 19 Beaches — East York on Toronto City Council since 2018.