To Canada’s shame and embarrassment, NATO delegates had to be escorted by police through the debris of the aftermath of Montreal’s riot last Friday.
But the broken glass and the heightened security were also a sorrowful testament to the facile and desultory leadership of the Trudeau Liberals, of the spinelessness in the face of the obnoxious antisemitic rage that has ravaged Canada for a year, and of the apathy within government to confront the hate that festers daily on our streets.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s failure to adequately address these hateful, disruptive, vicious, and terrorizing protests has led to almost daily demonstrations in some Canadian cities where the target is clear and unequivocal: Jews.
Too often police appear to have taken their lead from the prime minister and their response has been to watch, to do nothing and allow crimes to go unpunished.
Montreal’s riot on Friday had been preceded a day early with scenes of Jews being taunted about a “final solution” coming their way, of a woman giving a Nazi salute and of an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being burnt.
Then, on Friday, a mob claiming to be pro-Palestinian and anti-NATO smashed windows at the Palais des congrès where NATO representatives were meeting to talk about strengthening the alliance. Cars were overturned, smoke bombs thrown and metal barriers hurled at police.
Officers had to use tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Trudeau, meanwhile, was attending a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto with his children.
It is perfectly reasonable for the prime minister to spend time with his family. But his response to the riot afterwards was feeble.
It was 17 hours after the chaos ended that the prime minister thought to address the carnage with a statement on X.
“What we saw on the streets of Montreal last night was appalling,” wrote Trudeau. “Acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence must be condemned wherever we see them. The RCMP are in communication with local police. There must be consequences, and rioters held accountable.”
But could not the member for Papineau stir himself to visit the city on Saturday? Maybe to stand with the police chief amid the broken glass and in front of the boarded up windows? Trudeau had to be in Montreal for the NATO conference Monday, surely he could have arrived a day earlier to deliver a public condemnation of the violence and to call for the perpetrators to be tracked down and punished?
Such a public and loud denunciation, coupled with an address about how police need to assert their authority over the protests still ravaging Canada, would have been a more appropriate response than a few supine lines on X.
It would have sent a strong message to the protesters and to the police.
Trudeau did address the riot during his speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Monday. But he could hardly ignore it as delegates were in the city on the night of the riot. On Saturday, some delegates talked about seeing the broken glass and having to be escorted by police into a special entrance to the Palais des congrès.
“As a democracy, as a country that will always defend freedom of speech, it’s important for people to be able to go out and protest and express their anger, their disagreements in free and comfortable ways,” Trudeau told the NATO delegates. “But there is never any room for antisemitism, for hatred, discrimination, for violence.
“We expect all those responsible to be pursued and punished under the full extent of the law, and we expect the authorities to do their work.”
Canadians have the right to peaceful protest and that should always be protected.
But politicians and police have allowed the rule of law to be undermined in this country for too long. And it’s not just the blatant criminality of Friday’s riot in Montreal.
For more than a year, since the horrors of Oct. 7, antisemitism has been rife on the streets; there have been open calls for genocide against Jews; intimidation of Jews in their neighbourhoods happens daily; terrorists and terror groups have been glorified; in Vancouver there were chants of Death to Canada and the burning of the Canadian flag as masked protesters shouted their support for terrorists groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
Samidoun, also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and with known links to the terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was intimately connected with many of these incidents. But it took the Trudeau government a full year to list Samidoun as a terror group in Canada.
The lawlessness on our streets has to stop.
The police have laws they can use to arrest people for violence, intimidation, vandalism and harassment, as well as broad crowd control authority to contain protests and maintain order. Police do not need something as draconian as the Emergencies Act to tackle these vile incidents. They are far from powerless.
If Toronto police can arrest Ezra Levant, a journalist and lawyer, for standing on a sidewalk and trying to video a protest, and if Montreal police can order Adam Scheier, a rabbi, to move away from a pro-Palestinian demonstration because his Jewish skullcap might provoke violence, then they have all the resources and powers they need.
But having the tools isn’t enough. The police need to have the will to act and that appears to be sadly lacking. The police might not take their orders from our political leaders, but they can often take a cue which is why it is so important for Prime Minister Trudeau to step up and be proactive in repeatedly, loudly and strongly denouncing these despicable demonstrations.
Canada is a nation of laws. Let’s start enforcing them.
National Post