The disturbing shootings targeting Jewish schools in this country reached new depths of depravity this week, with an assault on a girls’ school in Toronto for the third time.
Jewish schools and places of worship across the country have been subjected to similar attacks. It’s time to call it what it is: Domestic terrorism.
The only reason a person singles out children of one particular faith for an attack such as this is to threaten and intimidate them into not going to school. You want them to cower in fear.
And it’s time our politicians started calling it for what it is. Children attending schools in Montreal or Toronto have nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with a Mideast war. Their faith and ethnicity may be Jewish, but their nationality is Canadian. And enshrined in Canadian law is the premise that all people, regardless of their faith, should live without fear that someone will shoot up or burn down their school or their place of worship.
We don’t know yet who shot up Bais Chaya Mushka school this week. Whoever perpetrated this heinous act should be charged as a terrorist.
We have a vacuum of leadership in this country. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his sidekick, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, are so consumed by their own ego that they fail to see real issues plaguing this country. When an entire community lives in fear, there’s a major problem. Our politicians are so fearful of offending protesters, of potentially losing votes and political power, that they don’t have the courage to stand up and say what needs to be said. They pay lip service to minority rights, but when one particular minority is threatened, they’re silently complicit.
A few local politicians are trying to implement “bubble zones” banning protests around schools and places of worship. They shouldn’t be necessary. Until now, Canadian values upheld the rights of kids to go to school and people to worship freely. They not only had the law on their side — it was common decency.
No one has the right to threaten children at school or to bully worshippers at their synagogue. We’ve tolerated this intimidation for too long. It’s time to lay down the law and put a stop to it.