How the synagogue audience reacted to Mark Carney’s ‘covenant’ speech on antisemitism

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks against antisemitism in front of members of the Jewish community and law enforcement leaders at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto on Monday, June 1, 2026. Photo by Peter Power/Postmedia

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With its quotations from the prophets Isaiah and Amos, the philosophers Aristotle and Charles Taylor, and the Nobel Laureate Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s landmark speech on antisemitism aimed for some of the most rousing oratory of his premiership, as he urged all Canadians to engage with this challenge that should not be for Jews alone.

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But the strongest reaction in the audience at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, the oldest synagogue in Canada, was to what the prime minister left unsaid.

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“He did not use the word ‘Zionism’ once and he could have,” said Mark Sandler, a prominent criminal lawyer and a former national chair of B’nai Brith League for Human Rights.

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“I welcomed the fact that he said that no member of the Jewish community should be held collectively responsible for what happens elsewhere in the world. Having said that, I was disappointed because the contemporary antisemitism that we’re experiencing is so often tied to anti-Zionism,” Sandler said. “We need explicit references to the fact that antisemitism embraces anti-Zionism, the demonization and delegitimization of those of us who believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. And if that is not front and centre in the fight against antisemitism, we’re going to fail.”

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“That was the overwhelming reaction in the room,” said Steven Pinkus, vice president of Mainstreet Research, a polling firm. He was encouraged, though, by both the content of the speech and for what it says about the priorities of this Liberal government. “I am so tired, angered, at hearing from the Jewish community that the man is an antisemite, and he clearly put that to rest.”

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This speech on Monday evening was hotly anticipated, both for the seriousness of the matter and the fact it could have been given with similar urgency months ago.

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“We are listening carefully for your clear commitment to confront antisemitism wherever it festers,” said Yael Splansky, Holy Blossom’s senior rabbi, in welcoming remarks. She said antisemitism is “not a Jewish problem” just as people of colour alone cannot solve racism and women alone cannot solve misogyny. “Only government can govern,” she said. But her congregants often feel they are forced, as Jewish Canadians, into the impossible choice to “relinquish one identity or the other…. We do not want to live in fortresses.”

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Pinkus said the ranks of the ministers alongside Carney were encouraging. They included Vince Gasparro, Danielle Martin, Anthony Housefather, Gary Anandasangaree and Leslie Church. Evan Solomon gave welcoming and closing remarks. Marc Miller was announced as chair of the new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion.

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“The antisemitic voices in the Liberal caucus have been silenced,” Pinkus said. “I see it reflected in who’s around him and who he’s listening to.”