Tasha Kheiriddin: Mark Carney in denial over what’s behind antisemitism

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with the audience after speaking at Holy Blossom Temple synagogue in Toronto on Monday June 1, 2026. Ernest Doroszuk/Postmedia

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Mark Carney is usually good at speaking truth to power, but yesterday he failed. In an address to Jewish Canadians at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, he named the problem — rampant antisemitism — but failed to offer a solution. He failed to send a message to those causing the problem. And he failed to understand the nature of Canada itself.

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Carney said that Canada was not founded on a “single creed, race, language, or faith.” That we “have held our differences in common, beginning — after a long period of struggle and oppression — with the French and English accommodation.” That “pluralism is the framework of our nation.”

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This is the prevailing Liberal narrative, but it is inaccurate. Canada was not founded on a single creed, true, but two: an English-French duality of languages, faiths, and legal traditions which shaped its customs and institutions. This entrenched Judeo-Christian values in Canada’s common culture.

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It is because of these values that Canada could welcome and absorb successive generations of immigrants of all faiths and creeds. Pluralism is not the “framework” of our nation, as Carney claims: it is the result of its founding values, a worldview rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, which preaches tolerance and respect for the rights of all people.

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Many countries rooted in other faiths, cultures and creeds aren’t pluralist, or compassionate, or respectful of individual will. Shariah law in fundamentalist Muslim countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen demands that women must be veiled, thieves’ hands cut off, and adulterers stoned. Those same countries impose the death penalty for same-sex acts.

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Would we tolerate any of this in Canada? No. Why? Because we don’t believe these things are ok. And why don’t we? Because our belief system is different. It was shaped by different forces and has provided a refuge for people who faced persecution, wanted a better life for their family, and sought to live in peace and freedom, unlike the places they left behind.

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That is what Carney should have said. Instead, he went on to claim that we have “the responsibility of ensuring that everyone can be their whole selves in Canada.”

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Actually, we don’t. If being your whole self means terrorizing fellow Canadians in the name of your personal beliefs, shooting bullets into Jewish schools, yelling threats and epithets for hours in front of seniors’ homes, or taking over public spaces, it’s not welcome here.

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Carney said that “When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your tradition, your language, your story. You leave behind your wars and your animosities.” But here’s the problem. Some people’s whole self is that animosity. They see in Canada a place where they can continue to grind their axe — and until now, we have let them do so.

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Citizenship is a two-way street. Newcomers have a responsibility to respect the laws and customs of the place they choose to call home. When they not only fail to embrace Canada’s basic values, but repudiate them, there must be consequences: fines, arrests, deprivation of liberty, and in the case of non-citizens, removal from the country. Let me be clear.