“An Antisemite Would Have Given It A Standing Ovation”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing growing backlash after announcing a new federal antisemitism council whose members include figures critics say are tied to anti-Israel campus activism and past disputes over terror designations.

Carney announced the council on Monday during a speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, where he said Canada had failed its Jewish citizens amid a surge in antisemitism. “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” he said.

The government said the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion would first focus on antisemitism. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the council will assess the nature and drivers of antisemitism, help develop a whole-of-government response, improve hate-incident data and measure the effect of government efforts.

The council includes former senator Marc Gold, LGBT activist Martine Roy, retired Olympic skater Catriona Le May Doan, Metis advocate Gary LaPlante, academic Aftab Erfan, lawyer Avnish Nanda and former Liberal transport minister Omar Alghabra.

Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman sharply criticized Carney’s response, accusing him of giving a weak speech and then appointing figures she said were linked to the same forces fueling antisemitism in Canada.

“Yesterday the Prime Minister delivered a speech on anti Semitism so neutered that an anti Semite would have given it a standing ovation,” Lantsman said.

“And his solution was a council one includes a lawyer that went to court defending illegal encampments, a former minister whose organization lost federal funding for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and then lobbied the former government to keep it off the terror list,” she added.

“And it's led now by a minister who wants to ban passages from the Bible and funded these same anti Semites in his own department.”

B’nai Brith Canada also said the government’s announcement fell short of what Jewish Canadians need. Simon Wolle, the organization’s CEO, said Carney’s speech acknowledged the crisis but did not provide an adequate plan.

“The Jewish community did not require another acknowledgment that antisemitism is raging across the country, we needed a plan proportional to the scale of the crisis,” Wolle said. “Our children are no safer today than they were yesterday.”

One of the appointments drawing criticism is Alghabra, who previously served as president of the Canadian Arab Federation. In 2004, while leading the group, Alghabra criticized CanWest publications for adding the word “terrorist” to news wire reports about Middle Eastern groups.

The example cited at the time involved the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which Canada had already listed as a terrorist entity in 2003. Alghabra said then that media outlets had “moral and ethical obligations to report the facts when it comes to news reporting, not the opinions of their editors.”

Alghabra also told the Jewish Tribune in 2006 that he did not believe Hamas wanted the elimination of Israel. He later described Hamas as a terrorist organization during a 2016 parliamentary debate.

Critics have also pointed to Nanda, a lawyer who represented figures connected to the University of Alberta anti-Israel encampment after the university dismantled the protest in 2024. The encampment demanded that the university divest from companies tied to Israel and was removed by Edmonton Police at the request of university administrators.

The backlash also comes after Canada’s Senate Human Rights Committee released a report earlier this year with 22 recommendations to fight antisemitism. Critics said Carney should have acted on the existing recommendations instead of forming another advisory body. “Senators already delivered the blueprint for fighting antisemitism. All the PM had to do was action it. But no, instead we have another council,” said Senator Leo Housakos.

Carney said the council is intended to help protect Jewish Canadians and respond to hate more effectively. His critics say the appointments show the government still does not understand the nature of the antisemitism crisis it says it is trying to confront.