Airport bars Montreal bus driver after antisemitic rant to passengers
A Montreal airport has announced that it has barred a bus driver from working at the airport after videos surfaced of the man calling Jewish passengers “Zionist pieces of sh*t.”
A Montreal airport has announced that it has barred a bus driver from working at the airport after videos surfaced of the man, who allegedly threatened to “decapitate” the family “like Hamas,” calling Jewish passengers “Zionist pieces of sh*t.”
An X video shared by the account StopAntisemitism on Wednesday showed the bus driver giving middle fingers to a passenger as they left the vehicle, saying, “You Zionist piece of Sh*t!”
A Montreal airport bus driver threatened to “decapitate a family of Jews like Hamas,” the X account alleged. “Heartbreaking to see what’s happened to Canada.”
Montreal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) confirmed in a post made on X on Thursday that the driver works for “several hotels” which provide shuttle services to the airport.
“We have contacted the partners involved and demanded that this person no longer be allowed to serve our airport site. Failure to comply will result in the revocation of their operating license,” the airport posted on X in response to the video. “This type of behaviour is unacceptable and in no way reflects the values of our organization and our airport community.”
Stop Antisemitism was not immediately available for comment when asked how the organization received the video and when it was recorded.
A representative for the Service de Police de la ville de Montreal (SPVM) would not confirm that the incident was under investigation or that it received any complaints.
“For confidentiality reasons, SPVM does not, except in rare circumstances, confirm whether an individual or organization has filed a complaint or is the subject of one,” Montreal police told True North in an email. “The same applies to the existence of an investigation, in order to avoid compromising its progress.”
This comes just months after an individual was arrested and charged by Montreal police for attacking a Jewish father in front of his young children. A 71-year-old man, later that month, was also arrested for allegedly stabbing a Jewish woman in her 70s at one of Ottawa’s largest Kosher grocery stores.
A report from Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, released in April, showed that Quebec had the largest increase in reported antisemitic incidents out of any province in 2024. Across the country, the report outlined a 124.6 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents since 2022, following the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.