It is amazing that in the three years since the atrocities of Oct 7, antisemitism has reached epidemic proportions on college and university campuses across Canada.
No doubt as Jewish post-secondary students return to campuses across Canada this coming week, they will do so with trepidation.
A federal government report released just last month says it all.
The Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) report — which surveys 900 Jewish students and 755 students from across the broader population — concludes that antisemitism on Canadian campuses is “persistent and proliferating.”
In fact, the report says it has become a “normalized” feature of campus life.
Prepared by the Association for Canadian Studies, CASE found that a scandalous 84% of Jewish students surveyed reported that antisemitism is a serious problem on campus. Some 95.7% had experienced at least one incident of antisemitism in the 12 months before the survey.
Some 70% contend that their university does not take antisemitism seriously. Another 68% said they do not believe their campus is a safe or inclusive place for Jewish students.
Some 72% limit admitting they are Jewish in class, and 57% avoid wearing Jewish symbols over safety concerns.
Some 1,200 accounts of antisemitic incidents on campus were also provided.
These are the topline statistics of a concerning study that, of course, got very little attention in the legacy media or by campus administrators.
But these telling conclusions confirm the anecdotal evidence we’ve seen over the past three years — professors of law like York’s Heidi Matthews who spews anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred every chance she gets, the efforts to ostracize Jewish students and professors, and the attacks on Jews both on campus and off.
Who can forget the ugly more than 60-day pro-Palestinian encampment on UofT’s St. George campus, which was allowed to fester into graduation time and which turned into a Jew hatefest. I feel sorry for those graduating at Convocation Hall that year with the creepy encampment in close proximity.
The UofT president at the time, Meric Gertler, let the encampment continue for far too long, which fomented even more Jew hatred.
Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, he is Jewish.
Most university administrators — particularly those at Toronto’s three universities and at Concordia in Montreal — have done nothing to address the rising Jew hatred while preaching that every student has a right to be respected and that they have zero tolerance for hatred and discrimination.
If only they meant it when it came to Jewish students.
Unlike the United States, where President Donald Trump has clamped down on colleges with huge antisemitism problems — like Columbia and Harvard — our politicians clutch their pearls and do absolutely nothing about it.
It would be so easy to call university presidents to account, or to cut off their funding as Trump and his government have done.
But, yet again, our weak pandering politicians — in this case Premier Doug Ford — have let this fester out of control.
It would be so easy to threaten to cut off their funding or actually cut off their grants until they deal with anti-Semitism.
But Ford has not shown himself to have a moral compass or the guts to address the rise in Islamist hate on our streets.
Why should he care if the quality of learning and university experience is tainted by this hate?
Our university years are supposed to be a time of growth and fun experiences.
I know it was for me.
Sadly, not for Jewish students in Canada in 2026.
“But Ford has not shown himself to have a moral compass or the guts to address the rise in Islamist hate on our streets.”
Or anything else for that matter, except a bottle of Crown Royal. Boy, the overweight bloviator really taught that bottle a lesson.