OP-ED: Carney, Ford and Chow snubbed 56,000 Jewish marchers

Sue-Ann Levy writes, "The absence of all three leaders — municipal, provincial and federal — at Sunday’s Walk with Israel in Toronto told us all we need to know."

Source: Facebook

Author: Sue-Ann Levy

The absence of all three leaders — municipal, provincial and federal — at Sunday’s Walk with Israel in Toronto told us all we need to know about the leadership vacuum we now face in this country.

New PM Mark Carney, Premier Doug Ford and Toronto’s mayor Olivia Chow were all missing in action as 56,000 marchers took to the 3.9-km route on the walk, now in its 55th year.

I have participated in this walk for many years, long before the atrocities of Oct. 7 and the evil terrorist sympathizers took over Toronto’s streets.

I recall how leaders of every stripe turned up to give greetings and to march, or sent greetings— Prime Ministers, Premiers and mayors.

Kathleen Wynne attended as did PC leader Patrick Brown and Mayor John Tory. Even Justin Trudeau sent greetings by video.

In past years, the walk attracted about 20,000 marchers.

Last year, in the shadow of the horrible atrocities in Israel, the walk had a record 50,000 marchers. This year that was surpassed by 6,000.

The mood was jubilant.

Even so, there were no greetings from Carney, or Ford, or Chow—even by video — all of whom have had no problem donning headscarves to cozy up to various Muslim groups and posting their pictures on social media.

The snub was intentional, mean-spirited and extremely telling.

Whether they are not fans of the Jewish community in Canada — which seems to be the case with Carney and most definitely with Chow — or they are cowards like Ford, leadership means serving all voters and having the courage to do what’s right.

Carney, in his first month in office, has managed to affirm every reason why I opposed him for the top job: He appointed known Jew haters to key positions in his Cabinet, he allowed his foreign affairs minister Anita Anand to vilify Israel during her first day on the job and he signed a one-sided letter along with his European pals, Keir Sturmer and Emanuelle Macron, ordering Israel to stop fighting and calling for a Palestinian state (to reward Hamas).

Hamas leaders were so thrilled they thanked him.

In 2014, Ford — under attack at a mayoralty leadership debate — said his family has the utmost of respect for the Jewish community and that his doctor, dentist, lawyer and accountant are all Jewish.

Be that as it may and whether that still holds true, he certainly has not had enough respect for the Jewish community in the past 19 months to protect them from rabid anti-Semitism by speaking out and ensuring the police do their jobs.

He has been repeatedly silent. We know what silence means: He accepts the situation.

I have also been around politics long enough to remember that his brother Rob was absolutely vilified for suggesting he wouldn’t march along with the left wing radicals in the Gay Pride parade.

”He’s homophobic!” I heard many times around City Hall (which I did not believe to be true).

Using that logic, does Doug’s absence from the Walk with Israel and other Jewish events make him an anti-Semite?

As for Chow, I don’t know if she’s getting really really bad advice from, say, her deputy mayor Ausma Malik (who has made no secret of her disdain for the Jewish community) or her Progress Toronto pals—or if she is a combination of anti-Semitic, just plain dumb, lacking in judgement and in way over her head.

Over the past 19 months, she has been slow off the mark to respond to the far too many anti-Semitic acts of vandalism in her city, she was a no-show at the Oct. 7 vigil last year and didn’t attend two Walks with Israel in a row.

Last year she attended a grilled cheese festival instead and proudly displayed her sandwich-making abilities on X.

On any given week you can also see her dressed in a headscarf attending a Muslim festival or two or three. Last month, she was pictured with members of the Muslim community (one of them in bare feet), her head also covered.

This year, instead of being at the Walk with Israel, she chose to attend a 3-km fundraising walk at the Zoo for the victims of the Lapu-Lapu festival in — get this —Vancouver.

Knowing full well, she would yet again be under fire for not serving all the people of Toronto (and she is), she did not post her appearance on X or on her FB account—a cowardly move.

It was even hard to find the flyer that publicized her involvement.

I also suspect she’s directed the police to stand down and go easy on the masked protesters who intimidate and harass my community.

I’ve known Olivia Chow for more than 25 years. I suspected she would lack the skills to run a large city in 2025 and that her Marxist ideology would only further Toronto’s decline.

But even I never expected her to be so dismissive of the Jewish community, figuring, I guess wrongly, that it is her job to be a mayor of all the people.

By contrast, we have to look no further than south of the border where new president Donald Trump has embraced a wide tent and has the courage to stand up to the Jew haters.

He has revoked the visas of students who engage in anti-Semitic protests on such campuses as Columbia, a hot bed of Jew hatred, and has threatened the funding of Ivy League institutions that fail to protect Jewish students.

Say what you want about Trump, you’ve got to have respect for a man who has not been cowed by lawfare, by two assassination attempts and by the constant social media attacks on his character.

Contrast that with our so-called leaders who can’t even show their faces at an event with 56,000 marchers because those marchers are Jewish.

I say true leaders show their stuff in a crisis.

Ours lack the courage and moral compass to do what’s right.

Unfortunately for those of us who pay the price, they are on the wrong side of history.