This article originally appeared in the National Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Sheryl Saperia and Ches W. Parsons, Mar 18, 2026
Jewish schools and synagogues in Canada have been shot at. Jewish community institutions have been vandalized and threatened. In cities across the country, Jewish-Canadians increasingly feel vulnerable when attending religious services, sending their children to school or participating openly in Jewish life.
These attacks have been treated, almost uniformly, as hate crimes. That framing is not wrong — but it is incomplete. And the gap between what our laws say and what is actually happening has grown too wide to ignore.
Canada is recording antisemitic incidents at historic levels. What was once episodic has become relentless. What was once vandalism has escalated to gunfire. When firearms are discharged at synagogues and Jewish day schools — not once, but repeatedly, in cities across the country — we are no longer talking about isolated acts of hatred. We are talking about a pattern. That distinction matters from a legal perspective.
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Sheryl Saperia is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Ches W. Parsons is a retired RCMP assistant commissioner and its former director general of national security.
