Mayor calls out Carney Liberals' response to antisemitic violence
At about 8 a.m. on March 7, about eight hours after a flurry of bullets were fired into his city’s BAYT synagogue, Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca arrived at the shul to show his support. Within the hour, hundreds of congregants would arrive for Shabbat services, seeing the police tape at the front doors, the barricades and dividers, and a lot of York Regional Police officers.
“It was brutal, and a real shock to see firsthand,” he said, remembering his own anger, “these glass doors, and windows shattered, and glass laying all over the place.”
Most arriving at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto shul did not know what had transpired, as Orthodox Jews observe a digital unplug from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Del Duca, donning a blue kippah, took to the sanctuary podium during the service, at the behest of synagogue president Jeffrey Brown and Rabbi Daniel Korobkin – to break the news to worshippers, and offer words of support. He received a standing ovation.
“The most heartbreaking part of all? Most of the response was, not feeling surprised,” he said. “They told me: ‘We believed we were respected and admired, and we believed people wanted us here, and this is what it’s come to.’” Law enforcement are still investigating the BAYT incident. A Toronto shul, Shaarei Shomayim, was hit by bullets the same evening, as was another on March 2, Temple Emanu El.
About 15,000 Jews reside in his city of 350,000 people. When he was Vaughan MPP (2012-2018) for the Liberals, Del Duca backed then-MPP Gila Martow, a Progressive Conservative who’s now a Vaughan city councillor, to condemn the boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in 2016.
Del Duca, a one-time provincial Liberal leader, said that he draws upon his Roman Catholic upbringing, that taught him to “support and protect people who are vulnerable,” he explained. “I believe that any one of our citizens, any one of our residents, who is under pressure and beleaguered and targeted, consistently, deserves to have support and protection.”
But he said he understands that whatever he can say holds only so much weight amid escalating antisemitism.
“I want to remind everyone that they’re not alone. These are words I’ve said so many times now since October 7, 2023,” he said. “But even I feel like the words, which I mean very genuinely, feel like they’re falling short of the mark now for people, and that’s a very, very discouraging place to be as an elected leader.” He acknowledges that Jews are “almost tired” of hearing how resilient they are, “even though they are resilient.”
“I think the first and most important thing is that I’ve tried, and my colleagues have tried, to be there, to show up, to show solidarity, and to deliver a consistent message from Oct. 7, all the way through.”
He cited some “symbolic” support – including a City Hall vigil for Israel’s murdered Bibas family, and flying the city’s flags at half-staff in the days following Oct. 7, and on its first anniversary. His was the first municipality in Canada to introduce a “Bubble Zone” bylaw prohibiting demonstrations within 100 metres of a place of worship, hospitals and daycares. That was triggered, he said by two local back-to-back “large scale” synagogue protests in 2024 he described it as “really ugly.”
The city has agreed to underwrite up to 10 CCTV cameras, but city councillors have no role in deciding how and where they get deployed, he said. “We are only one part of the solution, and we do need the other levels of government to step up and respond in a similar fashion. And they haven’t always done it. They certainly haven’t done it consistently,” he said.
In his statement on the morning of the latest shootings, he excoriated other elected officials for their inaction.
“There was a flood of other politicians at all levels and all stripes putting out their statements. And it was exactly as I predicted. I hate to say it, but it was an easy prediction. Suddenly, a whole bunch of quote, unquote ‘thoughts and prayers’ messages went out on social media,” he said, adding that the Thornhill synagogue received no visits from any federal Liberals in the week since the attack. (Toronto Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin, the federal environment minister, visited the synagogues in her city.)
He called for “more action coming from the federal government,” specifically citing Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.
“I want to make it clear: this can’t be the occasional social media post; but through your language, through your internal meetings with law enforcement, with intelligence officials. You make it abundantly clear that this can’t happen, and it’s got to stop. And you give directions to your ministers, whether it’s your minister of public safety or your minister of justice and the attorney general of Canada, whoever it happens to be. You have these discussions at cabinet and in caucus, and you make it crystal clear, including to your caucus members. And you tell us all the measures you’re taking,” he said.
“I have yet to see that kind of forceful language or behaviour or policies being adopted. What I’ve heard, both informally and on the public record, is a lot of process talk.” He criticized some Liberal MPs who “said absolutely outrageous things, and they are not in the least interested in protecting the Jewish community.” He believes “a lot of officials on all levels” won’t call out Jew-hatred, in the “hope it all goes away,” or that they are “too busy counting votes, rather than standing up for Canadian values.”
“They seem to have lost the ability to make moral or ethical judgments.”
Officials must state publicly that it’s wrong to protest “fully masked, aggressive, and clearly trying to intimidate people, in an area that you happen to know is a largely Jewish neighbourhood.” A generation ago, “this would not have been even questioned,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t disagree on politics, but we have to know what’s right and wrong for our fellow Canadians.”
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