Combating Antisemitism in Quebec

1. Executive Summary

Antisemitism has long affected Jewish communities in Quebec, across Canada, and around the world, but since the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, incidents have increased sharply and have left many Jewish families, schools, synagogues, and community institutions feeling unsafe. Nationally, Jewish Canadians were the target of more than 70 percent of religion-motivated hate crimes reported in 2025, despite making up roughly 1 percent of the population. In Montreal, Jewish residents accounted for 74 percent (212 of 287) of the hate crimes and incidents recorded by the SPVM against the city's Jewish and Arab/Muslim communities combined in the year following October 7, 2023, a period that also saw synagogues and Jewish schools firebombed, shot at, and placed under lockdown. Reports of harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racist abuse, threats, and disruptive demonstrations have undermined confidence that public authorities are responding consistently and applying the law equally.

This strategy responds with a clear provincial plan focused on prevention, education, enforcement, and accountability. It calls for stronger Holocaust and antisemitism education at all levels of schooling, operational application of a common working definition of antisemitism, better coordination with police and public institutions, standardized public reporting of outcomes, and firmer consequences for hate-motivated criminal conduct, while making clear that peaceful protest is protected, but intimidation, violence, and glorification of terrorism are not.

2. Policy Objectives

• Reduce antisemitic incidents through education, awareness, and prevention.

• Protect Jewish schools, synagogues, and community institutions.

• Strengthen responses to hate-motivated harassment, threats, vandalism, and violence.

• Support consistent enforcement of existing laws, with measurable public accountability.

• Improve accountability in publicly funded institutions, including postsecondary institutions, student associations, and essential service providers.

• Ensure publicly funded essential services remain politically neutral and safe for everyone who relies on them.

• Promote social cohesion and public safety for all Quebecers.

3. Quebec Strategy on Antisemitism

The Government of Quebec should create a provincial strategy to combat antisemitism, with annual reporting, measurable objectives, and ongoing consultation with Jewish community organizations, educators, police, and civil society.

The strategy should be coordinated through a small provincial office or designated lead ministry to track incidents, support implementation, and report publicly on progress.

4. A Working Definition: Applying IHRA in Practice

Quebec has already recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, joining the federal government and most other provinces. The next step is to put that recognition into practice. Quebec should formally operationalize the IHRA Working Definition, including its illustrative examples, as a non-legally binding educational and interpretive tool to help public institutions, educators, police, prosecutors, and publicly funded bodies identify and understand antisemitism and apply existing policies and laws consistently where antisemitism may be involved.

Contemporary antisemitism can manifest not only as hatred or hostility towards Jews as individuals or as a group, but also through rhetoric and conduct relating to Israel and Zionism that demonizes Jews, applies antisemitic tropes or collective blame, denies Jews rights afforded to other people, or otherwise falls within the contemporary examples identified by IHRA. A shared working definition gives educators, police, and institutions a common reference point for recognizing this pattern. IHRA explicitly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” Its application should always consider the overall context, and conduct does not become unlawful merely because it may be identified as antisemitic under IHRA.

5. Education and Awareness

Quebec should strengthen Holocaust and antisemitism education across the school system. This should include:

• Holocaust education in elementary and secondary schools, adapted to age and grade level.

• Teacher training and updated classroom resources.

• Postsecondary awareness modules on hate movements, extremism, and social cohesion.

Quebec should work with the Montreal Holocaust Museum, Jewish community organizations, historians, educators, and civil society partners to develop Quebec-specific Holocaust and antisemitism education addressing both the history and evolution of Jew-hatred and contemporary manifestations of antisemitism across the ideological spectrum, antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes, Holocaust distortion and denial and antisemitic manifestations relating to Israel and Zionism. The federal government is already funding this kind of work: Canadian Heritage's Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program has committed nearly $500,000 to a multi-year Holocaust and antisemitism education research project based at the Museum, running into 2029. Quebec should build on this federal investment rather than duplicate it, and should work with the Museum and its academic partners to make sure Quebec-specific curriculum materials are a direct output of that research.

6. Community Safety Fund

Quebec should create or expand a security fund for institutions at elevated risk of hate-motivated threats, including synagogues, schools, and community centres. Eligible investments should include:

• Security cameras and monitoring systems.

• Controlled access points.

• Emergency response systems.

• Other physical security upgrades approved for safety purposes.

The goal is simple: help vulnerable institutions protect themselves before incidents happen. This is also a matter of public cost, not only community safety — Montreal alone spent nearly $9 million on overtime policing demonstrations and security responses connected to the Israel-Gaza conflict in the year following October 7, 2023. Investment in prevention is investment in reducing that reactive cost over time.

7. Hate Crime Coordination, Enforcement Transparency, and Data

Quebec should establish a specialized, provincially coordinated hate crime function to improve information-sharing, monitor trends, and support investigations into organized intimidation or repeated hate-motivated offences, working with police services, prosecutors, and community partners so that threats, harassment, vandalism, and violence are addressed quickly and consistently. The SPVM's own Hate Crimes and Incidents Module, three detectives investigating and pressing charges, plus two analysts logging and quantifying incidents, is a useful starting model, but its reach ends at Montreal's city limits. British Columbia already operates Canada's only dedicated provincial hate crime investigation unit. Quebec should build an equivalent, so that police forces across the province, not just in Montreal, have specialized capacity.

Consistency requires transparency. Quebec should require police services and prosecutors to publicly report, on a regular and standardized basis, how antisemitic and other hate-motivated incidents are tracked, charged, referred, prosecuted, and resolved, while respecting privacy and due process. This is not a hypothetical gap: the SPVM's 2024 annual report disclosed that hate crimes in Montreal rose 6 percent and hate incidents rose 18 percent that year, but broke the figures down only into broad categories: ethnicity or national origin, religion, gender without specifying how many incidents targeted the Jewish community or what happened to those files afterward. Montreal's own city councillors have publicly criticized this lack of detail as an obstacle to holding anyone accountable.

A standardized public dashboard would close that gap. Quebec should publish an annual antisemitism and hate incidents report, combining data from police, schools, universities, public institutions, and publicly funded service providers, with clear categories distinguishing criminal hate offences, hate incidents, institutional discrimination, vandalism, harassment, threats, and intimidation, and identifying which community was targeted in each case. That level of detail is exactly what is currently missing from Quebec's public reporting, at both the provincial and municipal level.

8. Digital and Online Antisemitism

Much of the antisemitic harassment facing Quebec's Jewish community and students today happens online; doxxing, coordinated harassment, impersonation, and glorification of terrorism on social media. The hate crime coordination function established under this strategy should include intake for online hate, with the ability to identify coordinated harassment campaigns and refer cases meeting a criminal threshold to police and prosecutors. Publicly funded institutions should apply their conduct policies and disciplinary processes to online harassment, so that conduct directed at students, staff, or faculty is treated consistently whether it occurs in person or online.

Education on antisemitism and extremism should include digital literacy, how antisemitic disinformation spreads, and how coordinated harassment campaigns can be recognized and reported. Individuals facing online hate should have access to a single, clearly identified channel for reporting and documentation, rather than having to navigate platforms, police, and their institution separately. Where online conduct falls under federal jurisdiction, Quebec should refer such cases to federal authorities under the referral protocol described in Section 15.

9. Enforcement of the Law

Existing laws already prohibit threats, harassment, vandalism, and hate-motivated criminal conduct. Quebec should make sure those laws are applied consistently and that hate-motivated offences receive the priority they deserve, including dedicated prosecutorial resources or specialized Crown support for cases involving:

• Threats or violence against religious communities.

• Criminal harassment and intimidation.

• Vandalism and property damage.

• Organized hate-motivated activity.

Quebec would not be starting from nothing here. In August 2026, Ontario stood up Canada's first dedicated Hate Crimes Prosecution Unit, Crown prosecutors with specific experience in hate-motivated cases, working directly with police to strengthen how these files are charged and prosecuted after its legislature approved the idea unanimously. Quebec's Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions should establish an equivalent specialized capacity, drawing on the same model.

The message should be clear: peaceful protest is protected, but criminal conduct is not.

10. Postsecondary Accountability

Publicly funded colleges and universities must remain safe places for students, staff, and faculty. Institutions should be required to:

• Maintain clear conduct policies.

• Report hate-related incidents transparently.

• Apply disciplinary processes consistently.

• Cooperate with police where criminal conduct is involved.

Funding accountability here should not be theoretical. Public funding should be conditional on compliance with basic safety, non-discrimination, and political neutrality standards. Institutions that repeatedly fail to protect Jewish students, staff, or faculty, or any other protected group, should be subject to mandatory corrective action plans, independent review, and, where those steps are not enough, funding consequences. Where institutions repeatedly fail to meet basic standards, Quebec should have the ability to review provincial funding and require corrective action.

11. Political Neutrality in Essential Services

Publicly funded essential services; hospitals, schools, shelters, crisis centres, social service agencies, community health providers, emergency services, and publicly funded non-profit organizations delivering essential public services exist to serve everyone who needs them. Quebec should require these providers to remain politically neutral in service delivery. No one seeking essential care, safety, education, housing support, emergency assistance, counselling, medical treatment, or crisis intervention should have to wonder whether they will be treated fairly because of who they are or what they believe, including because they are Jewish, Zionist, Israeli, connected to Israel, or hold a particular view on a foreign conflict.

Organizations receiving public funding should be required to:

• Maintain viewpoint-neutral, non-discriminatory service delivery, free of political litmus tests for clients, patients, students, residents, or service users, regardless of their background or point of view.

• Refrain from using publicly funded facilities, official communications, staff time, institutional social media, or public resources to endorse, promote, or campaign on foreign geopolitical conflicts, unless directly tied to the organization's statutory mandate.

• Ensure that no client, student, staff member, or service user is excluded, intimidated, or made to feel unsafe because of their identity, their connection to Israel, or their refusal to adopt an anti-zionist political position, the same protection every Quebecer is entitled to, regardless of where they personally stand on a foreign conflict.

• Adopt clear, accessible complaint mechanisms for anyone who experiences discrimination, ideological coercion, or politicized service delivery.

Where a publicly funded essential service provider violates these standards, Quebec should require corrective action, public accountability, and, where necessary, a review of funding. The principle is simple: essential services exist to serve the public, not to advance any side of a foreign conflict. Jewish Quebecers, like all Quebecers, must be able to access care, safety, education, and support without fear, hostility, or ideological pressure.

12. Protecting Vulnerable Institutions from Intimidation

Demonstrations are a protected constitutional right in Quebec, but they should not be permitted to obstruct, target, or intimidate people entering or leaving schools, places of worship, community centres, hospitals, shelters, or other essential service locations. Peaceful protest must remain protected, but targeted intimidation of vulnerable communities at essential or religious institutions should not be tolerated.

This is not a hypothetical concern. Montreal city councillors and suburban mayors have already called for buffer-zone ("bubble") legislation after protests blocked residential streets and crossed paths with congregants outside a Snowdon synagogue in 2026. At the same time, some Montreal lawyers who represent the community in these exact cases argue that existing Criminal Code tools are sufficient if enforced consistently, and point out that Montreal's own 2012-era protest bylaw, P-6, was struck down by a Quebec court for being overly broad. Quebec should learn from that precedent rather than repeat it: any buffer-zone provision should be narrowly drawn — a fixed, modest distance from the entrances of vulnerable institutions, in effect only during hours of active use rather than a general restriction on protest in the surrounding area. That is the approach that has allowed similar access-zone laws protecting other sensitive sites to withstand legal challenges.

13. Victim and Community Support

Quebec should provide support for victims of antisemitic harassment, threats, vandalism, violence, and institutional discrimination, including trauma-informed reporting pathways, legal navigation support, mental-health referrals, and liaison services for affected families, students, seniors, and community institutions.

14. Student Associations and Campus Unions

Student associations and unions at Quebec colleges and universities occupy an unusual legal position: they are compulsory-membership organizations that collect mandatory fees from every student at an institution and wield real governance power over student life and funding, yet are structured as private, self-governing legal entities under Part III of the Companies Act rather than as public bodies.

This creates a specific accountability gap. Accreditation is granted through a Ministère-appointed accreditation agent at the point an association is formed or reaffirmed, but no provincial body reviews an association's conduct on an ongoing basis afterward. The Registraire des entreprises confirms only that corporate filings are current, and the Protecteur du citoyen's jurisdiction covers government departments and public bodies, not private Part III associations. The result is that a student who experiences discrimination, harassment, or the misuse of mandatory fees by their own union, including for hate-motivated purposes, has no clear provincial office to bring that complaint to, and is left with the courts as their only recourse: slow, costly, and out of reach for most students.

Quebec should close this gap by designating a clear complaint channel: either by expanding the mandate of the existing Ministère accreditation agent to receive and route conduct complaints against accredited associations, or by extending the National Student Ombudsman / regional student ombudsman framework already in place for institutions since 2023 to cover accredited student associations acting in a quasi-public capacity.

15. Constitutional Framework and Federal Coordination

This proposal stays within Quebec's jurisdiction over education, public safety administration, institutions, and provincial funding. Criminal law and immigration remain federal responsibilities, but Quebec can still refer serious cases and work with federal partners where appropriate. Federal lawmakers are already active in this space: private members' bills before Parliament would increase penalties for mischief targeting places of worship (Bill C-255) and create a new offence for theft of religious and cultural property (Bill C-290). For serious hate crimes or terrorism-related offences, Quebec should establish a formal referral protocol with federal authorities so that review can occur under the applicable legal framework, and so that provincial and federal efforts reinforce rather than duplicate one another.

16. Conclusion

Antisemitism has no place in Quebec. A free and democratic society must protect the right of every community to live without fear. This strategy is not about limiting legitimate debate or peaceful expression. It is about drawing a clear line against threats, intimidation, violence, and hate-motivated criminal conduct, backed by real data, real accountability, and real consequences, not just aspiration. Within its constitutional powers, Quebec should act firmly, practically, and without hesitation to protect Jewish Quebecers and strengthen public safety for everyone.