Canada’s Conservatives Court Jewish Voters In Bid To Break Liberal Grip On Key Cities

TORONTO — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is making a strategic push to court Jewish Canadian votes, hoping to capitalize on growing dissatisfaction with the Liberal government's handling of antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war.

The Conservative Party has done extensive outreach within the Jewish community in an effort to crack Toronto and Montreal in particular — voter-rich areas that typically play a key role in who becomes Canada’s next prime minister.

With the Liberals entrenched in many of these seats, even small shifts in voter allegiance could tip the scales in what’s shaping up to be a high-stakes battle for Canada’s political future. It’s a dynamic that has already led to some political swings in other elections, such as those last year in the U.S. and U.K.

“We’ve always had debates and disagreements about foreign issues in Canada, but those disagreements did not spill into violence on our streets. People left the violence abroad,” Poilievre said on the campaign trail regarding pro-Palestinian protests.

“The Jewish community feels understandably under siege, as these hate marches and antisemitic outbursts have become an unfortunate part of Canadian life, and Liberals have encouraged these divisions.”

Last year, an unknown person or persons fired gunshots at a Jewish elementary school in north Toronto three separate times, attacked synagogues and Jewish community centers, firebombed a Montreal synagogue, and vandalized Jewish businesses.

In a suburb of Montreal, Liberal incumbent Anthony Housefather, a Jewish candidate who has had his own campaign signs vandalized, has had to distance himself from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the war.

While Trudeau denounced some pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, devoted new funding to fight hate crimes and enlisted Housefather to serve as a special adviser on Jewish community relations and antisemitism, many viewed the measures as insufficient.

“There was an ambiguity in certain senses where he felt there was a need to constantly mention Islamophobia and antisemitism in the same breath all the time. The constant balance of wording was frustrating for both sides,” Housefather told POLITICO.

He even considered leaving his party last year, after the Liberal caucus made a symbolic vote in the House of Commons to recognize Palestinian statehood. Many in Mount Royal, an electoral district with the second-highest percentage of Jewish voters in Canada, are displeased with a “lack of action” to combat the rise of antisemitism in their communities, Housefather said. Meanwhile, Poilievre is vowing to bring in tougher laws around vandalism, “hate marches that break laws” and violent attacks based on ethnicity and religion.

He’s also promised to defund the United Nations agency that works with Palestinian refugees, and defund “wokeism and fight antisemitism” in federally funded universities and museums.

Housefather said those promises have led Jewish voters who voted Liberal in the past to switch their support to the Conservative candidate, and that he has spent “much more time” this election attempting to court them.

The Liberals continue to hold most seats in Toronto — except for a midtown district that Conservative Don Stewart won by about 600 votes in a special election last summer, in the party’s first victory there for over 30 years.

With several key battlegrounds in play, Conservative candidates in the area are trying to replicate the success of Stewart’s campaign.

“He showed us we can accomplish this,” Conservative candidate Roman Baber, who is running in north Toronto, said at a campaign event. Stewart declined an interview with POLITICO.

Liberals are putting in a lot of effort to win back the district under their candidate Leslie Church, but one neighborhood with a large Jewish population has been tough to break through. The Liberal campaign has been targeting the area with campaign literature regarding its stance on Israel, and volunteers doorknock regularly. But some Jewish Canadians feel Liberals haven’t been doing enough to combat the rise of antisemitism in their communities following Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel and the Israeli response in Gaza.

“I hear those concerns every day from families and members of the Jewish community in the riding,” Church told POLITICO. “We’ve had a tremendous rise in hate crimes in midtown and it’s making people scared, and rightfully so.”

With antisemitism becoming an electoral issue, new Liberal Leader Mark Carney has promised to create safe bubble zones around places of worship, and to criminalize the intimidation of people attending places of worship, schools or community centers.

“In Montreal, in Toronto, across this country, [there are people] who fear going to their synagogue, fear going to their community center, fear taking their children [and] leaving their children in school, and this has to stop,” said Carney during the federal leaders debate last week in Montreal. “It’s totally unacceptable.”

A recent report from the Toronto Police Service, Canada’s largest metropolitan force, says it has spent nearly C$20 million tackling rising hate crimes since the Israel-Hamas war began. Police say about half of the hate crimes reported in Toronto were against the Jewish community.

Some voters in the region say they are extremely dissatisfied with the Liberal government’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, and consider it hypocritical they’re not shut down in the same fashion the federal government brought down the “Freedom Convoy” — a series of protests supported by Conservatives that gridlocked downtown Ottawa for three weeks and temporarily blocked Canada-U.S. trade in protest of Covid-19 measures.

“I didn’t necessarily agree with them — there was a global pandemic, I got vaccinated. But when I look back at how they treated those people for speaking up for Canadian values: The government froze their bank accounts and arrested them,” said Ian Jacobs, a Conservative voter based in Toronto. “Whereas you see on a weekly basis, pro-hate rallies that justify Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, the Islamic regime in Iran, and the police let them do it. It’s all backwards.”

He gestured toward the Canadian flag, a symbol he says was proudly waved during the "Freedom Convoy" protests but set ablaze at an anti-Israel demonstration — proof, in his eyes, that the country’s core values are being eroded under a Liberal government.

“It’s hypocritical,” he said.

Jason Daniel Baker, a writer from Toronto, is also fed up with the weekly protests in his neighborhood. After witnessing a bookstore vandalized by pro-Palestinian protesters, he decided to rejoin the Conservative Party, despite ripping up his membership 10 years ago.

“Pierre Poilievre is a lifelong supporter of Israel,” said Daniel Baker, who will be voting Conservative. “They believe Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and so do I.”

In Jewish support groups online, people echo that message, trying to convince their relatives and neighbours to vote Conservative on Monday. Some even say they will move to Israel if the Liberals form their fourth mandate.

Conservatives hope their staunch support of Jewish Canadians can be a winning issue.

“We're going to set a different tone, and we're going to end the ugliness that we're seeing on Canadian streets,” said Baber. “We're going to make Canada safe for the Jewish community.”