Jewish doctors and medical trainees told senators that antisemitic harassment has become routine in Canadian medical schools, describing campuses in Alberta, Manitoba and Québec as increasingly hostile environments where complaints are ignored and bigotry is tolerated.According to Blacklock's Reporter, submissions to the Senate human rights committee said the surge in hostility followed Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which included the murder and kidnapping of Jews, among them eight Canadians. The Jewish Health Care Association of Alberta said academic settings have seen the sharpest rise in incidents, warning the province’s health system is facing a “systemic crisis of antisemitism.”Alberta physicians said universities often respond to pressure campaigns by cancelling antisemitism education while allowing discriminatory behaviour to continue unchecked. They told senators Jewish health care workers have learned reporting incidents is pointless, while those responsible understand there are no consequences. The association also cited medical students who took part in demonstrations praising individuals responsible for killing Israelis..In Manitoba, the Jewish Physicians Association told the committee that activists circulated a list titled “the top six Zionists at the University of Manitoba,” while antisemitic rhetoric appeared regularly on social media and in public spaces. The group pointed to a University of Manitoba valedictorian, now a family medicine resident in Winnipeg, who allegedly posted antisemitic material online.Québec physicians described similar experiences. The Association of Jewish Physicians of Québec said complaints went unanswered after University of Sherbrooke medical students used a group chat in 2024 to celebrate Hamas’s October 7 attacks, mock kidnapped Israelis and make explicit anti-Semitic comments about Jews.The Québec group said administrators frequently delay or deflect when antisemitism is reported, suggesting “dialogue” or dismissing concerns as political. In one case, McGill University’s undergraduate medical dean allegedly declined to meet a Jewish student for nearly five months over a classmate’s pro-Hamas social media posts..Doctors in Québec also reported posters showing weapons and messages threatening violence against Jews appearing inside medical teaching buildings. Such incidents, they said, demonstrate how academic and medical spaces are being used to normalize hostility toward Jews and Israel.“For a profession whose core principles include impartiality, evidence and care for all patients, this is profoundly corrosive,” the Québec association warned.The Senate human rights committee is continuing hearings on antisemitism. Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed told senators on November 24 he was disturbed by the level of hatred directed at Jews in Canada, saying some of what he has witnessed was “mind-boggling.”
