Israel’s ambassador to Canada has a job, which is to represent Israel's interests in Canada.He does not have another job, such as lecturing Canadians about their freedoms and suggesting that they should be curtailed.Yet that is exactly what Ambassador Iddo Moed did when he called for a “significant change” in how Canada deals with antisemitism and suggested that limiting “other people’s freedoms” may now be necessary. He did not say which freedoms. That hardly makes it better. It makes it worse.In a free country, liberties are not bargaining chips to be haggled over by foreign envoys. Canadians and Canada's constitution decide what freedoms Canadians keep. That is our business. It is nobody else’s. When a foreign diplomat starts pushing this country to restrict liberty, there is a name for that. It’s called foreign interference, and it’s a crime.None of this means antisemitism is not a real and growing problem. It plainly is. Statistics Canada reported 4,882 police-reported hate crimes in 2024, the sixth straight annual increase. Jews remained the most targeted group for religion-based hate crimes, with 920 reported incidents. Toronto Police said anti-Jewish occurrences made up 40% of all reported hate crimes in the city last year. That is ugly. It is shameful. It demands action.But action based on facts, not fashionable lies..One of the dumbest talking points in this debate is the automatic assumption that rising antisemitism must somehow be driven by “white nationalists.” There is no public evidence for that claim in the official numbers. Statistics Canada does not say it. Toronto Police does not say it. Toronto Police instead point to the effect of the October 7 War, protest activity, and campus encampments as part of the environment in which anti-Jewish hate surged.In other words, the problem is not chiefly some imagined army of skinheads lurking behind every bus shelter. The problem is far more obvious and far less polite to mention.A large share of this filth is tied to imported sectarian hatred from the Middle East, Islamist activism, and a Canadian Left that has marinated itself in anti-Western, anti-Israel ideology for years. Too many newcomers arrive from parts of the world where anti-Jewish attitudes are common, and then bring those grievances with them. Too many activists on the Left excuse or dress up antisemitism as “anti-colonialism,” “resistance,” or “solidarity” with Palestine. Same poison, different packaging. That is not to say that there are not very legitimate criticisms to make of Israel or its government. There are significantly higher levels of antisemitic belief in the Middle East and North Africa than in countries like Canada. That should surprise nobody. Import enough people from places where anti-Jewish hostility is normal, and some of that hostility will be imported too. Multicultural pieties do not change human nature.So the answer is not to clamp down on the freedoms of Canadians in general, as the ambassador would have us do. The answer is to crack down on the people actually doing it..If a non-citizen engages in a hate crime, political intimidation, violence, or open support for terror-linked causes, deport them. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act already provides for inadmissibility on criminal grounds. Use it. Stop treating removal as some unspeakable last resort. It should be routine. Tighten screening. Reduce immigration from places where antisemitic attitudes and extremist politics are widespread. A country that cannot defend its social peace has ceased to govern itself.What should not happen is the usual Ottawa bait-and-switch, which is to fail to punish the guilty, then punish everybody else instead. That is where this talk about restricting freedoms leads. The federal government is already advancing Bill C-9, which raises obvious concerns about our freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and state overreach. Once governments discover that public fear can be used to justify broader control, they rarely stop at the narrow case. Today, it is "antisemitism" or "Islamopbobia". Tomorrow it will be “harm,” “misinformation,” or whatever slogan the censors workshop next.That will not reduce antisemitism. It will worsen it.Free people do not respond well to having their rights trimmed because political elites failed to control the border, failed to deport dangerous non-citizens, and failed to enforce existing laws. They resent it. Naturally. The more Ottawa presents antisemitism as a reason to restrict ordinary Canadians, the more backlash it will create. That is not a cure. It is an accelerant.The principle here is simple enough for even the Carney government to grasp..If the Chinese ambassador demanded limits on Canadian freedoms because of anti-Chinese racism, Canadians would rightly explode in outrage. Editorial boards would howl. Security panels would be convened. Politicians would denounce the interference by lunch. Properly so.The same standard should apply to Israel’s ambassador.Ottawa should tell him firmly that Canadian liberty is not his department. The Carney government should condemn the interference, reject any call to curb the freedoms of Canadians, and get serious about the measures that might actually work, including policing, prosecution, deportation, and tighter immigration controls.Antisemitism is a real threat to our Jewish community.Foreign diplomats demanding the curtailment of our freedoms is a threat to every Canadian.Both should be resisted.
