The Canadian Broadcastng Corporation News and the Yom Kippur Synagogue Shooting
By Marvin Ross
It was expected and it could have been worse but after years of Jewish places of worship, community centres, businesses and individuals being targetted by bigots, a gunman shot up a synagogue of worshippers on the holiest Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Bullets struck where the rabbi would have been if the service had started on time.
Fortunately, the City of Belleville, Ontario had a police officer in an unmarked car standing guard. For the past few years, all Jewish places are guarded by police with much of the cost being borne by Jews themselves. Think of that for a second. Jews in Canada now need police protection to ensure their safety.
Constable Smith was struck by bullets before he could even get out of his car but managed to do so and despite being hit by more fire, continued to engage the gunman until his back up arrived and joined the fight. The gunman was killed, Constable Smith is in hospital in serious condition and the congregation was spared. Smith is a hero and grateful citizens have, at the time of writing, raised $700,000 for his care and the care of his family.
In the initial reporting, the CBC, according to journalist Warren Kinsella, refused to say that the synagogue was a target and that it was not hit by gunfire. Photo’s of its stain glass window clearly show the bullet holes. Kinsella is a highly credible journalist and author of the best selling book The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda. In the 1990’s. He wrote an earlier book about the right wing movement in Alberta.
But, even worse, a Jewish CBC reporter, award winning Neil Herland, was on his way to Yom Kippur services in Toronto when he was met with about two dozen Pro-Palestinian protesters hurling insults at them and trying to block their access to the synagogue. The worshippers were called “baby killers’, Jewish bitch and told they were going to hell. When the Cantor came out and smiled at them, one of the mob yelled “The Jew smiles while he kills babies in Gaza.”
This was witnessed by police who told the Cantor to stop antagonizing the protester.
Herland filmed the event and has been suspended from his job as a result and is now being investigated by his employer. Why? Was that not news?
But then the CBC has a strange attitude to terrorism. The CBC has been advising its journalists not to use the word “terrorist” when referring to Hamas. The CBC refuses to do this in spite of Hamas being recognized as a terrorist organization for over 20 years by the Government of Canada. Just recently, the CBC was called out by numerous groups when they reiterated their policy of refusing to call the event of 9/11 as a terrorist attack.
As for the Toronto Police chastising a Cantor for smiling at someone screaming in his face, typical. Pro-Palestinian protesters for ages have invaded a mainly Jewish area of Toronto and disrupted and harassed the resident with the police taking little action. Finally, protests were banned partly due to the disruption to a highway access but officers then delivered coffee to the protesters resulting in a huge outcry and an apology from the police chief.
The issue, however, is not the right to protest but rather who you are protesting against. Ordinary Jews are not responsible for Israel’s response to the terrorist attack against it on October 7. If you want to protest their actions, go to the Israeli embassy or consulate and leave Jews alone. The only reason to attack Jews themselves is anti-semitism. Most of us do not like US policy under Trump but we do not scream at ordinary Americans. We do not harass them or refuse to let their sports team play or their musicians perform.
Our institutions and political leaders are no better. Motherhood platitudes like “this is not who we are” are of no value, another commission is a waste of time and money but Canada loves committees because it looks like we are doing something when we are not. Take Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and their study to deal with the fear that their Jewish students and faculty are feeling. TMU is a politically correct name for what was Ryerson when it was decided that Egerton Ryerson who laid the foundation for Ontario’s education system was a bad man.. His report in 1847 suggested that Indigenous schools be separate but he had little to do with how they were run years later. He is now persona non grata.
TMU commissioned an external report on anti-semitism from retired Ontario Court of Appeal justice Mary Lou Benotto. The impetus for the “hiring was the September 2025 disruption by the group Students for Justice in Palestine at TMU of a Democracy Forum event featuring federal AI minister Evan Solomon (who is Jewish) that ended in an arrest, and the November 2025 storming of an off-campus event hosted by Students Supporting Israel that left the speaker hospitalized. “
Justice Benotto’s report found:
- reported classroom statements that minimize the Holocaust, describe academic power as rooted in “Jewish supremacism”, and imply that violence against Jewish children is acceptable if their parents are perceived to support Israel
- the use of red inverted triangles, a symbol used to mark targets, posted over photos of Jewish student leaders
- spoiled milk thrown at Jewish students and spitting directed at others
- a lecturer who no longer wears a Star of David necklace for fear of physical assault
- Shabbat dinners that now require security risk assessments
- redefining Zionism “exclusively through pejorative or demonizing frameworks that leave little room for the perspectives of Jews for whom Zionism forms part of their identity”
TMU’s response: They sat on the report for nearly two weeks, released it with disciplinary findings redacted, and announced a President’s Implementation Task Force that will report back on the report in 2027. That means students arriving on campus in the next few weeks will face another year of antisemitism with the university signalling that there is no urgency to address the issue.
The next shooter may have better luck because a Canadian Bondi Beach is a strong likelihood. Is it any wonder that many Jews have already left Canada or are considering moving elsewhere.
