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The danger in that thinking is, according to statistics from B’nai Brith, there were 2,041 reported incidents of anti-Semitism in 2018 — a 16.5-per-cent increase over the previous year. That was after Statistics Canada recorded a 63-per-cent increase in police reported anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2017.

The fact that it took Justin Trudeau’s Liberals more than two months to decide that his comments disqualified him from carrying their banner should give every Canadian pause

In August of last year alone, there were 20 separate incidents of swastika graffiti targeting Jews across this country. Overall, incidents of anti-Semitism reported to police account for 18 per cent of all hate crimes. Attitudes like those expressed by the Liberals’ star candidate give fuel to those whose anti-Semitism takes a more sinister and violent form. Those attitudes have more recently found a particularly insidious breeding ground on university campuses nationwide in the form of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. And, alarmingly, in the Trudeau government’s abandonment of Canada’s principled support for Israel at the United Nations.

When Israel’s borders come under attack from the same Hamas terrorists that Guillet praised, Canada must support Israel’s right to defend itself and recognize the direct responsibility of Hamas in inciting violence resulting in the loss of life. But under Justin Trudeau, Canada has been shamefully silent and abstained from key votes instead of supporting Israel. We tend to talk about anti-Semitism only when it occurs in tragedies that we cannot ignore. When a gunman walks into a Pittsburgh synagogue, we are all justifiably outraged. But there’s less talk when a home in Vaughan, Ont., is vandalized because its occupants are Jewish, or when students on campus are harassed by activists for being Jewish. But those incidents of anti-Semitism, when normalized by attitudes like those expressed by Guillet, foment violence against Jewish Canadians.