Canadian politician calls Jews ‘parasitic tribe,’ wants removal from Canada

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
MONTREAL (JTA) — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has opened an investigation into a fringe right-wing politician who called for the removal of Jews from Canada.
In a flyer and a video posted on Facebook on Saturday, Travis Patron, the leader of the Canadian Nationalist Party, describes Jews as “swindlers,” “snakes,” “inside manipulators,” and a “parasitic tribe.”
“If they had their way, our entire way of life would be eradicated,” Patron says in the video. “They don’t like us. In fact, they despite us because of what we are and the spirit we represent. They cannot coexist with it. And what we need to do, perhaps more than anything, is remove these people once and for all from our country.”
In a news release Monday, the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said that a police investigation into the video was launched last summer after the video was first shared online.
Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada, said Patron might not only be breaking Canada’s hate laws, but inciting actual violence against Jews.
“It is absolutely outrageous that such vile hatred would take up any space in the public square,” Fogel said. “Such dangerous and dehumanizing language has all too often led to violence.”
In the last Canadian federal elections in 2019, Patron’s party, founded three years ago, garnered just 284 votes.
The video and flyer, both titled “Beware The Parasitic Tribe,” says Jews “infiltrate the media, they hijack the central bank, and they infect the body politic like a parasite.”
Fogel said CIJA is contacting other social network platforms because, in its view, Patron’s posts are a “clear violation” of community guidelines.
”Enough is enough,” he said.
The post Canadian far-right politician calls Jews ‘parasitic tribe,’ seeks their removal from Canada appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

