New Delhi: Canadian PM Mark Carney Monday delivered a forceful defence of Canada’s multicultural model while warning that rising anti-semitism and the importation of overseas conflicts threaten the country’s social compact.
In a speech delivered in a mix of English and French, Carney focused on immigration, citizenship and hate crimes, arguing that Canada’s founding promise rests on a simple bargain: Newcomers are encouraged to bring their faith, language and traditions, but not the conflicts of the countries they leave behind.
“We welcome the peoples of the world and their diversity in all its splendour,” Carney said. “We do not welcome the world’s hatred.”
“When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your tradition, your language, your story,” he added. “You leave behind your wars and your animosities.”
The remarks came as Canada deals with an increase in reported anti-semitic incidents, as well as broader concerns about rising polarisation among diaspora communities. Carney framed the issue not as a rejection of multiculturalism but as a defence of it.
“Canada was not founded on a single creed, race, language, or faith,” he said. “Pluralism in Canada is not the exception to the framework. Pluralism is the framework.”
The prime minister’s address focused heavily on what he described as a crisis facing Jewish Canadians. Citing government data, he said that more than two-thirds of religion-motivated hate crimes last year targeted Jews, who account for roughly 1 percent of Canada’s population.
“Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” Carney said. “Canadian parents are now having to ask themselves whether it’s safe to send their children to a Jewish school. Observant Canadians are thinking twice before wearing a kippah on the subway,” he added.
Canada’s secularism, Carney argued, does not require religious identity to be confined to private life. “Our secularism is open,” he said. “The state takes no side in matters of belief.”
At the same time, he warned against allowing foreign conflicts to be replayed on Canadian streets.
“It requires that we do not transpose foreign conflicts onto each other,” he said. “It requires all of us to stand up and protect our fellow citizens.”
Without naming any particular community, Carney suggested that immigrants have a responsibility to leave behind old political and sectarian grievances.
The message echoed a long-running debate in Canada about whether diaspora politics can undermine social cohesion. Successive governments have struggled with tensions tied to conflicts abroad, from South Asia and West Asia to Eastern Europe and the Horn of Africa.
Rise in hate crimes in Canada
The backdrop to Carney’s remarks is a sharp rise in hate crimes across Canada over the past several years. According to Statistics Canada, reported hate crimes increased 169 percent between 2018 and 2024, climbing from 1,817 incidents to 4,882.
The 2024 figures marked the sixth consecutive annual increase, although the rise from the previous year was relatively modest, at 1 percent.
Incidents targeting religious minorities have risen particularly sharply. Reported anti-semitic hate crimes nearly tripled during the period, increasing from 331 cases in 2018 to 920 in 2024. Crimes motivated by anti-Muslim hatred followed a similar trajectory, rising from 84 incidents to 229.
According to data from Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), between January 2025 and April 2026, the RCMP recorded 994 hate-motivated crimes, but only 13 percent had been solved by investigators.
According to a 2026 report by Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, Canada, with its large immigrant population and open democratic system, periodically sees overseas conflicts spill into domestic politics and community relations.
While his speech focused on ensuring the safety of Canadian Jews amid rising anti-semitism, Carney also addressed the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. The official 2021 Statistics Canada census recorded around 8 million people of Indian ethnic origins. World Population Review figures say 2.8 million people of Indian origin live in Canada.
In 2026, a survey by the World Sikh Organisation revealed that 91 percent of Sikhs were targeted for being “visibly identifiable”, and 80 percent Sikh respondents reported a rise in discrimination in the past five years.
Canada has also become a hotbed of Sikh separatism in the recent past. Canadian intelligence agencies have identified certain Canada-based Khalistani extremist networks as a national security concern, while distinguishing them from lawful advocacy for an independent Khalistan, which remains protected under Canada’s constitutional guarantees of free expression and political activity.
Security assessments by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have classified elements of the movement as violent extremism, citing concerns that some individuals and organisations use Canada as a base for fundraising, propaganda activities and support for acts of political violence abroad. Among the groups that have drawn scrutiny is the Babbar Khalsa International, which has long been designated as a terrorist organisation in Canada.
Carney announced the creation of a Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, which will be tasked with studying anti-semitism, coordinating government responses to hate crimes and improving data collection. He also pointed to new legislation and security funding intended to protect religious institutions and vulnerable communities.
‘Police and laws not enough’
However, he acknowledged, policing and legislation alone would not solve the problem. “A country where Jewish schools require security guards, where synagogues need barriers, and where Jewish children attend schools secluded within a protected perimeter is a country that protects its citizens but fails to uphold its civic duty,” he said.
The deeper challenge, he argued, is renewing what he repeatedly called Canada’s “covenant”—the unwritten agreement that allows a diverse society to function.
“The covenant runs in every direction,” Carney said. “Anti-semitism breaks it. Islamophobia breaks it. Burning churches breaks it. Transphobia breaks it. The targeting of any Canadian for their faith, their origin, or their identity breaks it.”
“Canada promises a country in which Jewish Canadians can be visibly, fully, joyfully Jewish in public life,” Carney said, adding that “Canada promises a country in which Indigenous Peoples, Muslim Canadians, Black Canadians, Sikh Canadians, Christian Canadians, Queer Canadians—every Canadian—can be visibly themselves without fear.”
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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