Denis Coderre
Denis CoderrePhoto: Reuters

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre spoke at the first official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at city hall on Wednesday.

The Mayor led the audience in a minute of silence for the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and quoted an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, about his experience in the death camps.

Coderre saluted the Holocaust survivors on their “heroism and resilience,” and thanked them for building a future “from which we all benefit.”

With that, Coderre vowed to combat anti-Semitism. “Zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, hateful actions and hate speech,” he declared according to Canadian Jewish News.

To combat the “new anti-Semitism," Mayor Coderre announced the launching of a police hate-crime unit which will focus on fighting discrimination. “I know that it’s been a long-standing demand from the Jewish community.”

Recently, the Mayor pledged to rename a street and a park that currently honor a Nazi sympathizer.

Holocaust survivors have marked Holocaust Memorial Day for nearly 70 years, but the day has been commemorated in Quebec only since 1999.