B’nai Brith Canada on Monday asked for clarification after a prominent Montreal Councillor "liked" a Facebook post by an anti-Israel group.
Alexander Norris, leader of Project Montreal, the incumbent political party, liked a Facebook post by Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), which advocates for the anti-Israel Boycotts, Divestments, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In response to Norris' like, B’nai Brith has written to Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante, asking for clarification to determine if Norris spoke for her administration when he liked the post on Facebook.
“IJV is a small fringe group and entirely unrepresentative of the greater Jewish community," said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B'nai Brith Canada. "A high-level officer in the Plante administration endorsing BDS is deeply concerning to the Jewish community, especially after her administration’s rejection of IHRA. Norris is the House Leader of Mayor Plante’s party. Does he speak for her? If not, we think he is compromised and should be replaced.”
“The BDS movement feels reinvigorated by the widely discredited Amnesty International report,” said Marvin Rotrand, National Director of the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith and a former Montreal City Councillor. “The Canadian Government rejects it. Bizarrely, the City of Montreal is taking a different path with a prominent leader liking a post that endorses the movement. Mayor Plante must set the record straight and address the perception of pervasive antisemitism in her administration.”
B’nai Brith noted that in 2020, the Plante administration refused to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
Plante also came under fire in 2021 for her inaction in adopting IHRA definition. Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a borough within Montreal, has adopted the IHRA definition.
Montreal has experienced antisemitic incidents recently. In December, several massive swastikas were carved into the snow-covered ice at a community skating rink on the Island of Montreal.
Last August, the election campaign signs of two Jewish Canadian politicians in Montreal were defaced with swastikas.