A federal report released Wednesday found that nearly every Jewish student surveyed on Canadian campuses experienced or witnessed at least one antisemitic incident — in some cases from professors and administrators — prompting the country’s three largest Jewish advocacy organizations to demand action from university leadership and governments at every level.

The Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism published the Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences report, known as CASE, on August 5 in Ottawa. It was released alongside a ten-point set of recommendations from the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, a non-partisan faculty group representing more than 400 Jewish and non-Jewish academics across some 54 Canadian institutions.

The headline finding — that 96 percent of Jewish students reported experiencing or witnessing at least one antisemitic incident — was singled out in a joint statement issued the same day by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai Brith Canada and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center. The three groups said the report demonstrates that antisemitism has embedded itself in Canada’s public institutions, universities included, at a moment when synagogues, Jewish day schools and Jewish-owned businesses are being shot at and firebombed.

The organizations tied the finding to a public acknowledgment by Prime Minister Mark Carney that the country is falling short in protecting its Jewish citizens, and called on administrators and officials to weigh the report and the accompanying academic recommendations seriously. “The drivers of this hatred—including antizionism—are well known,” the statement said, urging concrete protective measures for students.

Commercial Fallout Beyond the Campus Gates

For the business community, the campus numbers land against a wider pattern of losses that Jewish owners in Canadian cities have absorbed since late 2023. Storefronts in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have been targeted with vandalism, arson and repeat picketing, driving up insurance premiums, private security costs and the price of glass replacement for operators who in many cases run single-location businesses on thin margins.

Statistics Canada figures released in July put the disparity in stark terms: Jewish Canadians were targeted in hate crimes at 22 times the rate of the general population, despite representing roughly one percent of the country’s residents. A separate report issued in late July by the J7 group of major diaspora Jewish communities found 2025 was the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks outside Israel in more than three decades.

The campus dimension carries its own economic weight. Canadian universities collectively enroll hundreds of thousands of international and domestic students whose tuition dollars underwrite institutional budgets, and campus climate has become a live factor in enrollment decisions, alumni giving and donor retention. Several Canadian institutions have already seen major gifts paused or withdrawn over their handling of protest encampments and faculty conduct.

What the Academics Are Asking For

The NECA recommendations focus on enforcement rather than new policy invention. The group urges institutions to apply the harassment and bullying rules already on their books to protect students targeted for any aspect of Jewish identity, including Zionism, and to adopt institutional neutrality policies binding not only on presidents but on departments and committees that have issued political statements of their own.

Other recommendations call for universities to denounce boycott campaigns aimed at Israeli scholars and institutions on academic-freedom grounds, to rewrite equity and human rights office policies to explicitly address antisemitism, and to require training delivered by an organization representing the mainstream Jewish community. The group also asks that research funding applications involving Judaism, Israel, Zionism or antisemitism be evaluated without prejudice, and that curricula be held to disciplinary standards rather than serving as vehicles for hateful ideologies.

Two structural asks stand out. NECA wants every campus to conduct an annual climate assessment backed by a centralized, transparent incident reporting system — the kind of measurable accountability mechanism corporate boards have long used for workplace conduct. And it wants each institution to fund a Special Advisor on Antisemitism reporting directly to the president or provost, creating a named office with budget authority rather than a committee assignment.

The recommendations arrive as pressure mounts from outside the country as well. U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, in Ottawa last week, publicly urged Canadian authorities to revoke visas and expand terrorism listings, telling the Canadian Press that Canada needs to do better. Canada’s own envoy post has sat unsettled since Deborah Lyons stepped down ahead of schedule in December 2025.

JBizNews Desk | Ottawa

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