Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Canadian Conservative leader calls Jews ‘a true indigenous people’

Speaking at an Orthodox synagogue in Quebec, Pierre Poilievre received multiple standing ovations for his support of Israel.

Pierre Poilievre and Andrew Scheer on Parliament Hill, Canada
Canadian Parliament member Pierre Poilievre (left) of the Conservative Party with colleague MP Andrew Scheer on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, on Feb. 28, 2018. Credit: Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.

Pierre Poilievre, a member of the Canadian parliament and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, recently spoke to members of the Orthodox Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation in Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec. His address on March 26 received robust applause and several standing ovations.

Poilievre proclaimed the permanence of the Jewish people, saying that “a thousand years from now, whatever is going on, on Fridays, as the sun goes down, there will be a Shabbat in Israel.”

He said, “Those songs will be sung. The Jewish people will go on.”

Poilievre also named Iran as the instigator of the Oct. 7 terror attacks on southern Israel, which he views as having masterminded the Hamas and Palestinian infiltration of the border on that Black Shabbat. “It was the fear that discord would come to an end and that hope would take root that most terrified the regime in Iran,” he said.

“They orchestrated the attack,” he said. “The Hamas leaders traveled to Tehran. They got funding and weapons from Tehran, and ultimately, coordination.”

The Canadian legislator described Jews as “the only people I know of who, in the same language, worship the same faith on the same land in the same country as they did 3,000 years ago. That is a true indigenous people.”

President Isaac Herzog was presented with an honorary degree by the Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem.
The nations agreed on a coordination mechanism for citizen services following Jerusalem’s prolonged humanitarian assistance deployment to the country.
“I don’t know who he went through,” the board told JNS. “He didn’t go through us.”
“I know Seattle’s Jewish community is acutely aware of a rise in antisemitism and is feeling anxiety and concern,” Katie Wilson told JNS, in the mayor’s first apparent comment on rising Jew-hatred since she assumed office in January.