Kevin Vuong, 36, was walking with his wife last summer, who was then pregnant in her last trimester, when they saw posters on the street in Toronto along a route that the pro-Israel Canadian parliamentarian’s wife had taken the prior day, accusing him of supporting genocide.
“We pulled down the posters, and they were so wet from the glue,” Vuong told JNS. “About 20 minutes into doing that, my wife realized that actually there was someone following us in a car, taking pictures of us.”
She photographed the car and its license plate before it sped away. Vuong called the sergeant at arms, who oversees security for parliamentarians, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Police, which sent a cruiser.
Vuong had thought to note where the posters were and to share that with the police, so officers could seek security camera footage. Police later told Vuong and his wife that the suspect thought the couple was lost.
“Number one, it was daytime. Two, we had our phones. And three, they never said a word to us,” he told JNS. He added that he heard nothing further from the national or city police force.
“I worry about the safety of my wife and my daughter, and all we can do is practice vigilance and be as safe as we can,” he told JNS.
Since taking office, he has received bomb threats, including five before Oct. 7, 2023, and scores of harassing calls tied to his support for Israel or his vocal opposition to foreign interference and the Chinese Communist Party. He also receives hate for being outspoken on organized crime and against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Vuong told JNS.
“They’ve tried to intimidate me at different public events, but that was probably the most violating, and now my wife holds the distinction as one of the few parliamentarian spouses with their very own panic button,” he said.
When activated, the device sends her location to the police and records real time audio to update law enforcement. The device is generally given only to select cabinet ministers, but Vuong already had one several months prior to his wife receiving one.
Vuong’s office had been “targeted by the pro-Hamas crowd,” and agitators have “bombarded and tied up” his office phone lines and verbally harassed his staff, he told JNS.
“What we’re finally seeing now from law enforcement is more willingness to acknowledge how these tactics and these escalations will ultimately lead to violence,” he said. “On this issue of freedom of expression—a charter-protected right—people are abusing it to incite violence.”
“It’s clear now that law enforcement is not able to interpret when that line is crossed, so it is up to the federal government to create specific criminal offenses to remove that ambiguity, so that local law enforcement doesn’t have to make those interpretations,” he told JNS.
Major Canadian Jewish groups have offered “words of solidarity” and “have been immensely supportive when they do hear of incidents,” Vuong said. “But it’s really the responsibility of law enforcement and Canada’s safety and security apparatus to address these bad actors.”
David Cooper, vice president of government relations at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, told JNS that the “ongoing threats and harassment directed at former MP Kevin Vuong for standing in solidarity with the Jewish community are deeply disturbing and utterly unacceptable.”
“This is not an isolated incident. Increasingly, both Jewish and non-Jewish allies are being targeted with hate and intimidation simply for speaking out against antisemitism,” Cooper said. “In a democratic society, no one should fear for their safety for doing the right thing.”
‘The resilience of Israelis’
Vuong spoke recently with JNS as somewhat of an exit interview for his current role, in which he represents parts of downtown Toronto.
He opted not to run again in Canada’s national elections, which are scheduled for April 28. He told JNS that he aims to focus on his family, and that he has “had conversations and some ideas have come in front of me.”
The parliamentarian, who was born to ethnically Chinese parents who were refugees from the Vietnam War, visited Israel from Jan. 17 to 24 on an eight-person delegation, sponsored by the Exigent Foundation, along with members of the Canadian military.
The group spoke with Israeli military leaders and visited the site of the Nova music festival and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Vuong spoke to the father of one of the victims.
“I think the first thing was just the resilience of Israelis and resilience of the people and how this country clearly values its people,” he told JNS. “That meant, obviously, bringing home the hostages.”
He spent time with “battle-hardened veterans,” who showed a “sigh of relief” when hostages were released during his trip. “The big thing for me was reaffirming that I am on the right side,” he told JNS.
“I’m standing with the side that values human life, that values its people. So much so that Israel wants the bodies back of those who have passed away to give their families some measure of closure,” he said.
He visited homes in the north of Israel destroyed by Hezbollah missile fire and spoke with the mayor of Shtula, located near the border with Lebanon, who is looking forward to “the day where he can hang up his rifle and focus instead on rebuilding his town,” Vuong told JNS.
“It was a very heavy trip. I was walking some of the same streets in the same places of what I had viewed in that 40-minute video that the embassy had screened, right from Hamas’s own footage and their GoPros and cameras,” he said.
“You could spend days reading through the stories of each victim,” he told JNS. “It’s heavy and somber, and reaffirms the need to support Israel.”