Jun 9, 2026 · 16 min · 6 segments
When Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a national address on antisemitism recently, he hit some high notes, but also missed critical details. In a recent opinion column in The Globe & Mail, Rabbi…
Steven WernickGuest
Robert WalkerHost
I think that any time the leader of a country, the prime minister, speaks and gives a significant address, it, it really doesn't matter where it is.
And so I think that from that perspective, the location is less important than what was said, and what was said was significant.
The prime minister was unequivocal about his condemnation about antisemitism.
I think the morality that he expressed was the right tone and message the Jewish community needed to hear.
I wish it was something that would have been heard earlier, including in Prime Minister Trudeau's administration.
Uh, on October 7th, when the massacres happened, it was Shemini Atzeret here in the diaspora, and it was Yizkor, the prayers for the memorial service of all the departed in our communities.
And I remember putting aside my prepared Yizkor remarks and speaking from the heart to the congregation, and one of the things that I understood at that time instinctively, having watched the antisemitic responses to the 2014 Gaza operations between Israel and Hamas, was that antisemitism was going to blow up out of proportion and that it was gonna take many, many years for us to have to fight it, and before, um, our societies would kind of find their new equilibrium and marginalize antisemitism again.
Uh, so I wish that this, this speech would've happened sooner, but I think it's important that it happened, uh, and I'm glad that the prime minister took it as seriously as he did.
In terms of expectations, I don't think, as I wrote in my Globe and Mail article or Globe and Mail op-ed, I don't think the prime minister went far enough.
I think that any time the leader of a country, the prime minister, speaks and gives a significant address, it, it really doesn't matter where it is.
And so I think that from that perspective, the location is less important than what was said, and what was said was significant.
The prime minister was unequivocal about his condemnation about antisemitism.
I think the morality that he expressed was the right tone and message the Jewish community needed to hear.
I wish it was something that would have been heard earlier, including in Prime Minister Trudeau's administration.
Uh, on October 7th, when the massacres happened, it was Shemini Atzeret here in the diaspora, and it was Yizkor, the prayers for the memorial service of all the departed in our communities.
And I remember putting aside my prepared Yizkor remarks and speaking from the heart to the congregation, and one of the things that I understood at that time instinctively, having watched the antisemitic responses to the 2014 Gaza operations between Israel and Hamas, was that antisemitism was going to blow up out of proportion and that it was gonna take many, many years for us to have to fight it, and before, um, our societies would kind of find their new equilibrium and marginalize antisemitism again.
Uh, so I wish that this, this speech would've happened sooner, but I think it's important that it happened, uh, and I'm glad that the prime minister took it as seriously as he did.
In terms of expectations, I don't think, as I wrote in my Globe and Mail article or Globe and Mail op-ed, I don't think the prime minister went far enough.
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