“Fully armed officers protecting Jewish people and places has become part of the ‘new normal.'”
Victoria likes to describe itself as a city of inclusion. Our elected leaders repeat the language often. They have statements. They have values. They have land acknowledgements. They have carefully chosen words for every occasion.
What we are increasingly missing is something far less performative and far more important: the willingness to enforce basic rules of public order when the target is unpopular in the activist ecosystem.
That is why remarks delivered to Victoria City Council by Sadie Jackson this month matter.
Sadie is not Jewish. She is a fourth-year student studying forest ecology. She came to council explicitly because she believes in the values the city itself claims to uphold in its inclusivity statement, which promises to remove barriers so that everyone can access and fully participate in city services, spaces, and programs.
Then she said what far too many local leaders refuse to say plainly: antisemitism is rising here in Victoria, and the response from leadership has been inadequate.
Her delegation, delivered during a public meeting of Victoria City Council, was not a lecture about foreign policy. It was not a demand that people stop caring about war or stop speaking about suffering. She went out of her way to draw a clear and reasonable line. Peaceful political expression is legitimate. Intimidation, harassment, vandalism, assault, and calls for violence are not.
That should be an easy distinction in a country governed by the rule of law.
Instead, we are watching it get blurred in real time.
A pattern of unchecked harassment
Sadie described a pattern that many Jewish Victorians have been living with for two years: repeated desecration of the city’s historic synagogue, harassment and assault of Jewish students, and weekly demonstrations that have crossed the line from protest into intimidation.
One of the details that struck me most was not even the protests themselves. It was the fact that police are now repeatedly required to form a protective ring around individuals who show support for the Jewish community because of repeated incidents of harassment and physical aggression. Fully armed officers protecting Jewish people and places has become part of the “new normal.”
That should alarm every person in this city, regardless of politics.
If you need armed police protection to safely attend a family-oriented event at a synagogue, the problem is not “community tension.” The problem is that something has been allowed to metastasize. And it does not get better by ignoring it.
If you need armed police protection to safely attend a family-oriented event at a synagogue, the problem is not ‘community tension.’
Sadie’s central point was not complicated. It was about selective enforcement.
We have laws and bylaws. We have rules about blocking roads and entrances. We have laws against assault, harassment, vandalism, uttering threats, and incitement. These are not abstract concepts. They are clearly defined offences under Canadian law.
When those laws are not enforced consistently, the message is unmistakable: the rules apply differently depending on the target and the politics of the moment.
That is not inclusion. That is permission.
And once permission is granted, it spreads.
Right to peaceful protest not a blanket exemption
We should also be clear about what freedom of expression actually protects and what it does not.
Peaceful protest, dissent, and political speech are essential to a free society. They are protected precisely because they can be uncomfortable, unpopular, or disruptive to power.
But freedom of expression is not a blanket exemption from the law.
It does not include threatening people. It does not include targeting places of worship. It does not include vandalism, assault, or physical intimidation. It does not include harassment aimed at someone’s identity or religious beliefs.
These distinctions are not new. They are well established in Canadian law. The problem in Victoria is not that these lines are unclear. It’s that they are being enforced selectively.
When governments fail to enforce these boundaries consistently, they do not protect free expression. They undermine it.
Allowing intimidation to masquerade as protest signals that some communities are expected to tolerate behaviour that others would never be asked to endure.
A city council that cannot articulate this distinction clearly, and act on it consistently, is not defending civil liberties. It is abandoning its most basic responsibility to protect its citizens.
Sadie made four requests of council: publicly endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism; enforce municipal laws in case of hate and discrimination; issue a public statement affirming antisemitism will not be tolerated in Victoria; and that councillors themselves abide by the city’s own inclusivity statement and not encourage or participate in activities that contradict it.
These should be pretty easy asks. The alliance’s definition of antisemitism has already been adopted by Canada and other jurisdictions and her other three requests are what the city itself espouses it’s already doing.
These are not extreme demands. They are baseline expectations in any community that actually believes its own slogans.
This is not just a Victoria problem.
Political leaders stand by as antisemitism grows
Across Canada, Jewish communities are watching institutions equivocate, police hesitate, and political leaders hide behind process while antisemitism grows more brazen. We are seeing elected officials at the federal level entertain rhetoric and actions that single out Jewish Canadians under the guise of moral activism, further eroding trust that institutions will act impartially.
In B.C., the provincial government is no stranger to inaction on antisemitism.
Selina Robinson, former senior BC NDP cabinet minister, was the most outspoken public advocate and prominent Jewish member of the government caucus when Premier David Eby fired her from cabinet to mollify pro-Palestinian and Hamas-adjacent protesters for comments she made on a podcast.
Robinson quit caucus and sat as an Independent citing the lack of support and “double standard” among her colleagues as untenable. She has since written a book about the ordeal and been critical of the failure of the BC NDP government to crack down on antisemitism in its own ranks and in the British Columbia public service.
With these shrinking examples in the upper levels of government, it’s easy to see why some municipal governments flounder and lose their moral courage when the scourge of antisemitism emerges in their communities.
When the state fails to protect Jews consistently, the consequences are not theoretical. They are dangerous.
If Victoria City Council refuses Sadie Jackson’s requests, it will not be because they are unreasonable. It will be because too many leaders are afraid of displeasing activist factions that have grown increasingly comfortable with antisemitism, so long as it is wrapped in the language of “justice.”
That is a choice.
And it is one that every serious city should be deeply ashamed to make.