Ontario Premier Doug Ford is being widely condemned for blaming a recent shooting at a Toronto Jewish day school on immigrants without presenting any evidence.
Mr. Ford, who was alongside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Toronto on Thursday, denounced the early morning weekend shooting at Bais Chaya Mushka School for Girls in North York. Two unidentified suspects had shot at the empty school shortly before 5 a.m. on Saturday.
A bullet hole was found in a window at the school, but there were no reported injuries, Toronto Police said. Both suspects were wearing dark clothing and fled in a dark coloured vehicle. Montreal Police were also investigating Thursday after a Jewish school in the city was hit by gunfire.
The Premier, speaking at the opening of a new vaccine facility not far from the shooting, appeared to blame the Toronto incident on immigrants, even though police have not provided any other information about the suspects.
“You’re bringing your problems from everywhere else in the world, you’re bringing it to Ontario, and you’re going after other Canadians,” Mr. Ford said.
“I got an idea. Before you plan on moving to Canada, don’t come to Canada if you’re going to start terrorizing neighbourhoods like this. Simple as that. You want to come to Canada? You want to be a resident of Ontario? You get along with everyone.”
He later attempted to clarify his remarks with a post on X, saying he did not mean for his comments to divide people, though he did not apologize.
“My comments today meant to stress that there is more that unites us than divides us,” the statement says. “While there will always be room for disagreement, violent acts that target specific religions or ethnicities do not reflect who we are or the values that represent our province.”
Toronto Police say their investigation into the shooting at Bais Chaya Mushka is continuing and that no arrests have been made.
“Regarding immigration status, this is not information that we track and we do not disclose the immigration status of suspects or victims,” police spokesperson Devika Deonarine said.
Opposition politicians at Queen’s Park seized on the Premier’s remarks, calling them dangerous statements that could rile up anti-immigrant sentiment and demanding an apology.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the Premier’s initial comments painted all immigrants with the same brush and did nothing to keep the Jewish community safe.
“These are disturbing and racist comments from the man leading the most diverse province in our country. At a time when we need political leaders of all stripes to do everything they can to bring people together and foster safety, the Premier has chosen to fan the flames of xenophobia and hate,” Ms. Stiles said in a statement.
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie echoed the calls for an apology.
“Dividing the people of Ontario isn’t leadership, it further polarizes our communities and promotes hate and xenophobia,” she said in a statement.
“Our province deserves better from its Premier. Doug Ford must apologize now.”
The Ontario Federation of Labour also condemned Mr. Ford’s “racist and inflammatory comments.”
Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s special representative on combatting Islamophobia, said on X that Mr. Ford’s comments “have real world consequences” and noted that the one-year anniversary of the terrorist killing of a Muslim family in London, Ont., by a white nationalist is one week away.
“It’s a time of particular anxiety for many Muslims in Ontario & across Canada, especially with rising Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab racism. We can and should condemn antisemitism and the heinous acts against Jewish schools without fueling further hate and division,” she wrote.
It’s not the first time Mr. Ford has faced criticism for his comments about immigrants. In 2021, he declined to apologize after lecturing would-be immigrants who planned to “collect the dole” instead of working.
Mr. Trudeau, who appeared with Mr. Ford at the press conference Thursday, did not directly address Mr. Ford’s comments. But the Prime Minister mentioned the shootings at the beginning of the event, saying he was relieved no one was hurt in either incident but “disgusted by these vile and despicable acts of antisemitism.”
He said “we cannot and will not let this antisemitism stand in Canada.”
He later called for an end to intolerance in Canada, be it antisemitism or Islamophobia, and said events overseas should not be spilling over into “Canadians hating on other Canadians.”
Also at Thursday’s event, Mr. Ford appeared to link the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Toronto – which he has urged the institution to shut down – to the school shooting.
After saying he hoped to put the shooting perpetrators – “I don’t even want to call them people” – in jail and “throw away the key,” he mentioned the protests at U of T and other campuses, whose demands include divestment from companies connected to the Israeli military amid the war in Gaza.
“This has to stop. It’s just out of control. Growing up here our whole lives, everyone in this room, we’ve never seen anything like this before. And this has to stop. All the nonsense at U of T and everywhere else.”