Mayor Olivia Chow's debate no-show speaks volumes

Neither of your two rival candidates — Chris Alexander and Brad Bradford, who participated in a debate Tuesday evening on skyrocketing antisemitism in this city — believes you.

Many in the Jewish community sure as hell don’t believe you.

Just as when Chow failed to appear at a vigil for victims of the Oct. 7 slaughter by Hamas in Israel and belatedly offered a lame excuse for her absence — her office hadn’t received an invitation from the United Jewish Appeal Federation. Oh wait, maybe the invitation had been spammed. Oh wait, she was at a meeting about bike lanes in Etobicoke that didn’t end until 5:30 p.m., and it was probably too late to get up there in time. “I just count on my staff to tell me where I’m going,” she’d said afterwards, appended to an apology.

Just as when Chow skipped the raising of Israel’s flag at City Hall on Israel Independence Day, which she deemed “a bit divisive.”

On this newest occasion, Chow’s boffins contended the mayor’s no-show — given in advance — was down to the fact that her campaign wasn’t formally launching until Wednesday. One day after the debate. Campaign spokesperson Shirven Rezvany had told the Star’s Ben Spurr in a statement that Chow “will not be participating in any debate or candidate events” before then. As if the launch had been written in stone and an invitation that had been extended weeks earlier couldn’t possibly be accommodated. As if Chow hasn’t been campaigning, informally, for months.

Rezvany didn’t respond by deadline to the Star’s email Tuesday seeking further information.

But at least eight Toronto City councillors and one retired Supreme Court of Canada judge were in the audience.

Chow’s absence cast a long shadow. And with no Chow, it wasn’t actually a debate, as each candidate was interviewed on stage one-on-one, one at a time.

Israel may be a politically toxic subject. Antisemitism shouldn’t be. There is a solid distinction between opposition to the grotesquely punitive policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Palestinians — nearly 74,000 killed in Gaza in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign, according to the Hamas-run health ministry — and blatant Jew-hate. 

But Israel is half a world away; Toronto Jews have nothing to do with it.

“We have been really dumb in our response,” Alexander, former Conservative immigration minister and diplomat, told the crowd of upwards of a thousand at Adath Israel Congregation in Bathurst Manor, describing Toronto’s deficiencies in how it has handled everything from gunshots to firebombs to swastika vandalism, all targeting Jewry. “We have allowed people to harass the Jewish population, to go into neighbourhoods where there’s no reason to protest except to intimidate.

“It isn’t freedom of speech. It is hate speech, it is harassment, and it needs to stop.”

Bradford slammed Chow right off the top when it was his turn.

“Let me start off by saying it’s so important for me to be here tonight. I’m disappointed that the mayor wasn’t here tonight. Because we’re having a very important conversation about antisemitism, of Jew hatred, what’s festered like an infection in the city for the past three years.

“The mayor’s job is to be the mayor for everybody. And that means you’ve got to show up.”

Eric Frydman is president of the 1,500-member Jewish Lawyers of Canada, which hosted the event. “There has been a growing rise of antisemitism in Toronto that is of particular concern to the Jewish community that has faced the brunt of it,” he told the Star. 

This year and last year and the year before — ever since the murderous infiltration of Israel by Hamas , now approaching its third anniversary — we’ve seen hate-motivated attacks targeting Jewish-owned businesses, Jewish institutions, Jewish places of worship and a Jewish girls’ school. For too long met with a piddly response by the Toronto Police Service. While hate crimes in Toronto fell by 50 per cent in 2025 compared to the year before, according to police statistics, “anti-Jewish occurrences” accounted for 82 per cent of incidents motivated by religion, despite Jews comprising a mere three per cent of the city’s population.

Frydman invited the three leading candidates who had over five per cent in the most recent figures. “I emailed her office all the way back in March and reached the campaign team leaders on Aug. 7. A couple of weeks ago, they were going to put me in contact with the person who handles debates and forums. But then I never heard back from them.” Until last Thursday, when he was informed about the whole campaign schedule thing.

Frydman had made clear that everything was flexible on his end – the format, the moderator (Jesse Brown, editor and founder of the Canadaland media outlet, who has publicly accused Chow of endangering the Jewish community), even a willingness to switch the date to Sept. 9.

Crickets.

What’s the real reason for Chow’s reluctance? “I can make assumptions and people will make assumptions,” continues Frydman, who discussed the crisis of antisemitism when Chow invited him to a Passover event at City Hall. “But I don’t think there was any form of this that she would have attended. I think it’s not politically in her favour, maybe, to be vocal on this issue.

“It’s become an increasingly difficult thing in Toronto to speak up when Jews are under attack because it’s a political issue when it should be a civil issue about everybody caring about that. That’s really, really unfortunate, that we’re in a political environment now where antisemitism is controversial.”

On that, I’ll give the last word to Coun. James Pasternak, after he itemized the firebombings, the gunfire, the every-Sunday-morning protests at Bathurst and Sheppard:

“Some elected officials even see votes in the mob.”