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OTTAWA — The vast majority of Jewish students who responded to a government-commissioned survey late last year said they had experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus.
Before the Carney government terminated the role of special envoy on antisemitism, the last person to hold that office commissioned a survey of 900 Jewish university students about their experiences on campus.
The survey, published Wednesday by the Heritage Department, found that more than two-thirds of respondents said their university does not take antisemitism seriously and does not provide a safe place for Jewish students.
A fifth of respondents reported physical violence directed at Jews on campus.
“Any group that would report 95 per cent incidents either experienced or witnessed is a systemic phenomenon,” Jack Jedwab, head of the Association for Canadian Studies, told a news conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday.
The association conducted the survey last November and December with respondents who were recruited through Jewish university groups.
The respondents suggested that antisemitic comments are coming not just from other students but also from faculty. Some reported being asked by faculty to justify Israeli military actions in Gaza or being told that Jews belong in Poland.
Nearly half of respondents said they felt pressured to share their opinions about Israel with other students, while a third said they felt pressure to conform to a professor’s views on the Middle East. Just as many reported a professor “introducing Jews, Judaism, Israel or Zionism in ways unrelated to the course,” says the survey.
The survey did not ask about experiences with the protest encampments supporting Palestinians which emerged in response to gruesome images from Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations and Ottawa say Israel has killed civilians and restricted essential aid over the course of the war, which started with the brutal Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
A group of mostly Jewish academics is calling on Ottawa to get universities to do a better job of enforcing existing codes of conduct and recording data on incidents of discrimination.
“Professors are essentially teaching people what to think and not how to think, and so that undermines the university project and the academy. And so, in fact, what we’re calling for is strengthening of academic freedom,” said University of Ottawa professor Cary Kogan, co-founder of the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics.
The group Independent Jewish Voices criticized the survey, saying it has “serious concerns about the methodology, framing and advisory process.” It says research that seeks to shape the policies of universities and government must be able to distinguish genuine antisemitism from political disagreement.
“The report makes sweeping national claims from a self-selected and unweighted sample,” Nir Hagigi, a member of the group, said in a media release. “The experiences described by respondents deserve to be heard, but they cannot automatically be generalized to every Jewish student or every Canadian campus.”
Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia, said universities can learn from past work to weed out discrimination against gay or Black people by ensuring existing policies are enforced to protect Jewish students.
Ottawa could monitor this work, she said, and issue a public statement warning universities and faculty that the government will not tolerate any form of hate on campus.
The survey was commissioned by Deborah Lyons, the former envoy on antisemitism. The government eliminated her role and folded it into a general advisory council on inclusion which has been widely criticized by groups representing Jews and other minorities.
Former senator Marc Gold is the Jewish representative on that advisory council. He told Wednesday’s press conference he can’t speak on behalf of the group and would not respond to criticism about the government’s change in approach.
“We’re getting to know each other and we are providing input into a work plan,” he said. “We are taking very seriously this very important task and we will do our best to assist the government in doing what it should be doing, to work with its counterparts.”
Jedwab said another survey of non-Jews by Leger which touches on perceptions of antisemitism will be published in about two months.
Wednesday’s report says the upcoming study “shows that the majority do not consider several forms of anti-Jewish targeting as antisemitic, including boycotting Jewish-owned businesses because of their perceived Israel tie … and protesting outside Jewish houses of worship.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2026.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
