Hello everyone. 

Tonight, at sundown, we mark the beginning of Yom HaShoah and mourn the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

I know this time comes during an especially dark period for Jewish Canadians.

The October 7^th terrorist attacks – the murder of friends, family, and loved ones in Israel – was the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. 

And the ensuing rise in hate has made Jewish Canadians feel like the promise of our country — where everyone can feel proud, safe, and free in their faith — is under threat. 

Antisemitism is not just a problem of the past. 

It is here. It is now. It is pervasive.

So right now, it is especially important: to remember one of the darkest chapters in human history, to honour those who lived through unspeakable suffering with profound resilience, and to live up to the enduring obligation of “never again”.

My generation could hear and learn from Holocaust survivors directly. 

Yet, children in school today won’t often have the same opportunity to meet the people who faced this genocide. 

So, it is up to us to share their stories, to keep their memories alive, and to educate the generations to come about the racism, the hate, and the silence that enabled such evil.

Antisemitism in every form, from the darkest corners of the internet to the hateful rhetoric chanted in our streets, is unacceptable. 

It is not just a problem for the Jewish community. Each and every one of us – Jewish and non-Jewish – must confront this challenge together.

And we won’t stand idly by while it arises.

We’ve made it a criminal act to deny — or to dismiss — the Holocaust in Canada.

We’re creating initiatives like the new National Holocaust Remembrance Program and supporting the building of new Holocaust museums across the country, to teach more Canadians, especially younger ones, about the horrors of the Holocaust.

So that every generation will remember what happened,

and every generation will know their own responsibility to uphold the vow of “never again.”

Thank you.