Suburban mayors in Montreal want more security following Jewish school shootings

Work was still being carried out at a Dollard-des-Ormeaux synagogue Wednesday to clean up damage from a firebombing incident a week ago.

The fire was just one of a number of violent occurrences targeting Jewish institutions last week that have some elected officials saying they’re on edge.

“The problems that we are seeing in the streets of Montreal all over the place, they’re not being effectively addressed yet with the SPVM,” said Beny Masella, Montreal West mayor and president of the Association of Suburban Municipalities (ASM).

Mayors of suburban municipalities say they fear that antisemitism is escalating following shootings at three Jewish schools last week. They say they are getting impatient with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, arguing that she’s not doing enough to make residents feel safe.

“After these horrific crimes were committed asking for calm, I think it’s ridiculous,” Town of Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi stated during council meeting Tuesday evening.  Hampstead has a large Jewish population.

This week the ASM wrote to Plante outlining its frustration.

“We ask you to kindly, without further delay or procrastination, take all the necessary decisions and measures urgently to add to the resources of the SPVM, those of the Sureté du Québec and also of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” the ASM said.

Levi said “we do not want to wait until an issue happens before we call in these reinforcements.”

He doesn’t believe there are enough Montreal police officers to do what they think is needed.

“We want to have 24-7 police presence at every Jewish school, at every Jewish institution,” places they believe are being targeted, he told Global News.

In the meantime, Hampstead is taking steps to dissuade anti-Jewish behaviour on its territory with a bylaw forbidding the removal of any approved posters on public property, including pro-Palestinian ones. It comes after flyers about Israeli hostages were taken down in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.

“We’re sending a very strong statement that there is no place for hate in Hampstead,” Levi stressed.

In a statement to Global News, the city wrote that “since the start of the crisis in the Middle East, we have worked closely with the Montreal police to deploy all the necessary resources to ensure increased security near schools, mosques and synagogues.”

Officials also said that a needs assessment is carried out continuously.