The Canadian government’s subscription to a growing trend of conflation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has attracted controversy from Independent Jewish Voices, a grassroots advocacy group that calls for Palestinian liberation. The organization called “both offensive and inaccurate” a major Canadian ministry’s inclusion of anti-Zionism among expressions of anti-Semitism, and marked this redefinition as a threat to Canadian rights.

Zionism, or Jewish ethnonationalism, is a widespread modern ideology deriving from the colonial period, where its founding ideologues theorized that Jews must establish a colonial homeland in order to escape persecution. This was eventually imposed on Palestine through a mixture of land purchases, mass immigration, warfare, ethnic cleansing, and ultimately genocide. The ideology attracted many adherents outside the Jewish faith, particularly in the Anglo-American world.

Ironically and in apparent contravention of the conflation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, many unapologetically and decisively Zionist leaders in Britain and the United States have themselves been openly anti-Semitic. These range from Lloyd George, the British prime minister under whom Palestine was first colonized and who ardently believed in global Jewish power, to Narendra Modi, the ardently Zionist prime minister of India whose Hindutva ideology openly glorified Nazi persecution of Jews and took it as a model for treatment of Indian Muslims.

None of this, however, has prevented organizations such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, another Zionist organization that claims to honor the victims of the Holocaust, from conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Such definitions have been particularly useful in helping to silence dissent against Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestine. As recently as August 2026 this conflation was elegantly demolished by an Australian judge, Desmond Fagan, after his government had adopted similarly sweeping definitions.

The Canadian government, despite platitudes and promises of aid toward Palestine, has now apparently adopted the definition as well. Its Public Safety ministry, the equivalent of an interior ministry in charge of security affairs, reported “access to tools, guidance, and training to support the recognition, understanding and response to contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism”. The current minister is Gary Anandasangaree, of the ruling Liberal Party.

Prominent political leader Avi Lewis is an anti-Zionist Jew and a member of the Independent Jewish Voices network (Photo: The Independent).

The Independent Jewish Voices organization described this as “an appalling capitulation to pro-Israel actors and anti-Palestinian racism. Zionism forms the ideological backbone of Israel’s state-sanctioned violence against Palestinians. Our government quietly redefining anti-Zionism as a form of bigoted hate against Jews as a group is both offensive and inaccurate, and it endangers all Canadians’ right to freedom of expression”.

Notably, one of the countries’ leading parties, the left-wing New Democratic Party, is led by an anti-Zionist Jew, former journalist and activist Avi Lewis, a member of Independent Jewish Voices. On the other hand opposition leader Pierre Poilevre, of the rightist Conservatives, has been unabashedly supportive of Israel during the genocide.

Even as Liberal prime minister Mark Carney has publicly criticized Israel’s abuses and announced restrictions on its goods, however, his government has adopted a sweeping redefinition of anti-Semitism that has long muzzled criticisms of the same abuses.