Canada's envoy for combatting antisemitism Deborah Lyons leaving post early
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Deborah Lyons served as Canada's Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism since October 2023, and was set to serve until this October. In a social media post announcing her departure she did not explain why she is leaving before then.
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Lyons did say that she is leaving 'with a heavy heart' and with some deep disappointments while also pointing to achievements including work with institutions like universities and polices to improve understanding of anti-Jewish hate.
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She said her office fought antisemitism 'with a vigour and passion not seen in many other countries,' and yet she leaves with concern over Canadians who feel they must pick a side when it comes to defending humanity.
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'Support to one community should never mean, or be interpreted as, minimizing another community. Our value of inclusivity has at its core our ability to hold the concerns of multiple communities, in our hearts and minds,' Lyons wrote.
'It was troubling in the last few years to see our lack of patience, lack of tolerance, and inability to reach out across the gulf to one another.'
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She says there must be 'seamless co-operation amongst the three levels of government to combat hate' and joint efforts from business, education and faith sectors.
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On Monday, Lyons took the unconventional step of releasing a report about issues that fall squarely into provincial jurisdiction, urging Ontario school boards to take seriously incidents of anti-Jewish bigotry targeting students, after she commissioned a survey of Jewish parents with children in the province's schools.
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Lyons was the second person to hold the post of antisemitism envoy, following former attorney general Irwin Cotler who filled the role between 2020 and 2023. She is not Jewish, but served as Canada's ambassador to Israel between 2016 and 2020.
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Global Affairs Canada has not yet replied to questions about when Lyons' replacement will be appointed.
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She said her decision reflected her 'despair' over the growing gulf in society over violence in the Middle East and the failure of many Canadians to find common ground against hate. 'People were listening and hearing on different frequencies, and so we just were not connecting,' said Lyons. 'That was where the big despair comes from.' She said her work wasn't made any easier by the silence of corporate leaders 'whom I asked many times to stand up,' and by faith leaders who seemed to keep quiet on the suffering of people from other religions. 'I was incredibly disappointed with business leaders,' she said. 'We have a tendency to want to blame politicians all the time, but where have the faith leaders been? Where have the priests and ministers and rabbis and imams and so forth (been)?' Lyons said that some community leaders did ask for her help in finding the right words to speak out against hate — because they feared that they would offend one community if they stood up for another. 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She said that indicates a 'weakening' in the ability of both Canadian society and the broader western world to stand for common human values. Lyons said she lacked the energy at times to bridge that gap. 'I held back from having some discussions, because I knew there was going to be animosity, or I wasn't going to be welcome in the room. It disappoints me,' she said. Lyons said she could not get a meeting with Poilievre despite requesting one and having a cordial chat with him during an event. 'I tried to meet with Mr. Poilievre when I was in the job, and in the end I got a response that he was too busy to meet with me,' she said. In a statement attributed to Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman, the party did not dispute Lyons' version of events. 'While communities face increasing threats, vandalism, intimidation and violence over the last 20 months, the Liberals deflected responsibility to a powerless envoy,' says the statement. 'We are ready to meet with the government at any point, because they're the only ones with the power, the tools and the responsibility to do something — and they have done absolutely nothing to date.' Statistics Canada reported this week a slight increase in police-reported hate crimes in 2024 compared with a year prior, and a very slight drop in those against Jewish people, who remain the most targeted group in Canada. Lyons accused all three levels of government of failing to adequately co-ordinate their responses to hate, saying that issues like car theft or tariffs are seen as more tangible. She said Prime Minister Mark Carney seemed engaged and requested a meeting with her, though she added it was not possible to meet with him before the July 8 date of her departure. Lyons said she is leaving her job three months early not for health reasons but rather to restore 'a little bit of the joy back into life' through retirement. She said she would have liked to continue, but described the envoy role as more difficult than her stints as ambassador to Afghanistan and Israel. 'It was without question the toughest job I ever did.' Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
