National Post
· collected 2026-09-12 · by Special to National Post
analysis
In its time of crisis unmatched since the 30s, the fear is that, when we most need her, she is on the other team.
asserted
she → need → team
We judge politicians by their words, their actions, the causes they champion, the people whose approval they seek, those they are willing to offend and, most importantly, what they do when “doing the right thing” carries political costs.
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doing → judge → costs
And if I am wrong, she has made my conclusion difficult to rebut.
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conclusion → make → ?
Look at what happened this week.
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what → look → ?
Toronto’s mayor was invited to a mayoral debate about antisemitism and the safety of her city’s Jewish community.
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mayor → invite → community
She refused to attend.
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She → refuse → ?
Her explanation was that she does not participate in candidate events before her campaign officially launched on Sept. 9.
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campaign → participate → Sept.
It also belies common sense.
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It → belie → sense
The organizers had been communicating with Chow’s campaign for weeks without her providing that excuse.
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her → communicate → excuse
They offered to change the date, but she still refused to attend.
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she → offer → date
Her opponents were attending.
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opponents → attend → ?
But Chow did not.
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Chow → do → ?
Can you imagine her not attending?
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her → imagine → ?
Toronto’s Jewish community is facing extraordinary violence and hostility.
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community → face → violence
Jewish schools, synagogues and community institutions are being shot at, bombed and require security.
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schools → shoot → security
Jewish businesses attacked.
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businesses → attack → ?
Many Jews are concealing any visible identity to avoid becoming a target.
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Jews → conceal → identity
They are fearful in many cases of walking our streets.
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They → walk → streets
This is a public safety crisis involving one of the communities the mayor is sworn to represent.
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mayor → involve → communities
A debate devoted to that crisis offered Chow the opportunity to stand before Jewish Torontonians and answer difficult questions.
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debate → devote → questions
Her defenders will point out that Chow has condemned antisemitism and expressed support for Toronto’s Jewish community and its necessary security measures
Put those statements in the record.
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Chow → point → record
The relevant question is not whether Olivia Chow has ever said something supportive of Jews.
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Chow → say → Jews
The question is what her record as a whole reveals.
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record → reveal → whole
Last November, speaking at a fundraising gala for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, to applause, Chow said: “The genocide in Gaza impacts us all.”
Genocide is the deliberate attempt to annihilate a people and where large percentages of them are exterminated.
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percentages → speak → them
It is one of the most consequential accusations that can be made against a state.
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that → make → state
Chow is obviously entitled to criticize Israel, condemn its government, oppose its military campaign and express upset over Palestinian civilian deaths.
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Chow → criticize → deaths
But there is a profound difference between criticizing a government and adopting rhetoric that demonizes the world’s only Jewish state, one reborn as a direct result of an actual genocide the large majority were slaughtered in the most heinous ways
That distinction becomes particularly important when the politician using that rhetoric is the mayor of a city with a Jewish community in crisis.
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politician → be → crisis
Chow, with decades in public life, knows the power of political language.
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Chow → know → language
She knows that a mayor’s words do not disappear when the speech ends.
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speech → know → ?
Her words signal whose suffering she recognizes.
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she → signal → suffering
Whose claims she considers legitimate.
uncertain
she → consider → ?
Whose political concerns she is prepared to take seriously.
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she → take → ?
And whose she is obviously prepared to ignore
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she → ignore → ?
It is not one sentence or missed debate but her cumulative record.
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It → miss → ?
The audiences she chooses to address, political causes she embraces and the people she is not willing to confront
Chow appears perfectly comfortable using the most inflammatory language before audiences deeply engaged by the Palestinian cause.
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she → choose → cause
Yet when Toronto’s Jewish community asks her to discuss the hatred directed at Jews in the city she leads, she finds a procedural reason not to appear.
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she → ask → reason
A politician does not have to personally be politically opposed to the Jewish communities interest to make herself useful to people who are.
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who → have → people
She only has to decide that confronting them is politically inconvenient.
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confronting → have → them
That is how prejudice becomes normalized.
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prejudice → normalize → ?
The politician does not have to utter a slur.
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politician → have → slur
…and 16 more, not listed.
