Idea to hire armed security at Montreal Jewish institutions triggers controversy

A proposal signed by eight elected officials in the Montreal area to arm security guards at Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres is resulting in controversy.

The eight-page document on antisemitic hate calls on the Quebec government to allow highly trained armed guards to be stationed at these institutions.

“Our community are feeling extremely anxious and vulnerable and not protected as they should be,” Jeremy Levi, the mayor of Hampstead and one of the signatories of the document, said.

Levi insists off-duty police officers are already hired to perform these tasks in other cities in the country and the same plan should be applied in Quebec.

“We just want to make our institutions safer,” he said.

But the Montreal borough mayor of Côte-des-Neiges-NDG disagrees.

Gracia Kasoki Katahwa posted on Facebook that this idea is flawed.

“We do not need to import American-style, gun-centered solutions here in our schools,” she wrote.

Katahwa told Global News this goes against Montreal’s official position calling for a ban on handguns in Canada.

“We need more gun control and not more guns,” she said.

The argument over hiring armed security outside of Jewish institutions follows recent shootings and firebombings of Jewish schools and synagogues in Montreal.