Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is apologizing for not attending a massive vigil held earlier this week where the city’s Jewish community commemorated one year since the October 7 terrorist attack. But her explanation isn’t adding up, event organizers say.
“I really regret not being able to be there. I wanted to mourn with the Jewish community on the tragic loss of lives and the horrific things that have passed,” she told Newstalk 1010 in an interview.
Chow later released a statement saying she was sorry.
Organizers said hours ahead of the event Monday that they had reached out to the mayor’s office and had heard nothing back.
Chow said Wednesday that her staff never got an invitation and they have launched an investigation with IT to see what happened.
Organizers estimated that some 20,000 people attended the vigil near Bathurst Street and Finch Avenue in North York Monday. Attendees included Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, along with several Toronto city councillors, former mayor John Tory and Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca.
“I should have been there. I got caught up in the long discussion on bike lanes over at The Kingsway area, where the emotions were very high, and the meeting went quite long, and by the time I was done, I was exhausted, right?” Chow said. “So I could have made phone calls and may have made it. I didn’t even know precisely what time the event was.”
Asked by CTV News Toronto whether her office would have been aware of the event even if the invitation had been lost, Chow said “probably.”
However she added that they were busy working on a number of important files, such as an auditor general’s report into the parks department, a school nutrition program that is close to her heart, the island airport runway extension and other matters.
“So myself and my office was extensively – we were stretched because of this council week and there was a substantial amount of work that was in front of us,” Chow said.
She told Newstalk 1010 it was “absolutely not” an intentional snub.
She said she plans to apologize to members of the Jewish community for not being able to attend.
“A year ago, I was at Mel Lastman Square with them, and again, that emotion was very high,” Chow said. “I totally understand this is the largest number of (Jewish) lives lost since the Holocaust. I know that in the community there’s fear. I worked with the chief to meet with some of the key people just about a week ago to assure them it’s going to be – during the High Holidays and this anniversary – people will be safe.”
But in a statement, The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) slammed Chow’s explanations as “embarrassing exercises in avoiding accountability for her and her staff who disappointed thousands and thousands of members of Toronto’s Jewish community.”
The group said they had given Chow the benefit of the doubt, even after she was sent three separate invitations and asked personally by a fellow member of council if she planned to attend. However her comments Wednesday, the statement said, “made clear that her absence was not the result of not receiving an invitation.”
The group shared three emails they said were sent to Chow’s office, one of which was sent directly to a member of her staff.
“To ensure there was no error on our part, we reviewed further to determine whether there was an issue. During that review we discovered that the Mayor’s office had unsubscribed and opted out of receiving our emails for the last seven months," CIJA Ontario Vice President Michelle Stock said.
“Even giving benefit of doubt that the Mayor’s office accidentally unsubscribed, the fact remains that we did reach out directly to Mayor Chow’s office and extended an invitation for her to participate personally to her staff."
Coun. James Pasternak told CP24 Wednesday that he had personally asked the mayor as well in the leadup to the memorial whether she planned to attend and she had told him she wasn’t sure.
“As exhausting as discussing bike lanes may be for the Mayor, we assure her the Jewish community is more exhausted,” Stock said. ”Over the last year, Toronto’s Jewish community has had to justify their right to exist as Jews, feeling unsafe as constituents in the city Mayor Chow is purported to lead. Although she claims she wants her city to be safe and inclusive for everyone, her persistent inaction says otherwise."
In her statement later in the day, Chow said she knows October 7 was a “deeply painful day, during an extremely difficult year” and said that she mourns “the tragic loss of lives with the Jewish community by the horrific acts of Hamas.
"I know there is fear in our city amid a substantial rise in hate crimes. I denounce all forms of antisemitism and hate in our city. There was a miscommunication between my office and the organizers, but that is in the past. We have created multiple new points of contact with CIJA so we don’t miss invitations to important events. I look forward to meeting with UJA and CIJA, the organizations who put on the event.“
Councillors react
Speaking with reporters, Coun. Brad Bradford slammed Chow for not attending the vigil, saying she would have had 364 days from the attack to realize there would be some sort of vigil to mark its anniversary.
“Nobody else didn’t get the email, didn’t get the memo. And I just think at the end of the day, it’s disappointing, it’s heartbreaking," Bradford said, citing statistics showing a sharp increase in reported hate crimes targeting the Jewish community since the start of the war.
Other councillors took a softer tone.
“I must admit we were disappointed she wasn’t there. This was a major community event. She is the mayor for all Toronto, regardless of various viewpoints," Pasternak said. “But at the same time, I see no point carrying a grudge or going beyond that. We are disappointed and we hope we can get her to future events.”
Coun. Josh Matlow said he wasn’t focused on who else was coming, but felt it was important for him to attend.
“My focus was, you know, personally, professionally, to be there with the community that had been traumatized and needed to know that there are people in leadership roles who understand the pain that they are going through, the vulnerability that they feel, and they want to know that there is support,” he said.