Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre vowed during a campaign event on Saturday to deport temporary visa holders who engage in antisemitic crimes if he is elected premier on April 28.

“We will bring in tougher laws to target vandalism, hate marches that break laws [and] violent attacks based on ethnicity and religion,” Poilievre told reporters, according to the Agence France-Presse.

“Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out law-breaking will be deported from this country,” he added, accusing pro-Palestinian protesters of contributing to antisemitic hate crimes.

Poilievre on Saturday condemned the rise in “targeting of synagogues and Jewish schools with hate, vandalism, violence [and] firebombings.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar last year urged Ottawa to “take the strongest possible stance” against Jew-hate after a Montreal synagogue was firebombed in the second such attack on the same congregation since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel’s south on Oct. 7, 2023.

Canada is home to the world’s fourth-largest Jewish community of around 400,000 souls, with nearly half in Greater Toronto and nearly a quarter in Greater Montreal. The North American country also boasts a large Arab population originating from countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week following remarks in which the Liberal Party leader appeared to agree with a protester who accused the Jewish state of committing genocide in its war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Image - Canadian Parliament member Pierre Poilievre (left) of the Conservative Party with colleague MP Andrew Scheer on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, on Feb. 28, 2018. Credit: Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.