Something’s burning in Trudeau’s Canada

Metropolitan police were unprepared for the organized assault. So was Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who seems to have had no inkling of the possible security risks that a NATO summit in his country might present. No, the Canadian leader wasn’t out to lunch. He was at a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto.

Canada is an important U.S. ally in continental security through organizations like the North American Aerospace Defense Command. But Ottawa doesn’t deliver on its NATO commitment to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defense and has said it won’t do so any time soon. As the NATO-summit fiasco demonstrates, even internal security can be an afterthought for the woke prime minister. But it depends on whose ox is being gored.

The hatred unleashed in Montreal was classic anticapitalist, antisemitic extremism. An estimated 800 students and activists, some waving Palestinian flags, took part in the demonstrations. Some rampaged through the streets, smashing the windows of businesses and the convention center where the summit was to convene and burning cars. Fox News reported that they “threw small explosive devices" and “burned an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." According to CTV News “they chanted ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘Israel is terrorist, Canada is complicit,’ as they lit smoke bombs. Metal barriers were also thrown in the street to keep riot police away."

The Canada Press reported that Divest for Palestine Collective called the effigy burning “a legitimate expression of collective anger against the political indifference at the heart of an ongoing colonial genocide."

The Montreal Gazette reported that on Saturday morning “windows were boarded up, police tape blocked several entrances and there was a heavy presence of private security guards and police officers." Around noon, Mr. Trudeau weighed in with a tweet, calling the riot “appalling" and insisting “acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence must be condemned wherever we see them." He added that “there must be consequences, and rioters held accountable." On Sunday Montreal police said they expected to make numerous arrests. Yet by Monday afternoon only three people had been detained.

Government failure to protect property and personal security rarely goes down well with law-abiding citizens. In this case Canadians have an additional reason to resent their government: the unequal application of the law, too often administered according to the politics of the left-wing ruling class, no friend to Israel.

Consider what happened to Canadian journalist Ezra Levant, who went to an anti-Israel rally in Toronto last weekend. Demonstrators were paying homage to the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel. Mr. Levant, who is Jewish, wanted to film the event. He was armed with only a camera.

Toronto police told him to remain in a designated media area. But he wanted to walk among the demonstrators where he could record what they were doing and saying. Video of the confrontation shows Mr. Levant being pushed along a sidewalk by the officers as demonstrators chant “get him out." He’s told that his “presence" is “inciting the potential for violence."

Mr. Levant, who was in a public space, was neither violent nor threatening. He did, however, verbally dispute the authority of the police and they arrested him in the “interest of peace" and “public safety." He was handcuffed and led away to cheers from the crowd.

The police have a role in keeping the peace. But the original provocation was the protesters’ decision to celebrate Sinwar in a largely Jewish neighborhood. Mr. Levant maintains his rights were breached and says he plans to sue.

The events of last weekend provide Canadian conservatives with one more example of selective justice. Many are still seething from the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. When truckers launched a nationwide protest against its restrictive policies, the prime minister, an avid fan of progressive causes like Black Lives Matter, branded their views “unacceptable" and tried to punish them. This included threats to freeze the bank accounts of antivaccine protesters without due process.

Things have only deteriorated further since Israel came under attack. As National Post journalist Michael Higgins noted last weekend, no one begrudges Mr. Trudeau his leisure time at a pop concert and he can’t control the schedule of marauders. But what happened in Montreal was only the latest outbreak of anti-Israeli extremism. As Mr. Higgins wrote, “These pro-Palestinian/Hamas-supporting demonstrations have been happening since the savagery of October 7 and the Liberal government and Trudeau have been missing in action."

The hoodlums’ trashing of Montreal caught the government off-guard. But somehow Mr. Levant was immediately intercepted, labelled a troublemaker and carted away. Something isn’t right in Canada’s “democracy."

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com