Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, speaks at the ReutersNEXT Newsmaker event in New York City, New York, U.S., November 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Harley Finkelstein, the Jewish Canadian entrepreneur who serves as president of the e-commerce company Shopify, has warned that antisemitism in Canada has become “normalized under the thinnest veil of advocacy,” prompting many Jewish Canadians to weigh leaving the country, in an interview published this week by the Canadian newspaper National Post.

Finkelstein argued that anti-Jewish hostility is too often excused as political speech. “Behavior that would be instantly recognized as bigotry against any other community gets rationalized when Jews are the target,” he said. “Naming it isn’t inflammatory. It’s necessary.”

He said he knows Jewish Canadian families weighing what he called a “Plan B” of leaving the country, describing kitchen-table conversations that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. “The grandchildren of people who fled to Canada are now asking whether they should flee from it,” he said, adding that his own answer is to stay: “I’m staying, I’m building, and I’m raising my kids here proudly and visibly.”

Finkelstein’s comments followed an incident on Wednesday at Montreal’s Startupfest, a festival celebrating tech entrepreneurs, where his on-stage conversation with former Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Georges St-Pierre was interrupted by Montreal-based anti-Israel activist and author Yves Engler. Engler approached the side of the stage, filmed Finkelstein, and challenged him over his support for Israel amid the war in Gaza. The audience — largely tech founders — booed Engler, and a staffer escorted him out after Finkelstein told him he was “embarrassing yourself.”

Writing afterward on X, Finkelstein described the disruption as antisemitism “disguised under a thin veil of advocacy,” saying he had been on stage to discuss entrepreneurship, not politics, when the activist began shouting accusations. He added that his parents were in the front row. “When the target is always the Jew and never the topic, it’s not advocacy. It’s hate,” he wrote.

Finkelstein said it was the third time in two years he has been publicly confronted over his support for Israel. His 2024 live podcast recording at Startupfest with Indigo CEO Heather Reisman and DAVIDsTEA founder David Segal was interrupted by protesters, as were his remarks at the opening of the Finkelstein Chabad Jewish Centre in Ottawa. Shopify and Finkelstein were also targeted by a boycott campaign in 2025 after he publicly criticized media coverage of Israel.

The incidents come amid a documented surge in antisemitism across Canada. Speaking at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto on June 1, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the country was “failing Jewish Canadians” and called the crisis “specific, severe and demands a targeted response.” He said antisemitism had surged to levels not seen since the years after World War II, and that in 2025 more than two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes in Canada targeted Jews, who make up only one percent of the population.

Finkelstein told the National Post that tackling the problem requires three steps, beginning with naming antisemitism plainly rather than treating it as a policy debate. He also urged authorities to enforce existing and new laws with real consequences, arguing that people disrupt Jewish events believing they will face none, and to stop excusing harassment as advocacy. “What we tolerate next will define us,” he said.

Finkelstein, whose family fled Hungary for Canada in the 1950s and who is descended from Holocaust survivors, appeared last month on The Algemeiner’s podcast “J100” and discussed antisemitism, Israel, his family’s Jewish history, and more.