The city of Côte-St-Luc has asked Montreal police to investigate hateful messages that appear to be aimed at the Jewish community left on the website of the local children's swim team.
The city was alerted by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs which in turn was alerted by a parent who was on the swim team's website to register their child and found the messages in the comments section and on the form used to to keep track of attendance.
"It made reference to foul language about Jews and the murder of Jews," said CIJA co-chair Reuben Pupko, who added that the comments he saw also made references to the militant group Hezbollah.
Another message was a quote attributed to Hezbollah’s leader saying: “We are going to win because they like life and we love death.” The comments were posted last month on January 9. Mayor Mitchell Brownstein said they took them down as soon as they heard about it today.
"We've contacted Google and we're trying to find out where the IP address is coming from. We contacted the police so that they should be aware of the incident and pursue it anyway they can," said Brownstein in an interview with CJAD 800 News.
Montreal police said it's not their protocol to confirm they are investigating this complaint.
Poupko said targetting a website used by families and young people adds another level to the egregiousness of the threat and is disturbing. Kid's prank or no kid's prank, Poupko said police need to treat this as a hate crime.
"We believe that's a determination for the police. I think this is clearly a hate driven crime and needs to be investigated that way," said Poupko.