May 5, 2025
WINNIPEG – The Province of Manitoba has committed to mandatory Holocaust education for students in Grades 6, 9 and 11, a policy B’nai Brith Canada has championed across the country.
“B’nai Brith Canada commends Premier [Wab] Kinew for making good on his campaign promise to improve Holocaust education in Manitoba,” said Dr. Ruth Ashrafi, B’nai Brith Canada’s Regional Director for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate with the province on initiatives to combat hate.”
Manitoba is the sixth province in Canada to announce plans to make Holocaust studies mandatory in secondary schools. Teachers will be required to attend training sessions about the topic and how to communicate it to students. The updated curriculum will be in force starting in September, 2025.
Other provinces that have committed to making Holocaust education a mandatory component of their curricula include Ontario, B.C, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta. In 2022, the Northwest Territories began including Holocaust education in its Grade 6 curriculum, and it remains the only territory to do so.
B’nai Brith Canada actively promotes Holocaust education and commemoration. In 2020, our organization partly subsidized a student-led documentary about the Holocaust, called Truth Against Distortion. Under the direction of Social Studies teacher Kelly Hiebert, Manitoba high school students interviewed local Holocaust survivors. Mr. Hiebert was later hired by the Government of Manitoba to craft its official Holocaust curriculum.
On April 24, Mike Moroz, Manitoba’s Minister of Innovation and New Technology, acknowledged B’nai Brith Canada’s role in Holocaust remembrance during his Yom HaShoah address. He cited our Unto Every Person There Is a Name program, during which members of the Winnipeg community read the names of those who died during the Holocaust.
“Antisemitism is at a point of crisis in Canada,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy. “Our organization has long believed that teaching our youth about the Holocaust is an important means to combat hate, nurture Canadian values and protect the wellbeing of Jews in this country.”
