Anthony Housefather

Anthony Housefather (born 25 January 1973) is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal since his election in 2015, with re-elections in 2019, 2021, and 2025. Born in Montreal to a Jewish family, he began his political career in municipal politics, serving as a councillor in Hampstead before becoming mayor of Côte-Saint-Luc, where he focused on community safety and demerger efforts post-provincial amalgamation. In Parliament, Housefather has held roles including chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights from 2015 to 2019, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and currently Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience, as well as Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism since 2024. As a vocal advocate for Israel and against antisemitism, he has publicly criticized his party's positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including a 2024 parliamentary motion that he viewed as equating Israel with Hamas, prompting him to consider defecting to the Conservatives before ultimately remaining with the Liberals.

Anthony Housefather was born in Montreal, Quebec, to David Housefather, a notary, and Myrna Housefather (née Horovitch), members of a Jewish family with deep generational roots in the city, including grandparents born there. The family name Housefather traces to uncertain European origins, possibly linked to an innkeeper or household overseer, though specific ancestral details remain anecdotal within family lore.

Raised in Montreal's vibrant Jewish community, Housefather attended Herzliah High School, a Jewish day school, where he developed fluency in Hebrew alongside English and French. This environment immersed him in a bilingual Anglo-Jewish culture within Quebec, a province marked by ongoing language debates favoring French dominance, which highlighted tensions for English-speaking minorities including Jewish enclaves like those in suburban Montreal.

His upbringing fostered a strong sense of communal identity and resilience, shaped by participation in Jewish educational and cultural institutions amid local dynamics of preserving heritage in a linguistically contested setting.