October 15, 2018: Solidarity from federal leaders

By Michael Regenstreif

How rare is it to see the leaders of the federal Liberal, Conservative, New Democratic, and Green parties come together quickly to take a common stand on an issue?

But that is what happened just before Rosh Hashanah when two Liberal MPs – Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal) and Michael Levitt (York Centre) – were subjected to an antisemitic tweet from prominent anti-Israel activist Dimitri Lascaris.

In his tweet, Lascaris, chair of the board of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, tweeted that Housefather and Levitt, who are both Jewish, “are more devoted to apartheid Israel than to their own Prime Minister and their own colleagues in the Liberal caucus.”

As Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel pointed out in a statement on September 9, Lascaris’ tweet suggests the two MPs are disloyal to Canada, “a textbook example of antisemitism as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA),” the definition of antisemitism that has been adopted by many governments and organizations in democratic countries.

Among the examples of antisemitism cited in the IHRA definition is, “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”

“Vile antisemitic smears like this are completely unacceptable, and should always be called out. Thank you @LevittMichael and @AHousefather for standing up to this and for everything you do for your communities and our country,” tweeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer tweeted: “It’s shameful to see two MPs subjected to such antisemitism, accused of dual loyalties, simply because they’re Jewish & support Israel. The entire [Conservative Party] caucus & I stand w/ our colleagues across the aisle, proudly supportive of all Jewish Canadians.”

“Antisemitism has no place in Canada. I know what it’s like to experience racism & discrimination, and to have my loyalty to Canada questioned. @LevittMichael and @AHousefather, I stand with you today,” tweeted NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

And, from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May: “Just saw the attack on you both. So unacceptable. Your loyalty to Canada is unquestioned. See you soon. Sending love. @AHousefather @LevittMichael.”

I was particularly pleased to see May standing in solidarity with the other leaders, as Lascaris was a Green Party candidate and justice critic in the party’s shadow cabinet in the 2015 federal election. He also led the pro-BDS campaign within the party in 2016 – a campaign that led May to briefly consider her future as party leader.

As Fogel also pointed out, some of those seeking to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel “through BDS and other toxic forms of advocacy, are becoming bolder and more aggressive. They are letting the veil slip on the false distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism … some of them openly seeking to undermine our rights as Jewish Canadians to be accepted as equals in Canadian politics, democracy, and civil society… It is a powerful statement to have federal party leaders unite, despite their many other differences, in defence of our community when we are targeted for antisemitism.”

As encouraged as I was to see the federal leaders come together in a united stance against antisemitism just before Rosh Hashanah, I was also concerned, at about the same time, to learn that Premier Doug Ford’s new Progressive Conservative government had ordered the dismantling of four sub-committees of Ontario’s Anti-Racism Directorate – including a sub-committee charged with developing provincial strategies to combat antisemitism – apparently as an austerity measure. The other affected sub-committees were charged with fighting racism directed at Blacks, Indigenous people and Muslims.

March 7, 2016: Parliament votes to condemn anti-Israel BDS movement

By Michael Regenstreif

Two votes were held on February 22 – one in Ottawa in the House of Commons and the other at McGill University in Montreal – on the issue of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

The Commons voted on a motion, put forward the week before by Conservative MPs Tony Clement and Michelle Rempel, which read, “That, given Canada and Israel share a long history of friendship as well as economic and diplomatic relations, the House reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and call upon the government to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

Clement led off the House debate on February 18, calling BDS a form of discrimination, “just like boycotts that have targeted Jews throughout history.”

It quickly emerged in the debate that the Liberal government would support the motion.

“The world will win nothing for boycotting Israel but depriving itself of the talents of its inventiveness,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Dion said, adding, “We must fight antisemitism in all its forms,” signalling the government’s recognition that there is – as former justice minister Irwin Cotler points out – a “new antisemitism,” in which Israel is targeted as “the collective Jew” among the nations.

In the lengthy debate, Liberal and Conservative MPs rose to support the motion, while NDP MPs and Green Party leader Elizabeth May spoke against the motion because they said it was an attack on freedom of speech and dissent. At the same time, though, the NDP and May stressed their opposition to BDS and their support for a two-state solution.

Among the most eloquent voices in the debate were new Jewish MPs Michael Levitt (York Centre) and Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal).

“BDS is about intolerance. It is a broader movement to demonize and delegitimize Israel and collectively punish all Israelis by holding Israel alone responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Levitt.

Housefather gave a speech on the history of antisemitism in Canada and explained how the BDS movement has taken its place in that history. Housefather also showed how the elimination of the State of Israel as a Jewish state was one of the BDS movement’s actual goals.

The motion passed easily by a vote of 229-51. The Bloc Québécois joined the NDP in opposing the motion.

Of Ottawa’s MPs, the motion was supported by Andrew Leslie (Orléans) and Pierre Poilievre (Carleton). Anita Vandenbeld (Ottawa West-Nepean), my own MP, abstained.

For some reason or another, the rest of Ottawa’s MPs were not in the House to vote on the motion. These included Catherine McKenna (Ottawa Centre), who, as a Cabinet member would have voted in favour, had she been present; Mauril Bélanger, who is facing serious health issues; Karen McCrimmon (Kanata-Carleton); Chandra Arya (Nepean); and David McGuinty (Ottawa South).

A few hours later, an assembly of the Student Society of McGill University voted 512-357 to support BDS. The assembly attracted less than three per cent of McGill’s 30,000 undergraduate students. The assembly result then needed to be ratified by an online vote open to all McGill undergrads. The results of that vote were not yet known when we went to press.

And, true to the motion passed that day in Parliament, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a statement in reaction to the McGill vote: “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses. As a @McGillU alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough”

As a side note, there was a recent Jerusalem Post report – quickly withdrawn because it was incorrect – that Israeli pop singer Achinoam Nini, a.k.a Noa, who is headlining the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration, supports BDS.

But, following the report, the Jewish National Fund of Canada withdrew its sponsorship of the event saying, “The entertainer that has been hired does not reflect, nor correspond to the mandate and values of the Jewish National Fund of Canada.”

However, the Embassy of Israel in Ottawa and the Consulate General of Israel in Toronto have stepped in and will sponsor the event.

November 9, 2015: Canada’s strong friendship with Israel will endure

By Michael Regenstreif

By the time you read this column, Justin Trudeau will have taken office as Canada’s new prime minister after leading the Liberal Party of Canada to majority government status in the October 19 federal election.

No one saw the magnitude of Trudeau’s victory coming. The opinion polls – from day one to day 78 of the longest federal election campaign in modern history – always suggested a minority government. At the beginning of the campaign, the New Democratic Party under Tom Mulcair was in the lead and Trudeau’s Liberals were in third place.

Then Stephen Harper’s Conservatives inched into the lead with the Liberals and NDP so close behind that it looked like any of the three parties might capture a plurality of seats for a minority government. This gave rise to speculation about a possible agreement or coalition between the Liberals and NDP to topple a Conservative minority. That was the state of affairs a month ago, when I wrote my column for the October 12 issue.

By the end of the campaign, support for the NDP had fallen significantly and increased enough for the Liberals that polls suggested a Liberal minority with about 140 of the 338 seats.

But, as the results came in on election night, the Liberal wave took enough formerly safe seats from both the Conservatives and the NDP that the Liberals went from 34 seats and third place in the last election to 184 seats – a solid majority – this time.

Harper’s Conservatives scored a breakthrough in the 2011 election when exit polls indicated they received the support of 52 per cent of Jewish voters, apparently on the basis of Harper’s strong support for Israel (even though the Conservatives never changed Canada’s policies in regard to West Bank settlements, the peace process, the two-state solution, or the status of Jerusalem).

But, in the election campaign, the other party leaders also pledged their support and Canada’s friendship for the Jewish state. There was virtually no substantive policy difference between the parties on Israel – a point Trudeau made forcefully when Harper brought up Israel in the leaders’ foreign policy debate.

While I doubt Trudeau will have the same kind of personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as did Harper – I don’t think Netanyahu had a closer personal friend than Harper among the leaders on the world stage – I am sure Canada’s nation-to-nation friendship with, and support for, Israel will continue at the same high level as recent years.

In the 2011 election, all but one of the five seats in Canada with statistically large Jewish populations went to the Conservatives. The only one that didn’t was Mount Royal, where Irwin Cotler’s support among Jewish voters fell sharply. While I’m yet to see any exit polling data on how Jews actually voted in this election, four of those five seats – Mount Royal in Montreal, Eglinton-Lawrence and York Centre in Toronto, and Winnipeg South Centre – were won by Liberals. Only Thornhill, just north of Toronto, remained in the Conservative tent.

Here in Ottawa, all of the ridings with measurable Jewish populations went to the Liberals. The same was true in ridings in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and perhaps elsewhere across the country.

There were three Jewish members of previous Parliament: Liberal Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal), who did not run in this election, and Conservatives Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence) and Mark Adler (York Centre), who both went down to defeat.

There are six Jewish members – all of them Liberals – in the new Parliament: Jim Carr (Winnipeg South Centre), Julie Dabrusin (Toronto-Danforth), Karina Gould (Burlington), David Graham (Laurentides-Labelle), Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal) and Michael Levitt (York Centre).

Given the results from across the country, and anecdotally from conversations I’ve had with several Jewish voters, I assume that, if or when we see exit polling data on Jewish voters, it will show that at least some – if not a significant amount – of the vote captured by the Conservatives in 2011 went to the Liberals this time around.

With increasingly dismal results after each of the preceding four elections, many were ready to write off the Liberal Party. If Trudeau governs with the same skills with which he rebuilt the party, it will be an exciting time in Canadian politics.