October 9, 2017: The difference one person can make

By Michael Regenstreif

“Someday, when people gather around a national Holocaust monument in Ottawa, one person in particular will be proud of its establishment. She’s University of Ottawa student Laura Grosman. At 21 years of age, she has worked tirelessly for two years… to get the federal government to honour Holocaust victims by erecting a national monument in Ottawa.”

So wrote Benita Siematycki in the November 16, 2009 edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

A decade after Laura first articulated a vision of Canada having a monument in the national capital, the National Holocaust Monument – as it is now officially known – was dedicated in Ottawa on September 27.

From its conception to its dedication, the National Holocaust Monument involved many people and organizations, elected officials and government bureaucrats. It took a decade, millions of dollars and much perseverance by so many to accomplish.

But it all started with a vision articulated by a determined teenaged student at the University of Ottawa. While we’ve told Laura Grosman’s story before in the Bulletin, it bears repeating at this important time as a reminder of the remarkable difference that one person – no matter how young they may be – can make.

Ten years ago, Laura took a course on the Holocaust taught by Professor Rebecca Margolis of uOttawa’s Vered Jewish Canadian Studies program. She learned that Canada was then the one Allied country that fought the Nazis during the Second World War that did not have a national Holocaust monument.

Two significant factors influenced Laura’s determination to see a national Holocaust monument built in Ottawa. “The first is her family history. Laura’s paternal grandfather was a Holocaust survivor who never spoke much about his past. When he died, says Laura, his story went with him. The second factor is Laura’s fascination with all things political. She is a self-professed political junkie and loves nothing more than being involved in the political system,” wrote Siemiatycki in 2009.

“It’s pretty embarrassing for someone like me who’s involved politically to know that Canada is the only Allied country that doesn’t have a national monument. We have a national Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony that’s held where we can place them. That’s not acceptable to me,” she told Siemiatycki.

Laura came to uOttawa after growing up in Thornhill, a suburb north of Toronto, and as a politically aware young person she began to enlist federal politicians in supporting her cause. The first to come on board was her own MP, Liberal Susan Kadis, who began the process of drafting a private member’s bill to establish the monument.

Laura wanted the establishment of the monument to be a nonpartisan effort and other MPs she enlisted in the cause included Richard Marceau of the Bloc Québécois (who is now general counsel and senior government adviser at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs), and Conservatives Peter Kent (who defeated Kadis in the 2008 election) and Tim Uppal.

Kadis’ private member’s bill to establish the monument died when the 2008 election was called. She was defeated in Thornhill by Kent who was subsequently appointed to cabinet. As a minister, Kent could not sponsor a private member’s bill but the torch was picked up by Uppal, an MP from Edmonton.

Uppal’s bill – Bill C-442, an Act to Establish a National Holocaust Memorial – was passed in 2011 and the National Holocaust Monument Development Council was created to work with the federal government to acquire the land for the monument across from the Canadian War Museum, commission the design, raise the millions of dollars necessary to build the monument funds (matched by government funding), and oversee the construction. All of that took another six years.

But it all started 10 years ago with Laura Grosman, a teenager who found it unacceptable that Canada did not have a national Holocaust monument; a teenager with an ambitious dream and the dedication to make that dream a reality.

October 27, 2008: Observations from the election that was

By Michael Regenstreif

In the headline and introduction to the column below, Alan Echenberg suggests nothing too much changed in the Sukkot election that Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted was needed a year in advance of the fixed election date – that his government passed – despite the fact that the Conservative government had yet to lose the confidence of Parliament.

The party standings remain the same as before the election, but the dynamics are somewhat different. Harper’s Conservatives and Jack Layton’s New Democratic Party (NDP) increased their numbers in the House of Commons with the Bloc Québécois down marginally and the Liberals down big-time. After the last election, the Liberals could have combined with either the Bloc or the NDP to bring down the government – which, of course, they never did – but all three opposition parties will now have to combine to accomplish that. None will be in any hurry.

Harper said he called the election because Parliament had become dysfunctional. Hardly. The Liberals bent over backwards, from the time of the last election in 2006, to allow him to get anything he wanted passed in the House. And, if certain committees weren’t functioning properly, it was generally because of Conservative obstructionism that he could have ended with a snap of his fingers.

The reason Harper called the election was he read the polls and thought the time was ripe to lock in a majority before the looming economic downturn hit. The economic downturn hit faster and harder than expected and he blew his majority by alienating Quebec voters over petty cuts that hit hard at the province’s identity politics.

Heading into the election campaign, the Conservatives were poised for big seat gains at the expense of the Bloc. After passing the recognition that the Québécois form a nation – which is not the same as saying that Quebecers form a nation – and seeing support for Quebec separatism fall to historic lows, Harper had pretty much pushed the Bloc into electoral irrelevance. But then he got petty over a few million dollars in arts cuts that may have played well to his unwavering base in Alberta, but which people in Quebec saw as an assault on their culture. Voilà, the Bloc day was saved and the Conservative majority was gone.

Speaking of the Conservative base in Alberta, the NDP broke through there capturing the former Tory stronghold of Edmonton-Strathcona. This is on top of the party’s retaining Outremont, the former Liberal stronghold in Montreal that Thomas Mulcair captured in a by-election last year. That the NDP actually won seats in Alberta and Quebec is remarkable.

In Ottawa, not one seat changed hands with Conservative, Liberal and NDP incumbents winning seemingly easy re-election in neighbouring ridings. I suspect that the local strength of opposition MPs like Paul Dewar in Ottawa Centre and David McGuinty in Ottawa South and government-side members like John Baird in Ottawa West-Nepean and Pierre Poilievre in Nepean-Carleton had as much to do with their victories as the national campaigns of their parties.

Over the past couple of years, there was speculation that Harper’s unwavering support for Israel would lead many Canadian Jews to swing their traditionally Liberal votes to the Tories. That seems to have been the case in Thornhill, a suburban Toronto-area riding that is home to the largest proportion of Jewish voters in Ontario. Liberal Susan Kadis, who is Jewish and who won the riding with big majorities in 2004 and 2006, was overtaken by Conservative Peter Kent, a well-known broadcaster.

That Liberal-to-Conservative swing among Jewish voters didn’t come close to unseating Liberal Irwin Cotler in the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, the Quebec riding with the highest proportion of Jewish voters. Despite a majority that fell 10 percentage points to 55.7 from 65.6 in 2006, Cotler still finished more than 10,000 votes ahead of Conservative Rafael Tzoubari, his Israeli-born challenger.

Alan Echenberg notes that the Liberals are broke and can’t afford another divisive leadership race. But, even if they can’t afford it, they’re going to have one. Despite increasingly diminished returns in the past three elections, the Liberals still consider themselves a party of power and, after their showing on election night, it is obvious that the earnest Stéphane Dion would either step down or be forced out in a leadership review next May.

One thing that made this election historic was that only 59.1 per cent of Canadians voted; the lowest voter turnout in a federal general election since Confederation. More people couldn’t be bothered to vote – or, in effect, said none of the above – than voted for any party. That’s something all of the parties need to think about before the next election.