David Polansky: Kind, tolerant Canada is failing the antisemitism test

2025/06/21 Leave a comment

Captures some of the dynamics at play:

…To explain: though antisemitism is frequently referred to as the “oldest hatred,” these latest developments are, if not wholly new, at least a new variation, for which prior instances offer minimal guidance. The classic problem is that of the persecuted and supposedly unassimilable minority, exemplified in Canada by the notorious “None is too many” policy or Duplessis’ campaign for the premiership of Quebec during the Second World War. But Jews are no longer a unique minority in a country that has prioritized global immigration and multiculturalism for many decades, and in which “visible minorities” are expected to approach half the population by the middle of this century.

At the same time, Jews remain very much a minority unto themselves, with just under 400,000 total across the country. What makes the present dilemma distinctive is that it stems not from a hostile majority population but from other minority populations that view Canadian Jews as convenient extensions of Israel (and thus as legitimate targets), along with assorted radicals operating under the same logic.i

It is thus the perfect moral shell game: you can harass and even harm Jews under the belief that you are functionally fighting Nazis. All of the fun of antisemitism (venting one’s anger and resentment upon a minority group) with none of the burdens of conscience that might otherwise come with it (because you are in fact venting your anger and resentment upon a minority group). More broadly, the prevailing liberal institutions have removed many of the safeguards that might have once checked these tendencies.

Consequently, this sort of vandalism—much like the idiot yelling antisemitic slurs at (the admittedly irritating) Dave Portnoy the other week—is both unprecedented and precedented. It is in a broad sense unprecedented in a country like Canada known for its mild political culture with a tradition of hospitableness for its Jewish communities. But it is in a narrower sense preceded by 18 months and more of fraying civic threads and the suspension of ordinary laws and norms for the champions of politically favoured causes.

For example, prior to the vandalism of the Holocaust Memorial, Mohamed Fakih, a highly successful entrepreneur and recipient of the Order of Canada, posted on X that, given their affiliations with the state of Israel, synagogues were perfectly legitimate targets of protest—a sentiment echoed by left-leaning academics. That is to say, unless they satisfy certain political and ideological conditions, Jews can continue to expect to be targeted in their neighbourhoods and places of worship. This was remarkable in its own right, but also for what it signified: a willingness to dispense with the modern liberal agreement concerning tolerance and coexistence, exchanging it for a new model of increasingly comprehensive politicization.

Now, it should be noted that Canada has already seen a disturbing spate of church-burnings over the past several years, seemingly triggered by the false reports of mass murder at residential schools. This itself was a highly worrisome development, though the public response to this on the part of both media and elected officials was to downplay it rather than excuse it, though that was really bad enough. What we are seeing now, however, is something new: the attempt to legitimize behaviour that was once completely outside the boundaries of political order in liberal societies. This is a matter of concern not just for Canada’s Jews, then, but for everybody.

None of this is to suggest that Jews should be entitled to special protections; but contemporary liberalism has largely abandoned traditional notions of political legitimacy in favour of offering precisely such protections to preferred groups under its coalition. It is particularly in light of its own record, then, that the present situation of Jews stands out.

The reality is that the world is not always such a nice place, and nasty things are bound to happen from time to time, even in “nice” countries. Any one of these incidents could have been chalked up to that same inevitability, but taken together, it is increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion: these things didn’t use to happen here; now they do. The inability to properly respond to—or even recognize—this development is yet another test that Canada’s governments at all levels are presently failing.

Source: David Polansky: Kind, tolerant Canada is failing the antisemitism test

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David Polansky: Canadian citizenship is immensely valuable. Our political elites should act like it 

2024/06/29 Leave a comment

Overly general “lament for a nation” without any specifics in terms of levels, categories, permanent vs temporary etc. And is this only an issue of “elites” or is it broader given the number of diverse interests that had, until recently, been pushing or supportive of higher levels of immigration?

That being said, as many have noted and the government belatedly has acknowledged, current immigration levels, permanent and temporary, have been misguided and placed excessive pressures on housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

The recent revelations concerning foreign interference among Canada’s elected officials have hit like a bomb—at least among those media organs that could be bothered to report on it. It obviously raises critical concerns about national security, as well as questions about the legitimacy of any political party whose members are found to have been compromised.

But perhaps less obviously, it also raises fundamental questions about the value of Canadian citizenship. For, among much else, this foreign interference is an affront to the prerogatives of the citizenry—chiefly their rights and privileges to elect a government that answers to them and not to others.

More broadly still, however, public comments by the present leadership over the years have reflected a denigration of the meaning of citizenship. Between this and the emergence of diaspora politics as a significant phenomenon, one can see how foreign meddling—and potentially treason—might become normalized.

In light of these developments, it is worth reflecting on what Canadian citizenship means and what it might be worth—for not all the answers are intuitive. Fear not, this isn’t going to be a sentimental paean to maple syrup and portaging and flannel clothing. For, the real value is surprisingly material in nature.

Indeed, Canadian citizenship is an asset of extraordinary value. But it is systematically undervalued by Canada’s political elites, at least partly because they themselves, being economically privileged, hold other assets against it: liquidity, foreign property, often multiple passports, and so on. Consequently, they have been able to favour immigration policies that have diluted the value of citizenship (much as issuing new stock dilutes the ownership of existing shareholders), while at the same time insulating themselves from the downsides. They can retreat from overcrowded public spaces via their private cottages, they can avoid public school problems by paying for private schooling, they can pursue private medical options when ER delays in hospitals become interminable, and so on.

But for the average Canadian, the value of citizenship is historically tied to the possibility of a materially abundant life in a high-functioning country within the bounds of a more or less middle-class household income. The dwindling of this possibility is not just a story of economic mismanagement (though it is that too), but also a dilution of the worth of Canadian citizenship—an asset that ensured a high level of equality for as long as it held its value.

Let’s consider this more concretely. Canada is the world’s second-largest country, with approximately two percent of the earth’s surface. Much of it is inhospitable and unable to support large communities, but that still leaves a good deal of land area available relative to a (historically) small population. And yet over 80 percent of the country remains uninhabited. Much of the rest, however, is sublimely beautiful. Within 100 miles of the U.S. border, one can find an oceanic coastline, towering mountains, deep forests, crystalline lakes, sprawling prairies, and other manner of dramatic scenery that sounds like it came out of a travel guide.

Now, as the saying goes, you can’t put a price on beauty, but then one can readily consult the listings for waterfront properties around Muskoka or West Vancouver to at least get an approximation. Of course, for much of Canada’s modern history, going back to the 16th century, surviving a harsh landscape took priority. But for generations now, property ownership in one of the world’s most beautiful countries has been the patrimony for most of its citizens. Yes, some people always had more money than others and thus larger houses, nicer furnishings, and so on, but these advantages were more quantitative than qualitative.

In any case, home ownership as such was not seen as a luxury good, and even the post-1960s influx of new arrivals seemed only to contribute to the country’s economic growth without threatening to diminish the supply of housing stock, such was the capaciousness of Canada. And—equally important—such was the stringency of Canada’s immigration controls, ensuring that a high level of human capital was maintained across demographic changes in both ethnic composition and total numbers. This was particularly important in light of the generous benefits associated with Canada’s welfare state, including health care, maternity (later, parental) leave, unemployment insurance, and social security. For such a system to remain solvent, it was imperative to have an industrious and law-abiding population that consistently paid in more than it took out—especially in a country that was never as wealthy as its southern neighbour.

This represents more or less the truth of Machiavelli’s insight that liberality always depends upon parsimony. In Canada’s case, we would say that the liberality or generosity of its welfare state relied upon the parsimoniousness of its immigration regime. In a wide world of people who might wish to immigrate to Canada, only those expected to contribute to rather than draw on the public fisc were considered, and this approach held even as immigrant populations became increasingly multicultural and multiethnic (with the orientation of origin countries shifting southward and eastward over time).

And housing is only the most pressing of a host of issues impacted by the government’s lack of policy restraint. Canada maintains a primary system of public education from K-12, taxing its residents accordingly. The quality of that education and the nature of student experience is greatly impacted by externalities beyond the reach of any school board. The point is that what was once an assumed feature of life in a well-governed region or municipality (access to decent public education) emerges as a privilege under constrained conditions.

It is only under such conditions that one can understand citizenship as an asset in itself—one that has become depreciated through misguided public policies. And it is only in light of that depreciation that certain underlying inequalities are more starkly revealed. It is not that inequality didn’t previously exist, but as access to such schools and such neighbourhoods is placed under competitive pressure, the privileges that accrue to the rich—allowing them to retain such access under challenging conditions—become more salient as well.

And this dynamic goes both ways: just as the wealthiest Canadian can pay out of pocket for treatment at the Mayo Clinic rather than assume a spot on the interminable waiting list for surgery, so too well-heeled non-Canadians throughout the world have found in Canada, a stable country with an ever-rising real estate market, a congenial place to park their capital. In both cases, wealthy individuals are able to transcend national boundaries to their advantage; and in both cases, the average Canadian loses, priced out of the housing market and stuck relying on dwindling public services.

The fact that all those born in Canada enjoy the privileged status of citizenship—and it is a privilege, insofar as no one deserves to be born in one place over another—makes many uncomfortable. Downplaying its significance has lately become a habit to which elites especially are prone. Nonetheless, the government of Canada is obligated as a matter of legitimacy to uphold the rights and interests of actual Canadians over those of the rest of the human race. And doing so is in its way an egalitarian measure—for it ensures that the associated benefits are enjoyed by all of its citizens, not just the wealthiest. Some might still call this unfair, but it’s a lot fairer than the alternatives.

David Polansky is a Toronto-based writer and research fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy. His writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. Read him at strangefrequencies.co or find him on Twitter @polanskydj.

Source: David Polansky: Canadian citizenship is immensely valuable. Our political elites should act like it

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Orwell would have something to say about Canada’s moment in the global spotlight

2023/10/03 Leave a comment

On diaspora politics and national interests:

An old joke has it that the most boring possible news story would read: “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.” And yet in the past two weeks, Canada has managed the surprising feat of making global headlines not once but twice, though by now its leaders may well wish it hadn’t.

The first instance came when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused India of assassinating a Khalistan separatist on Canadian soil; the second, when it emerged that Parliament had hosted a Ukrainian veteran of the Nazi paramilitary Waffen-SS.

What is interesting about both cases – aside from the fact that they brought such attention to Canada – is that they each involve what George Orwell called “transferred nationalism,” in which people glorify a country to which they do not actually belong. This is an underappreciated phenomenon in world politics, being much more common than many realize. And it is one to which Canada may be especially prone given its own weakening national ties.

Canadians have long prided themselves on their “mosaic” model of a multicultural society, in contrast to the “melting pot” version on display to the south. Part of their self-understanding is that Canada’s multicultural democracy does not require assimilation as a precondition of peaceable coexistence. This easygoing cosmopolitanism goes hand in hand with a certain complacency, however, as Canada increasingly fails to supplement it with a positive account of its own national identity.

The Belgian writer Émile Cammaerts (in a remark widely attributed to G. K. Chesterton) said that a man who ceases to believe in God doesn’t believe in nothing but in anything. Something like this is increasingly borne out with respect to Canadian political life, as diaspora politics at home and foreign causes abroad rush into the vacuum that ordinary patriotism once filled.

For the former, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a leader of a niche movement to establish Khalistan, a separate Sikh homeland in northern India. This is a cause that has found passionate (and at times violent) support almost entirely outside of India itself. This may seem surprising but is hardly unusual. Nationalisms often form in exile – famously (and ironically, given the present circumstances), Mahatma Gandhi developed his vision of Indian nationalism while in South Africa.

Of course, their right to peacefully organize is not in dispute. But it’s fair to say their geopolitical goals are separate from those of most Canadians and for that matter of Ottawa, and they have caused serious complications in Canada’s relationship with a major regional power.

Meanwhile, the case of Ukraine is on the surface quite different. The passion that Canadians have manifested for the Ukrainian cause is not limited to an ethnic minority, suggesting that it has fulfilled certain patriotic longings, even among our cosmopolitan elites. In Orwell’s words, such a person “still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself.”

Unsurprisingly, the feting of a Nazi fellow-traveller on Parliament Hill has brought condemnation and alarm from Jewish organizations. Speaking as a Jew myself, I don’t think this episode betrays some latent antisemitism among Canada’s governing class. But it does indicate the pitfalls that await those who attach themselves to foreign causes, the complex history of which they only dimly comprehend.

And it must be said that the embarrassments and complications of these recent weeks might have been avoided had Canada’s political elites better tended their obligations to address the real interests of the citizens they notionally represent. The point here is not that Canada needs to embark on a program of promoting its own homegrown nationalism (what would that even look like – ”freedom fries” but for maple syrup?). But it wouldn’t be amiss for its leaders to work on articulating their vision of the country’s national interests.

The language of national interests is admittedly in low repute these days, smacking as it does of amoral power politics. But because national interests are necessarily tied to the material concerns of the whole of a country’s citizens, they can have a moderating effect on both ideological passions and factional agendas, shaping a sense of shared democratic political community. And in the absence of such an account, we are likely to see more instances of transferred nationalism in Canadian politics going forward.

Thus, restoring the habits of reflecting on and speaking in terms of national interests could well prove salutary for elected officials and citizens alike. At a minimum, it might help keep Canada out of international news stories for a cycle or two.

David Polansky is a Toronto-based writer.

Source: Orwell would have something to say about Canada’s moment in the global spotlight

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