While I was away: Antisemitism

2026/06/08 Leave a comment

Wide range of commentary on antisemitism and conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and the mixed reaction to PM Carney’s address to Jewish leaders. Making an address outside of the House of Commons never works, former PM Mulroney learned that with Italian Canadians, former PM Harper learned that with Sikh Canadians and PM Carney repeats those mistakes with Jewish Canadians.

And Carney should have been clearer on the extreme forms of anti-Zionism on display in Canadian cities and institutions that go far beyond legitimate criticism of the Israeli government policies and actions, particularly under the current Netanyahu government with extremist Jewish ministers in Cabinet and government:

Canada is being tested by a crisis of antisemitism, Carney says

… Mr. Carney’s speech, his first to focus on the topic of antisemitism, was met with polite praise from those in the audience, which included MPs, local and provincial politicians and religious leaders. He had faced pressure to speak in person directly about the issue.

But Jewish leaders criticized him for not addressing his government’s foreign policy toward Israel, which has included condemning the country’s conduct in Gaza and recognizing a Palestinian state – moves that some in the Jewish community have said further inflamed domestic tensions.

“When Canadian elected leaders publicly condemn Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, Jewish Canadians pay the price,” Holy Blossom’s Rabbi Yael Splansky said in recorded remarks played before Mr. Carney began speaking.

Globe editorial: The missing words in Mark Carney’s antisemitism speech

…What should he have said? That the problem is antizionism, a complete, anything-goes rejection of, and demonizing of, Israel’s existence. And that antizionism is manifesting itself on Canada’s streets and university campuses, in a complete, anything-goes rejection, and demonizing of, Jews.

This is where the Prime Minister’s courage failed him. Taking on the antizionists – the core of the problem – was not something this Liberal prime minister was prepared to do. He went into a synagogue before an invitation-only audience of 170 Jewish leaders and did not meet the moment. He didn’t mention Israel, despite his prepared remarks doing so – once. He was unable or unwilling to articulate what is behind the “scourge of antisemitism” that he rightly condemned….

Geist: Why Mark Carney’s Antisemitism Speech Did Not Meet the Moment

…Naming the crisis is only step one however, and on the parts that matter most, the speech missed the mark. Begin with where he chose to deliver it. Carney told his audience he was speaking in a synagogue but the address was for all Canadians. But a speech for all Canadians that frames antisemitism as a national problem belongs on the floor of the House of Commons, where Canadians are represented and where all MPs – whether or not they are Jewish or represent ridings with large Jewish populations – would have had to sit together and hear the need for the country to take responsibility for antisemitism. I’m happy to see Evan Solomon, Leslie Church, Anthony Housefather, Rachel Bendayan, and Ben Carr in attendance. But we need all MPs, particularly those who have said little about antisemitism since October 7th, to see this as their issue too. MPs from all perspectives sitting side-by-side only happens in the House of Commons, and it did not happen yesterday (as one rabbi noted, a speech in a synagogue was needed months ago in the immediate aftermath of the shootings).

Chris Selley: At a synagogue, Carney tells the wrong people to abandon their ethnic rivalries

…We’re lucky, and we have done a lot of things right, but we’re not special: You can’t ask people to bring their faith, culture, language and world view with them to Canada but leave any rivalries or grievances behind. That’s just not human nature. This insistence on combating dire situations with myth-making will eventually be a large part of the Liberals’ undoing. In the meantime, on the issue of antisemitism specifically, Carney’s government seems to have almost nothing to offer. And he offered it at a synagogue.

John Ivison: The crucial words Carney wouldn’t speak in his antisemitism speech

For my part, I felt that it was an unusually eloquent and heartfelt speech but that it fell short for a different reason: it failed to be honest about the cause of the corruption in the body politic.

“We welcome the peoples of the world, in all their diversity and splendour. We don’t welcome the world’s hatreds,” Carney said. “When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your traditions, your language, your story but you leave behind your animosities.”

But that is not happening. Islamists arrive and are given permission to give vent to their ancient loathing by anarcho-socialists, and their naive campus enablers, who love Palestine but hate Canada, and despise Jews most of all.

The Montreal4Palestine group continues to defend the mock hanging of a man wearing a kippah last month, saying it was directed at a specific political figure (Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir), not at Jews. Will it take a real lynching to convince the waverers that this is not legitimate freedom of expression?

Given the demographics, it is clear why the prime minister was ambiguous in laying the blame.

But, as Elie Wiesel learned in the death camps, neutrality helps the oppressor and silence encourages the tormentor.

The malignancy will continue to metastasize if we keep obscuring its source.

Tasha Kheiriddin: Mark Carney in denial over what’s behind antisemitism

…Citizenship is a two-way street. Newcomers have a responsibility to respect the laws and customs of the place they choose to call home. When they not only fail to embrace Canada’s basic values, but repudiate them, there must be consequences: fines, arrests, deprivation of liberty, and in the case of non-citizens, removal from the country. Let me be clear.

That’s what Carney should have said. Instead, he listed his government’s actions to date, including Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Law. He announced the creation of a Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, one of whose jobs will be to study antisemitism. It includes one lone Jewish member, former senator Marc Gold, and features Omar Alghabra, an MP who has been photographed numerous times in the company of Islamic extremists.

This is BS. Canada doesn’t need another council to study a problem that Carney described quite fully in his remarks. Canadian Jews need to feel safe in their homes and communities. And all of us need an end to denial, inaction and the toleration of hate.

Lederman: The Prime Minister addressed Canada’s antisemitism problem. Almost nobody was satisfied

… Canada’s Jewish community, like any community, is not homogenous. There are always going to be differences of opinion. Some of the criticism is fair, but the knee-jerk sneering at the Prime Minister’s acknowledgment of Jewish Canadian pain – and his call for the rest of the country to step up – is disappointing and unproductive. The speech was not a hollow gesture, but a meaningful promise to act.

The speech, in fact, was the action. Or an action, at least.

“No Jewish Canadian should ever have to wonder whether the government sees this clearly,” said AI Minister Evan Solomon, who is Jewish. “We do. We see it, we acknowledge it, we are acting on it.”

Canada’s leader is asking the country to come together to oppose antisemitism. This should be commended, not condemned. The response to that plea tells the story of a country divided.

Stephens: Hatred of Israel and the Degradation of the West

…How is it that hatred of one country can wind up doing more damage to the haters than the hated?

All prejudice, mindless or deliberate, is mind-warping; obsessive prejudice, of the kind Israel disproportionately attracts, is even more so. There are today millions of people around the world who, with considerable media and academic assistance, have convinced themselves that the major, if not sole, cause of injustice in the Middle East and even the world is Israel’s occupation of parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

As a result, this obsession has contributed to the relative neglect of the region’s other fundamental problems, above all the abiding grip of authoritarian politics in places like Cairo and Ankara and totalitarian religious fundamentalism in Gaza and Tehran. When was the last time you heard of an American campus protest against the treatment of Kurds by Turkey (a NATO ally and longtime beneficiary of U.S. security guarantees), or the genocide in Sudan?

Why is this year’s arts biennale in Venice being roiled by the inclusion of Israel, but not of China? Why has the recent report detailing the extensive documentation of systematic use of rape and sexual torture by Hamas and its collaborators received little attention?

These aren’t just questions of hypocrisy or double standards. They are evidence of minds that have lost the capacity to think dispassionately and critically. What we should really be worried about isn’t the future of Israel; it’s the fate of the West.

Moral judgments should be made about Israel according to the same standards by which we judge other countries faced with similar circumstances. It’s when Israel is demanded to be a saint — and then, as it invariably falls short, is damned as the worst sinner — that we lose our sense of perspective and proportion.

Jack Mintz: Australia’s response to antisemitism puts Canada to shame

…Dave Rich, a leading British academic on antisemitism, concluded that labelling Zionism as a form of western colonialism is used to demonize, exclude and attack Jewish people and supporters of Israel. He also argued that claiming that Israelis are just like the Nazis in practising genocide undermines the importance of the Holocaust in defining antisemitism.

This all-encompassing approach in Australia should be carefully reviewed by the Carney government. It is not just a matter of a government’s responsibility towards security. It is also an issue of social cohesion.

Like Australia, intimidating demonstrations that dehumanize Jews has led to an increase in antisemitic attacks in Canada. Reported and unreported antisemitic acts are frequent, totalling 567 per month in 2025 alone, according to B’nai Brith Canada’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents.

The Carney government should not wait for a Bondi-like terror incident before acting to curb antisemitism. So far, its effort is deficient.

Lederman: The San Diego mosque shooting is a profoundly 2026 tragedy

….What drives a 17- and 18-year-old to this kind of hatred? To end people’s lives, and then their own? Mr. Clark was about to graduate from high school. 

Consider everything we’re learning about the manosphere – misogynistic, hateful, homophobic, antisemitic, and somehow very attractive to many young men. 

A spark – caused by a bad day, a fateful encounter, who knows what – sends these kids to dark corners of the internet. Their hateful curiosity is reinforced by algorithms that continue to serve up vile ideas. These algorithms are designed to maximize engagement – and, for the social-media companies, profits. It’s all happening in the combustible environment of the divisive politics of the day, where hateful rhetoric has become the norm, not just from blabbermouth commentators, but politicians, all the way up to the U.S. President. 

In the aftermath of this tragedy, far-right Trump ally Laura Loomer posted: “The shooting in California took place at a jihadi mosque known for its hate preachers.” She wrote that it was “likely planned by Muslims” and the U.S. Islamic lobby. There are too many people who will believe her own hate-filled misinformation, uncritically.

Beyond the grief of this incident, there is an urgent need to address this emergency. We are in a confirmation-biased, hate-fuelled misinformation crisis. Wherever these two young men – boys, really – have been taught to hate like this, others are there too, lurking, reading, learning at the knees of influencers, extremist pundits, hateful politicians. The consequences, as we have seen too many times, can be deadly.

Polansky: Despair is not an option

…The perceptive reader will have noted that none of these measures requires special privileges or carve-outs for Jews or any other minority group. Moreover, all of these recommendations apply widely to problems of governance across the country. This is precisely the point. The observable social decline described here afflicts Jews acutely but not exclusively.

Similarly, the older dispensation of Canadian liberalism, now in need of restoration, allowed Jews to flourish along with other Canadians. Another way to put it is that improving the worsening situation of Canadian Jews will entail making much-needed corrections to the country as such. This is not incidental.

Against this proactive view is a growing (and largely online) sentiment, bolstered by a combination of unfavourable demographic trends and ugly news stories, that Canada is finished for Jews, and they should begin looking elsewhere. This, in fact, echoes much of the pessimism one increasingly finds among non-Jewish Canadians of all stripes about the trajectory of their country.

The French novelist Michel Houellebecq famously wrote “there is no Israel for me.” That there is an Israel (or, potentially, a Florida) for Canadian Jews should not change their calculus. By any historical measure, Canada has done quite well by them (and vice versa). They owe something to their country, and if nothing else, they owe it to their ancestors, who braved far worse to get here, to stay and fight. Canadians in general should do likewise. In this, as in other matters, they may find common cause in repairing their country’s weakening institutions.

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Polansky: The uncomfortable reason antisemitism is festering in Canada

2026/01/07 2 Comments

Hard to imagine these protests, intimidation and disruption being tolerated if against another religious or ethnic group:

…It is only an emphasis on hatred, however, that would conflate these two disparate cases. Moreover, if there are specific threats against Jews that have arisen within Canada (as it seems there are), that is the result of policy failures. And all of these public gestures in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack represent a refusal to attend to those failures.

This refusal produces a number of externalities. The first is the substantial constriction of both public and private Jewish life within Canada. For cultures do not flourish under police protection. The second is the diminution of Canada’s sphere of genuine liberalism. For liberalism entails the tacit promise that disagreements can be managed peaceably via the political process. Not just violence, but the persistent threat of violence, is (as Hobbes would remind us) merely warfare by other means.

The problem then is not the hatred that lies in the human heart (except perhaps in the most generic sense). The problem is the attenuation of genuine liberalism within liberal societies, and this is a general problem. For Jews do not require special protection; they require the ordinary protections that liberalism is already designed to confer.

Meanwhile, the cause of this problem is not hard to identify: favoured groups, either on ethnic or political grounds, have declined to accept the impositions of liberal norms of behaviour, as both Muslims within Toronto and leftist fellow-travelers have taken to harassing Jewish institutions (and general passersby) as a kind of expanded theatre of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This is an uncomfortable fact for those who have committed themselves to multiculturalism or general progressivism, and political authorities are understandably wary of the optics should they finally crack down after months of inaction. As a result, both municipal and provincial authorities have declined to enforce the relevant public square laws in the absence of compliance. This is, in other words, a profound failure to uphold basic liberal protections under the guise of liberalism.

That failure, in turn, has downstream effects as increasingly ugly and antisocial behaviours become normalized. Indefinitely occupying public areas opens the way for marching through Jewish neighbourhoods, which in turn opens the way to ripping down mezuzahs from the doorways of Holocaust survivors.

To blame all this on hatred is to avoid the hard choices of governance. It is plain that the reigning governments find it either politically inconvenient or merely bothersome to enforce their mandate to keep public order. But they, too, ultimately answer to their constituents.

The larger question is whether ordinary citizens themselves will continue to suffer rulers who defer the real obligations of ruling to committees, legal counsel, and so on. And it is ultimately the avoidance of those political obligations, rather than the power of amorphous hatreds, that has led to our present situation.

To paraphrase Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida, these daily outrages stand in our weakness, not their strength.

Source: The uncomfortable reason antisemitism is festering in Canada

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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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