Various commentary on antisemitism following Sydney

2025/12/18 Leave a comment

Globe editorial: The fight against the growing darkness of antisemitism

…The groups that march in Jewish-Canadian neighbourhoods, as was the case last month in Toronto, are not mere protestors trying to convince their fellow citizens. They are engaged in an act of aggression and intimidation, an echo of the Ku Klux Klan marching through a Black neighbourhood. They are fueling antisemitism.

Holding regular rallies that demand the eradication of Israel, make unproven assertions of genocide and thirst for a global intifada is not an act of mere protest. It is antisemitic, it fuels radicalism and it clears a path for violence. Demand an intifada often enough, and you will get one.

The right to protest, even in a loathsome way, is a constitutional right. But there are laws that can be, and should be, enforced more vigorously. Canada has a hate-speech law on the books. Crown prosecutors should use it, with particular attention to section 319(1) of the Criminal Code, which prohibits the public incitement of hatred. And police need to abandon their preoccupation with maintaining public order at all costs. A deescalation strategy does not make sense when dealing with protestors looking to assert control of the streets….

Source: The fight against the growing darkness of antisemitism

Cotler: Condemnations of antisemitism are necessary. But they are simply not enough

…Canadians often look at the gun violence that plagues the United States with scorn and disbelief; its predictability and preventability make it especially tragic and senseless. The U.S. refuses to address the underlying cause – the proliferation of guns – and in 2023, nearly 50,000 Americans died from gun violence, and it was the leading cause of death for minors. After mass shootings, American politicians and public figures almost ritualistically offer their thoughts and prayers. Then they move on, until the next time – and then the pattern continues.

Yet, our approach to violent antisemitism in Canada and throughout the West has been almost identical to America’s approach to gun violence. Antisemitic attacks and incidents have become similarly routine and predictable across liberal democracies. After each incident, politicians issue condemnations, but fail to adequately address the underlying cause: antisemitic incitement and disinformation….

Source: Condemnations of antisemitism are necessary. But they are simply not enough

Regg Cohn | The antisemitism that exploded in Australia has long been brewing in Canada

..The more sophisticated protest leaders understand that these dog whistles send different signals to audiences of differing sophistications. All under the flag of free speech and fair criticism, a flag of convenience.

Consider “Zionism is racism.” Nothing against Jews, just everything against “Zionists” — whoever and whatever and wherever they may be.

It so happens that the vast majority of Jews would see themselves as Zionists of one description or another. They simply support self-determination for the Jews of Israel, as for the people of other lands.

And so if almost every Jew is a Zionist, it turns out that the newly permissive and vicious anti-Zionism is a distinction without a difference. In reality, on the street, online, the truth is that “Zionism is racism” is antisemitism by another name.

“From the river to the sea” is another loaded phrase, long ago embraced by Palestinian nationalists and now imported by sympathizers around the world. What does the slogan really mean?

What river, which sea?

Answer: From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which translates into one land for one people — Palestinians — not two states for two peoples. It would leave no trace of Israel or its nearly 10 million citizens (roughly 8 million Jews and 2 million Arab Christian and Muslim citizens).

“Globalize the intifada” means what, exactly?

Protesters have parsed the phrase, insisting that intifada merely means “shaking off” in conventional Arabic. Are we to believe that all who hear the chant, native Arabic speaker or not, are grounded in this grammatical understanding?

Check the Oxford or Merriam-Webster dictionaries: intifada refers to armed “uprising” or “rebellion” against Israeli occupation.

To “globalize” an armed “uprising” is not an invitation to a tea party. It has a violent context and a confrontational subtext, which is perhaps why New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a darling of progressive protesters, has belatedly agreed to stop using a phrase that unsettles so many in New York, as in Toronto.

Against that backdrop, should we be surprised that father and son — armed with these incendiary slogans and coded chants and antisemitic dog whistles — would load their weapons and take aim at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, slaughtering 15 people? Conditioned and incited by propaganda and prejudice that now travels online and echoes on the streets, it is inevitable that impressionable souls will make illogical leaps that transport their minds from Gaza to Australia or Canada.

Antisemitism, like anti-Zionism, has long predated the Hamas massacre that burst out of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli counterattack and overkill. It will persist long after peace finally comes to the Middle East.

I spent four years as a foreign correspondent covering the hatreds of the Middle East. There was a time when I thought Canadians — Jews, Muslims, Christians, people of all faiths and no faiths — could set aside the prejudices of the past and chart a path to a peaceful future.

Back then, I imagined we could transplant our goodwill from Canada to the Middle East, but I had it backwards: Today, the ill will of the Middle East has come to Canada, as it has to Australia.

Source: Opinion | The antisemitism that exploded in Australia has long been brewing in Canada

Lederman: Ahmed al Ahmed showed the world what heroism looks like. What we need now is leadership

…It is tempting to go tribal in difficult times, to keep with our own. This is one of many dangers of a time so dark that lessons passed down from generation to generation might be hatred and violence, rather than love and wisdom. 

Is this massacre a wake-up call? Maybe. But in its wake, my social media feeds still offered up grotesque antisemitism. On a Facebook thread about a new Toronto-area Uber-type service for Jewish people (following reports of Uber drivers shunning certain customers), one guy wrote: “I thought they were called train cars.” In the hours immediately after this massacre, it wasn’t the only Holocaust-related comment on there. When I reached out to the person who wrote it, he told me: lighten up, it’s a joke. He’s from Newfoundland, he replied, where self-deprecating humour is the norm. 

This is very small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But antisemitism has crept into socially acceptable territory. Would anyone make that kind of public “joke” about any other minority’s deadly persecution? 

I’m so sick of it. The mezuzahs ripped off doorways, the swastikas in public schools, people telling us to go back to Europe. This is happening in Canada.

Sorry if I sound angry during this Festival of Lights. But I am angry.

We can placate ourselves with stories like Mr. Ahmed’s. But we have hit a dangerous place. One man’s heroism is not going to save us. World leaders, Canadian politicians, law enforcement, anyone who has silently stood by while allowing this normalization to happen: it’s your turn to step up and intervene.

Source: Ahmed al Ahmed showed the world what heroism looks like. What we need now is leadership

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Regg Cohn | The debate over Toronto’s ‘bubble zone’ bylaw reveals a glaring double standard

2025/07/17 Leave a comment

Indeed:

Toronto’s new “bubble zone” bylaw keeps rubbing some progressives the wrong way.

Which way, one wonders, is the wrong way?

That depends on how people see right from wrong — but also right-wing from left-wing. For this controversy is increasingly about ideology — and identity.

Lest we forget, the bubble debate goes way back — long before the conflict in the Middle East was superimposed upon a Canadian template. It predates the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and hostage-taking, and the Israeli counterattacks and overkill that followed, and the antisemitic outbursts that have long been out of control.

In the beginning was the abortion debate, pitting the right to harass against the right to choose. Put another way, bubble zones were first conceived in the context of zygotes, not Zionists (What is a Zionist? A supporter of self-determination for the Jews of Israel, which defines most Jews in Canada).

Progressives, legislators and judges long ago agreed that pregnant women in distress deserved better than to be tormented on their way into an abortion clinic. So-called free speech was restricted so that vulnerable women could do what they were legally entitled to do, under protection of law.

Later, bubble zones were extended to protect medical professionals — doctors, nurses, clinicians, assistants — who were trying to keep people healthy, not just in abortion clinics but vaccination clinics. The courts have consistently upheld the right of freedom from harassment from the right to free speech in such circumstances, where pro-choicers (and pro-vaxxers) have no choice but to be at a clinic.

Toronto’s new bubble bylaw came into effect last month after a year of bitter debate on city council. It sparked much hand-wringing on the sidelines from self-styled civil libertarians about the value of uncivil discourse, and from self-styled progressive protesters about the virtue of unpleasant demonstrations.

This month, we learned that more than a dozen Jewish schools and synagogues have sought and received anti-protest protections, requiring protesters to keep 50 metres away during service hours. Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca led the way with a similar bubble zone, albeit 100 metres wide, after a series of ugly confrontations that he believed crossed a line outside synagogues.

Why shouldn’t religious minorities have the same protection accorded to doctors or nurses, pregnant women or vaccine patients? If Canadians don’t believe in compelled speech, why compel worshippers to face hateful protests or violent incidents that recur with disturbing frequency?

This glaring contradiction about who deserves bubble zones — and who doesn’t — reminds me of the awkward irony that infuses the anti-abortion movement in America: Life begins at conception and cannot be aborted, but capital punishment is a fitting punishment for those on death row, we are told in the same breath.

It seems a bubble zone is a lightning rod and a litmus test. But this doesn’t pass the smell test.

Many Muslims feel vulnerable after a London family of four was killed by an attacker in 2021, said Sheila Carter, who co-chairs the Canadian Interfaith Conservation and also works with Islamic Relief Canada, adding: “We should, as Canadians, be able to move forward safely, freely, happily with whatever faith we are,”

Ask civil libertarians, however, and they insist that free speech is an absolute — abortion excepted.

Anaïs Bussières McNicoll of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argued against Toronto’s bubble zone by quoting an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that protests are a time-tested way of “redressing grievances.”

Really? How could Canadian Jews, whose schools have been targeted, address grievances against a foreign government — unless one believes school-age Jews, like all Jews, have magical powers to transcend borders?

Bussières quoted approvingly from another court ruling that protesters must not be barred “from public space traditionally used for the expression of dissent because of the discomfort their protest causes.” But the House of Commons isn’t a house of worship or a classroom, so when did people at prayers or students at school become “traditionally” fair game for the “discomfort” of hateful confrontations on their sabbath?

Let’s not confuse the thought police with the right to be protected. Banning books is bad because people should be exposed to diverse ideas and can choose what they want to read; people at prayers have no such choice if they are going to a mosque or synagogue.

I don’t have to persuade progressives of the need for abortion bubbles, because they (and I) support them: They cheerfully back a bubble to shield pregnant women from religious zealots at an abortion clinic, yet they reflexively oppose an anti-bullying bubble to protect religious people from overzealous protesters.

To be clear, protest has its place in a public space. But no one, whether prayerful or pregnant, should be compelled to endure unwanted harassment — be it at a medical clinic or a house of worship.

Source: Opinion | The debate over Toronto’s ‘bubble zone’ bylaw reveals a glaring double standard

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Regg Cohn: It’s the right time to unveil Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue

2025/06/14 Leave a comment

Good and thoughtful:

….History is a work in progress — it is always being updated and rewritten with the passage of time. That doesn’t mean we can write the central characters out of history, nor does it mean every politician deserves a place of prominence despite his misdeeds.

Truth and reconciliation is also about reckoning. Protesting, perhaps, but not vandalizing or defacing or decapitating.

It is about learning from history — the good, the bad and the grey. And learning how to debate our history, which comes in all shades for peoples of all colours — rather than splashing pink paint or overwriting with graffiti.

Our legislature is “a place for debate and deliberation on issues that matter in our province,” reads a sign placed beside the statue when it was first vandalized and then vanished for five years.

“Though we cannot change the history we have inherited, we can shape the history we wish to leave behind.”

Not a bad placeholder. It took the legislature a long time to look back and figure out a path forward for the Macdonald bronze, one of many debatable statues on the grounds of Queen’s Park.

After all, did not Queen Victoria, whose likeness sits nearby, preside over Britain’s colonial excesses? Where to end?

All three major party leaders have belatedly endorsed the move to liberate Macdonald, as has the new speaker at Queen’s Park, Donna Skelly. That’s a good start.

As a former journalist, Skelly knows well that journalism is often described as the first draft of history. It is subject to many future revisions and rewrites, depending on who is doing the writing.

“I welcome all Ontarians to express their views — peacefully,” she stressed.

History, like statues, cannot be long covered up. Macdonald was an architect of the residential schools system, which led to 150,000 Indigenous children being uprooted from their homes, many subject to abuse and death.

Sol Mamakwa, the sole First Nations MPP in the legislature, was one of those unwilling students in the system. Today, he is among those who oppose the return of Macdonald’s statue, calling for it to be relocated to a museum, out of sight of the legislature.

“It’s a statue of oppression, it is a statue of colonialism, it is a statue of Indian residential schools,” he argues.

Mamakwa is a widely respected NDP parliamentarian who has played a pioneering role in the legislature, not least by advancing the place of Indigenous languages. When he rises to speak in the chamber, a hush falls upon the place.

But when all rise, Mamakwa isn’t always among them. As an Indigenous MPP, he pointedly refuses to stand for the national anthem – which is his absolute right.

My point is that Mamakwa has a world view and an Indigenous view that he comes to honestly and viscerally. Not all Canadians share that view, so his perspective cannot easily be transposed or imposed upon all.

It’s worth noting that Mamakwa’s personal likeness also appears on the grounds of the legislature. An official legislative banner celebrating his role as a trail-blazing politician, holding an eagle’s feather, is placed prominently just a stone’s throw away from the Macdonald bronze.

Imagine if those who opposed Mamakwa’s words and actions were to deface his image on the grounds of the legislature. We would be justly outraged, demanding that police and the legislature’s security officers apprehend the perpetrators.

The legislature and its grounds must remain a place to debate, not deface. For there are views of Macdonald’s place in Canadian history that are also hard to ignore — notably that he played a vital role in founding the country and forging a nation despite the gravitational pull of American influence.

He built a railroad that tied the country together, even as he tore Indigenous nations apart. It is a complicated legacy that demands context but also consultation.

All the more reason to replace the original brass plaque at the base of the Macdonald statue. It hails his historical contributions without contextualizing his depredations.

The old plaque is a sign of the times. Time for an updated draft of Macdonald’s full history from another time — black and white and grey.

Source: It’s the right time to unveil Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue

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Regg Cohn | Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau are talking to the wrong audience about Donald Trump

2024/11/20 Leave a comment

Focus on where we have a shared interest in irregular cross border arrivals:

…Rather than focusing solely on the northward flow of migrants into Canada, however, the federal government should be thinking hard about how to stop the southward flow into America which is much higher. After all, that’s what has grabbed the attention of the incoming U.S. border czar, Tom Homan, who happens to be from upstate New York, near the Ontario border.

He called the Canada-U.S. border an “extreme national security vulnerability,” predicting “tough conversations” with Ottawa. “There has to be an understanding from Canada that they can’t be a gateway to terrorists coming into the United States.”

While Canadians obsess about the notorious Roxham Road path into Canada, it turns out that borders are in the eye of the beholder — and very much a two-way street.

Ford and Trudeau are right to turn their minds to Trump. But the test of their tactics isn’t how persuasive-sounding they seem when speaking to Canadians, but how effective they are in winning over the Americans in difficult negotiations ahead.

So far, both are following their re-election playbooks. But both will be judged by Canadian voters on how they play their hands with the Americans, not how they sound on the domestic campaign trail.

Source: Opinion | Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau are talking to the wrong audience about Donald Trump

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Lederman: What happened in Amsterdam is antisemitism, Regg Cohn: There are no excuses for what happened to Jews in Amsterdam. Period

2024/11/14 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…Of course, the supposed justification for Kristallnacht was a pretext for a highly organized attack. Of course, what happened in Amsterdam was a dark night of extreme antisemitism, fuelled by anger over the war in Gaza. It has continued. On Monday night, rioters set a tram on fire, and yelled about cancerous Jews.

Here’s a hopeful thought: the people who did this are thugs, just as the Nazis were thugs. But on Kristallnacht, they were government-sponsored thugs, organized and supported by the men in charge.

The antisemites running rampant through Amsterdam have been condemned by the city’s mayor, the country’s prime minister and the king of the Netherlands. I’m taking some heart in that. But the gaslighting and victim-blaming – arguing that this was not antisemitism, that the Jews started it and deserved it – that is just heartbreaking.

Source: What happened in Amsterdam is antisemitism

…And so when protesters showed up earlier this year at the opening of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam — home of Anne Frank — they claimed their demonstration was entirely anti-Israeli and utterly anti-Zionist, but couldn’t possibly be antisemitic. Which means the Holocaust is now fair game not merely for deniers but provocateurs.

During the Nazi occupation of Holland, three-quarters of the country’s Jews — 102,000 human beings — were deported to concentration camps. That’s history.

With an eye on that shared history, Dutch King Willem-Alexander publicly apologized for the latest antisemitic outburst: “Our history has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse.”

Prime Minister Dick Schoof described the violence as “unadulterated antisemitism,” but went one step further for the benefit of those trying to explain and excuse:

“Nothing is an excuse for hunting Jews.”

Nothing.

Source: Regg Cohn | There are no excuses for what happened to Jews in Amsterdam. Period

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Regg Cohn: Clearing protesters from university campuses won’t end their chilling effect on free speech

2024/07/08 Leave a comment

Good column:

It’s all about free speech. But for whom?

For those who oppose Israel, yes. For those who support or come from Israel, not so much.

On campus, protesters demand an untrammeled right to trespass, occupy and speechify. But it’s seemingly a right reserved only for them, as pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist protesters — not their opponents.

Think about that one-sided argument. All along, many protesters have tried to restrict the rights of their opponents — other students and professors — to speak or exchange ideas.

Now, time’s up for the campus occupation. But speech suppression will continue on campus in other ways.

Two months after pitching their tents at the University of Toronto, protesters were ordered to pack up this week by a judge who ruled their occupation illegal. In granting the university’s request for an injunction, the court pointed out a peculiar contradiction plaguing the movement:

While the protesters continually claimed a right to free speech, they adamantly refused any reciprocal right of free assembly — even a right of entry — to anyone opposing their encampment on the university’s main grounds. Free speech for me, no speech for you.

Turns out that the protesters were turning logic and the law upside down — not merely trespassing, but trampling on the rights of others on U of T grounds. That’s why the court cleared the way for police to clear them out if they refused to fold their tents.

Superior Court Justice Markus Koehnen stressed he wasn’t denying their right to assembly. For his ruling drew a distinction between daily protesting (permitted and protected) versus perpetual occupying (trespassing and illegal).

Put another way, Canadians have the right to squawk, not squat. If that sounds like a victory for free speech, don’t be so sure.

Here’s an afterthought in the aftermath of the protest: Long after it’s gone, its legacy will live on — in the worst way.

No, I’m not talking about the crusade against divestment, which gets disproportionate coverage in light of the university’s minimal and indirect investments in Israel (a rounding error). Given the ink devoted to divestment, you’d think the U of T’s endowment was single-handedly bankrolling the Israeli war machine.

Divestment is a distraction that detracts from a more insidious objective that motivates the movement.

Listed among the top demands is an “academic boycott,” which is a polite way of describing the blackballing of the other — the other side, which means the other person.

In his ruling, the judge calls it a demand to “suspend all partnerships with Israeli academic institutions that either: operate in settlements in occupied territories, or; ‘support or sustain the apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.’”

That may sound principled to some, but it violates and vitiates the protesters’ own stated commitment to free speech, inevitably serving to intimidate and silence scholars by virtue of their national identity and, ultimately, their religious, racial, ethnic identity.

It means banning Israeli students and professors, and slowly silencing many Canadian supporters of Israel’s right to exist — also known as Zionists. Make no mistake, the protest movement on campus is aimed not merely at divesting but disinviting and decoupling from the other.

That’s the perverse paradox that undermines the campus protest movement. For it opposes any opposing voices — not just in encampments but elsewhere on campus.

The movement seeks to constrain the unencumbered right to study, speak or teach by the other by virtue of their national origin (Israel) or religious and political beliefs (Zionism). Whatever the intent, this would amount to fewer Jews admitted to study or invited to speak on campus, just decades after the notorious “Jewish quota” restricted admissions on campus.

To be sure, protesters occasionally (but inconsistently) draw an apparent distinction between universities that operate in the “occupied territories” versus those confined solely to Israel’s internationally recognized borders. In reality, the question of settlement activity is hard to delineate (who decides?); in any case, the protesters lump all universities together when talking about institutions that “sustain the apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza” — which potentially captures all of them.

If someone at some university has tangential ties to some settlement, by what logic must the entire institution be banned? How does any university defend itself against the blanket allegation that it helps to “sustain” a state?

Why should any professor be held accountable for the actions of their fellow professors, let alone the decisions of politicians they may very well oppose (in Israel as in Canada)? Why should Israeli professors be banned, but not academics from other countries accused of genocidal actions, from China to Sudan?

That’s not whataboutism, it’s a glaring contradiction in a protest movement that wraps itself in the flag of free speech. It’s also a double standard — one for Jews, one for everyone else in the world.

U of T president Meric Gertler has rejected the recurring demand to boycott Israeli universities as a non-starter. But long after the fighting stops in Gaza, long after the U of T occupation is forgotten, the academic boycott will have the effect of delegitimizing, demonizing and dehumanizing the other.

The challenge is not merely formal academic bans but the informal — and far more insidious — exclusion of Israelis and “Zionists” that will creep into campus life. Instead of free speech, there will be speech chill.

Professors will be interrupted, lecturers will be disrupted, guest speakers will be disinvited. Sound far-fetched?

More in my next column about free speech — not just for protesters but professors.

Source: Clearing protesters from university campuses won’t end their chilling effect on free speech

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

What struck my attention when away

2024/06/18 Leave a comment

Immigration

Century Initiative’s 100 million population goal by year 2100 was meant to be provocative – and isn’t a target – CEO says

Appears to be flailing around given that their fundamental arguments appear to have failed:

Ms. Lalande said the 100 million population goal for 2100 “was meant to be provocative and bold” and to “spark an economic recharge.” The ultimate objective isn’t to see a specific population number by 2100, she said, but for Canada to be strategic and thoughtful in planning for growth.

“We don’t believe that growth should happen at all costs,” she said, saying the 100 million figure “was meant to galvanize the conversation and to spark debate and discussion of what the country could be and how we need to get there.”

But she warned against curtailing immigration, saying “that approach would result in an aging, less-skilled work force, less foreign investment, less diversity and less influence” globally.

Source: Century Initiative’s 100 million population goal by year 2100 was meant to be provocative – and isn’t a target – CEO says

Government criticized for limiting immigration sponsorships to four-year-old list

Never possible to satisfy demand:

Immigrants who came to Canada with the hope that their parents or grandparents could one day join them say they feel cheated after the federal government opened a sponsorship lottery this month drawing from a four-year-old list of applicants.

They are upset because Ottawa decided to allow around 30,000 sponsorships this year, but excluded applicants from joining the program if they had not registered an interest in 2020.

Some told The Globe and Mail that if they can’t successfully sponsor their relatives at some point, they may have to leave this country themselves to take care of them.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is sending out 35,700 randomly selected invitations to Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply for the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP).

The invitations are drawn from a list of 200,000 people who expressed an interest in sponsoring their relatives in 2020.

Not everyone who receives an invitation to apply will submit a PGP application; however, IRCC said it ultimately expects around 32,000 grandparents and parents to qualify for permanent residence….

Source: Government criticized for limiting immigration sponsorships to four-year-old list

Caregivers from abroad to be given permanent residence on arrival under new pilot programs

Of note, addressing some past concerns:

The pilots, which are enhanced versions of two programs set to expire on June 17, will put qualified nannies, child-care and home-support workers on a fast track to settling in Canada.

Caregivers working for organizations that provide temporary or part-time care for people who are semi-independent or recovering from an injury or illness will also qualify under the new programs, which Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said will later become permanent.

Canada will admit more than 15,000 caregivers as permanent residents in the next two years, as part of Canada’s overall immigration targets, according to IRCC.

“Caregivers play a critical role in supporting Canadian families, and our programs need to reflect their invaluable contributions,” Mr. Miller said in a statement….

Source: Caregivers from abroad to be given permanent residence on arrival under new pilot programs

Canada needs an Immigrant Bill of Rights

Hard to see how adding another layer will necessarily improve processing and client service compared to addressing systemic issues:

This is why in a new report entitled Let’s Clean Up Our Act, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA) encourages the federal government to introduce an Immigrant Bill of Rights to provide newcomers with greater protection and an enhanced experience. 

We also believe the Immigrant Bill of Rights should be complemented by introducing an Ombudsperson for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). 

These recommendations are far from novel or controversial.  

Numerous federal departments and agencies already have a bill of rights and/or ombudspersons.  

Source: Canada needs an Immigrant Bill of Rights

Tasha Kheiriddin: Brace for a possible tsunami of illegal migrants if Trump is re-elected

So almost a dedicated stream and pathway to citizenship? But that would require Canadian residency for at least three years, not “just being on our side:”

So what can Canada do that is positive? Apart from planning for these specific eventualities, Heyman suggests that we process as many Americans as possible for the equivalent of an American H1 Visa to Canada — not necessarily to live here, but to have a Canadian passport in their pocket and advocate for our country south of the border. “You’ve got a generational opportunity to get the top talent, people with means and skills, on your side — and possibly into your country,” Heyman said. A silver lining, perhaps, but the tsunami still looms.

Source: Tasha Kheiriddin: Brace for a possible tsunami of illegal migrants if Trump is re-elected

Rioux | «It’s the immigration, stupid!»

On the results and aftermath of the European Parliament elections and the political shakeout in France:

Son coup de tête a déjà provoqué le rassemblement de la gauche autour de son aile la plus radicale (La France insoumise) qui se complaît dans une forme de romantisme révolutionnaire flirtant avec l’antisémitisme et les appels à la violence. À droite, il a accéléré l’éclatement des Républicains, dont les jours étaient comptés, au profit d’un RN portant certes des revendications partagées par la majorité des Français, mais sans expérience ni cadres chevronnés et dont le programme économique est pour le moins boiteux.

Derrière l’apparence du combat des extrêmes, ne serions-nous pas en train de découvrir le nouveau visage de ce que sont tout simplement devenues, après une période d’effacement, la gauche et la droite ? Pour le dire simplement, la nouvelle gauche est aujourd’hui plutôt multiculturelle, wokiste et décoloniale. La nouvelle droite, plutôt nationaliste, souverainiste et conservatrice.

Dans la fureur et le chaos, nous assistons non seulement au retour de l’opposition entre droite et gauche, mais peut-être aussi de l’alternance sans laquelle aucune démocratie ne saurait survivre.

Source: Chronique | «It’s the immigration, stupid!»

Antisemitism, Israel Hamas war

Abella: What happened to the legacy of Nuremberg and the liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect?

Well worth reading:

To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc of the moral universe may be long, but it does not always bend towards justice. And that means that too many children will never get to grow up, period – let alone in a moral universe that bends toward justice and the just rule of law.

I used to see the arc of my own life bending assertively from Nuremberg to ever-widening spheres of justice, but in this unrelenting climate of hate, I feel the hopeful arc turning into a menacing circle.

We need to stop yelling at each other and start listening, so that we can reclaim ownership of the compassionate liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect, and to put humanity back in charge by replacing global hate with global hope.

My life started in a country where there had been no democracy, no rights, no justice. It instilled a passionate belief in me that those of us lucky enough to be alive and free have a particular duty to our children to do everything possible to make the world safer for them than it was for their parents and grandparents, so that all children, regardless of race, religion or gender, can wear their identities with pride, in dignity, and in peace.

Source: What happened to the legacy of Nuremberg and the liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect?

Regg Cohn: Doug Ford isn’t the only one who has fumbled on antisemitism

Also well worth reading by those who have no answers to these questions:

To be sure, critics of Israel — of which I am one — are not necessarily anti-Israeli (or anti-Jewish). But a good many are so adamantly opposed to the existence of the state of Israel, for reasons of history or bigotry, that you have to ask:

Where would those millions of Jews go? Back to Poland, as some like to taunt? Here to Canada, where they feel increasingly besieged? Stay where they are in a single state where “Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea,” subsuming and consuming the Jewish state?

Israel is guilty of many sins during its long decades of occupation, although neither side is blameless about missed opportunities. After the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 Jews and the taking of hostages, Israel’s overreaction and overreach transformed a just war of defence into a war without justifiable limits.

Source: Doug Ford isn’t the only one who has fumbled on antisemitism

Lederman: The banning of an Israeli-American graphic novelist shows how some arts organizations are rushing to judgment

Exclusion is not the answer except in extreme cases where it crosses into hate speech:

With Israel and Hamas at war, there has been so much screaming at one another, across a widening divide. What could be accomplished by having actual conversations?

This isn’t the only instance of selective targeting of Israeli, Jewish or Palestinian artists by arts organizations. With festival and awards season approaching in the fall, there is reason to fear more exclusions to come.

Source: The banning of an Israeli-American graphic novelist shows how some arts organizations are rushing to judgment

Citizenship

Mansour: Citizenship in the Multicultural State

Interesting evolution by Mansour compared to his earlier writings:

In conclusion, it might be said that the generation of 1968 was a pioneer generation in the making of a new political agenda that goes beyond the attachment to the state of which a citizen is a member. Canada has contributed to this agenda, internationalist and multicultural, through the social changes that have occurred in the years since its centenary anniversary. As a result, Canadians are in the midst of emerging new sensibilities that are more open to the world, more receptive of other cultures, more inclined to accepting international law and adjusting domestic statutes to that requirement. These changes render older political arrangements less meaningful in the twenty-first century.

Source: Citizenship in the Multicultural State

Foreign interference

Three article of interest of foreign interference and the shameful “witting” involvement of some MPs

‘Witting’ involvement changes the nature of foreign interference

NSICOP doesn’t name the parliamentarians who are witting participants in foreign interference. It raises a question about parliamentarians. It calls on the government to brief MPs about interference – and warns MPs to “reduce their vulnerabilities.”

And once again, it is another report telling the public that the Canadian government has not done enough to counter the threat of foreign interference. If anything, those warnings have grown louder.

This time, what a committee of parliamentarians has told us in clearer terms than ever is that the threat of interference from abroad includes participants here in Canada, inside Parliament, who have something to gain from dealing with foreign actors.

Source: ‘Witting’ involvement changes the nature of foreign interference

Coyne: We need to know the names of the traitor MPs, but don’t count on any of the parties to give them up

The Liberals’ tactic of deny, delay and deflect – first denying the allegations, then, when they can no longer be denied, denying they matter – has proved largely successful. Polls show that foreign interference ranks low on the public’s list of important issues. The Opposition is likely to take the hint. It was to their advantage to demand a public inquiry, so long as the government refused – and so long as they could be assured its findings would only stick to the government. But now? What’s in it for them?

For that matter, the same might apply to certain sections of the media: The report refers to Chinese officials “interfering with Canadian media content via direct engagement with Canadian media executives and journalists,” while a redacted passage cites “examples of the PRC paying to publish media articles without attribution.”

So if none of the parties is keen on turning over this rock, if law enforcement are unwilling and the media nervous – Mr. Dong’s lawsuit against Global News will have had a useful chilling effect – then the betting proposition has to be that nothing will happen. None of the MPs involved will be prosecuted, or named, or face consequences of any kind. And the public will shrug. Experience has taught them that, in this country, nobody ever faces consequences for this kind of thing.

Unless … unless a lone MP stands up in the House and names the names.

Source: We need to know the names of the traitor MPs, but don’t count on any of the parties to give them up

Yakabuski | L’ingérence étrangère et l’indifférence libérale

Tout au plus, la vice-première ministre, Chrystia Freeland, a-t-elle promis que les libéraux effectueraient « un suivi interne » dans la foulée du rapport. Comme son collègue à la Sécurité publique, elle n’a pas semblé désireuse d’aller au fond des choses. Est-ce parce que le caucus libéral compte beaucoup de députés issus des communautés culturelles qui entretiennent des relations étroites avec les représentants au Canada des gouvernements de leurs pays d’origine ? Certains de ces députés craignent, avec ou sans raison, une chasse aux sorcières dans la foulée du rapport McGuinty.

« La garantie que je peux donner aux Canadiens est que notre gouvernement prend très, très au sérieux l’ingérence étrangère », a réitéré cette semaine Mme Freeland. Or, la réaction du gouvernement au dernier rapport laisse, encore une fois, une impression contraire.

Source: Chronique | L’ingérence étrangère et l’indifférence libérale

Other

Hindutva ideology proved costly for India’s Narendra Modi

Of note:

The decade-long entrenchment of far-right ideologies in India, an over-focus on dividing Hindus and Muslims and on wealth generation for the rich eroded the country’s human rights record, judicial autonomy and press freedom.

That people with the least individual power were able to collectively push back against plans of the most powerful has rekindled the flame of democracy domestically and fanned hopes of resistance against tyranny globally.

Source: Hindutva ideology proved costly for India’s Narendra Modi

A Plea for Depth Over Dismissal

Agree:

To be clear, this article is not a plea for a return to scorecard history. Scorecard history is not a sound approach either. For, in the end, history is a qualitative discipline. Ranking prime ministers, or anyone else for that matter, is a silly exercise. Good deeds and bad deeds cannot be weighted and tallied up so that some final score can be determined. For that matter, categorizing deeds as good or bad in the first place flattens a great deal of complexity, like intentionality or unforeseen consequences, and it is precisely in that great universe of gray that real insights can be found. Insights into continuities between past and present, into how politics work in practice, and into the most accurate assessments of legacy. For the legacy of most leaders, much like the legacy of the policy of multiculturalism, will be neither entirely beneficial nor detrimental. But through a rigorous, nuanced, and deep examination of the lives and legacies of politicians and their policies, we stand to learn much about our country’s past – and its present too.

Daniel R. Meister is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick. He is the author of The Racial Mosaic (MQUP 2021).

Source: A Plea for Depth Over Dismissal

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Regg Cohn: On refugees, Canadians aren’t that different from everyone else

2024/05/17 Leave a comment

Of note and a dose of reality:

On a recent visit to Dublin and London, it was impossible to ignore the human migration byplay. Even at the far ends of Western Europe, Britain and Ireland are on the front lines of a seemingly unstoppable migration wave that is destined to disrupt every country — and overturn all our assumptions about how to do the right thing.

The Irish like to think of themselves as more moral than most — they sound so very Canadian. But from the moment you deplane in Dublin, you see border patrol officers interrogating migrants for their paperwork on the sidelines while everyone else clutches their passports in the queue.

On the streets of the capital city, homeless encampments are a familiar sight, sheltering refugees with nowhere to go. On the front pages of the country’s newspapers, the issue never seems to go away.

Ireland, long a country of emigration, is now a destination for migration. Outbound has become inbound, which is turning its politics upside down.

To be clear, the Irish have done their fair share of helping Ukrainian refugees resettle on their shores. More than 100,000 people displaced by Russia’s invasion are living and working in the republic, one of the highest intake rates in Europe given its own small population of 5.3 million.

That’s an economic bonus for the Irish, given that their unemployment remains at a rock bottom 4.2 per cent amid resurgent tourism. But Ireland’s long-standing housing crisis is even more acute than Canada’s sudden shortage.

Now, a surge in claimants has triggered economic and political pressure on a country that, like Canada, prides itself on laying out the welcome mat. When I visited recently, the Taoiseach (Ireland’s prime minister) announced an expansion in refugee centres, but also a decline in government supports for Ukrainians:

“It’s so important that we maintain social cohesion,” Simon Harris said earnestly last month. “Irish people are a good and decent people who see the benefits of migration. They also like to see a bit of common sense when it comes to migration.”

A Canadian politician couldn’t have put it better. But beyond welfare adjustments, he also announced a broader refugee review because of how many are “still living in free state accommodation without making a contribution.”

The Taoiseach might have added that the Irish, like their Canadian cousins, can also count.

Fully one-third of all asylum seekers so far this year are coming from Nigeria — nearly double the rate of a year ago. That so many emanate from Nigeria — a perennial source of dubious claims compared to true global hot spots — seems reminiscent of similar distortions among claimants in Canada.

Belatedly, the Irish are designating Nigeria a “safe country” that triggers “fast processing” for claimants (to deter long stays). Interestingly, most Nigerians come not by boat or plane — there are no direct flights between the two countries — but overland from Northern Ireland, making their way via the United Kingdom.

Their sudden exodus from the U.K. is likely motivated by the anti-migration mania gripping British politics, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government concocting an accord with Rwanda to relocate refugee claimants before they put down roots on British soil. The outcry — legally, morally, politically — over his strategy dominates the headlines, but it is Ireland’s retrenchment that is perhaps more telling.

In Dublin, opposition Labour Leader Ivana Bacik described the encampments in Dublin as a local manifestation of London’s Rwanda policy: “This failure, resulting in so many tents, this amounts to a sort of Rwanda policy for the Irish government … as if they’re seeking to send out a signal to those who may be coming to Ireland to claim refuge.”

Times change. Tones change.

Source: On refugees, Canadians aren’t that different from everyone else

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Khan: Ontario’s keffiyeh ban dares to define the scarf’s meaning for everyone, Regg Cohn: Israel and the UN have allowed the kaffiyeh. Why does Queen’s Park need to ban it?

2024/05/08 Leave a comment

More commentary. Not in favour of this kind of one-off decision. If the legislature chamber is going to allow this, it needs to revise the policy to allow symbols with significant political meaning in a consistent manner:

….The ban is a betrayal of the ideals of the Emancipation Act that Mr. Arnott proudly co-sponsored – namely, upholding the “ongoing struggle for human rights.” After calling on independent MPP Sarah Jama to leave the House for wearing a keffiyeh, he sent an official to deliver the message in person. In an iconic photo, a white man leans over the desk of Ms. Jama, a Black woman clad in a hijab and a keffiyeh, and seated in a wheelchair. Let’s hope the Ontario Black History Society, recognized in the Emancipation Day Act, chronicles this shameful event and sends a letter of protest to Mr. Arnott.

Ontario MPPs had two opportunities to reverse this ban by unanimously voting against it. Yet Robin Martin and Lisa MacLeod, two PC MPPs, supported the ban,keeping it in place. It’s reminiscent of the case of the town of Saint-Apollinaire, Que., in 2017, when 19 naysayers were enough to nix plans for a Muslim cemetery run by the Islamic Cultural Centre, which also operated the Quebec City mosque where six worshippers were massacred just a few months before. That vote was rooted in ignorance and prejudice. Plus ça change.

Premier Doug Ford says he personally opposes the keffiyeh ban. But by declining so far to put forward a government motion to end it, he is failing to stand firmly for the basic human rights of all Ontarians. Now it’s up to the rest of us to strive toward a just society with human dignity at its core.

Source: Ontario’s keffiyeh ban dares to define the scarf’s meaning for everyone

From Martin Regg Cohn:

…Put another way, if it walks and talks like a political protest, it’s a protest. When so many people of all backgrounds suddenly don the Palestinian kaffiyeh, it’s no longer merely cultural or sartorial but political.

Yet even if the Speaker was speaking the truth — and Stiles was surely straining credulity by claiming the kaffiyeh isn’t political at this point — Arnott made the wrong call. Technically, he’s right, but practically his ruling was unenforceable and unsupportable.

Which is why no party leader supported him last month — not just Stiles but her Green, Liberal and Progressive Conservative counterparts asked him to reconsider. Yes, even Premier Doug Ford, mindful of a hard-fought byelection last week with many Muslim voters, echoed the NDP’s call.

The Speaker reminded them all that he is merely their servant, and that they are free to overrule him. But when MPPs were asked to give unanimous consent to permit the kaffiyeh, a number of Tories demurred, leading to the present standoff….

Source: Israel and the UN have allowed the kaffiyeh. Why does Queen’s Park need to ban it?

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Regg Cohn: Peel school board should learn a lesson in controversy over Nakba Day

2024/04/19 Leave a comment

Peel SB has a habit of controversial policies and stands. Money quote: “A better way for educators to navigate modern times and historical legacies would be to always remain mindful of unity in diversity — and the reality of complexity. Find ways to bring people together rather than drive them apart:”

Nakba Day is coming to schools in two of Ontario’s biggest cities.

Not familiar with the term?

It takes place on May 15, the day after the anniversary of Israel’s founding day in 1948 — not celebrating but commiserating over the Jewish state’s creation.

Al-Nakba is an Arabic term that translates as “the catastrophe.” Yasser Arafat, in his heyday as head of the Palestinian Authority, declared it an official day of mourning across the West Bank and Gaza in 1998.

Now, the Peel District School Board is bringing it from the Middle East into schools it controls across the GTA — in Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga.

The revelation of Peel’s preoccupations has stirred fresh controversy — including demands that the board rescind its move and counterdemands to keep it in place. That very controversy tells the story of why it’s such a bad idea to keep bringing back the world’s problems to the modern multicultural metropolis that is Greater Toronto.

To be clear, there is not much about Nakba Day that is contentious for Palestinians or disputed by historians. It marks the undeniably catastrophic impact of Israel’s creation on hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were ended or upended in 1948.

How you see the world’s epochal events — and historical terminology — depends on who you are, where you live and when you’re talking.

When the late Arafat belatedly proclaimed Nakba Day, I was the Star’s Middle East correspondent, watching him work hand-in-glove with Israel. Their shared goal was two states for two peoples.

Today, on the streets of the GTA, you don’t hear protesters talk much of two states. You’ll hear slogans such as, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — implying a new Palestinian state should displace the old Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, dismantling the so-called colonial enterprise they believe Israel to be.

The world has changed, and political agendas have changed with them. Which brings us back to the Peel school board.

As part of its multicultural mission, it has a committee that curates a long list detailing “days of significance” for “secular and creed-based days.” It begins with Canada Day last year and ends with Boxing Day this year.

In between those bookends, the list catalogues celebrations of relevance and reverence in chronological (not spiritual) order — Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Bahaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Wicca, Christianity and so on. And then there are worldly listings for Emancipation Day, Labour Day, Literacy Day and the like.

Since Canada Day is top of the list, let’s consider the Canadian context.

Some bemoan any recognition of Confederation, condemning it as a celebration of colonization; some have absented themselves from July 1 fireworks events in solidarity with Indigenous critics. That said, I cannot imagine the Peel school board voting to recognize a Canada Catastrophe Day on July 1, for it would surely spark disagreement and disunity.

That tension — between celebration and condemnation — reminds us that the creation of one nation can easily diminish another people at home and abroad. The point is that it should be possible to be both pro-Canada and pro-Indigenous, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, to be mindful and respectful of people on both sides, all sides.

As for Israel, it emerged from a vote of the United Nations, which partitioned the Holy Land into two nations, Jewish and Arab (retaining special status for Jerusalem). History tells us that Arabs rejected that compromise, and the resulting catastrophe was undeniable; historians have also documented episodes of ethnic cleansing, although Arab minorities endured in Israel and gained citizenship.

In the aftermath, Nakba Day makes perfect sense in Palestinian schools, but it is surely misplaced in Peel schools. For unless the board is about to declare a day of celebration for the creation of Israel on May 14 — and I don’t see it on the list, nor do I foresee it down the line — why must Peel pick a side?

When the UN General Assembly decided in 2022 to formally mark Nakba Day — three quarters of a century after birthing the state of Israel — Canada joined many nations in opposing the gesture. What qualifies Peel’s school board to reach the opposite conclusion?

A better way for educators to navigate modern times and historical legacies would be to always remain mindful of unity in diversity — and the reality of complexity. Find ways to bring people together rather than drive them apart.

Source: Peel school board should learn a lesson in controversy over Nakba Day

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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