Prime Minister Mark Carney did not actually strike a new council on how to get rid of antisemitism in Canada on Monday, as most people thought and many reported. It had been around for a while and its establishment was introduced to the public months ago. In fact, when Carney went into Holy Blossom synagogue, what definitely was new was his announcement that an esteemed Jewish person had agreed to 'join' the council.
And that committee, prior to this announcement, importantly did not have antisemitism as its main focus. In fact, the wording in a Feb. 4 news release about it said 'as Canada's population becomes more diverse, fostering community and civic engagement and a collective sense of belonging is becoming increasingly important.' It added, 'the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages' will see that the 'Advisory Council be comprised of prominent Canadians from academia as well as experts and community leaders, with a mission to foster social cohesion, rally Canadians around shared identity, combat racism and hate in all their forms, and help guide the efforts of the Government of Canada.'
It wasn't until the end of the news release where it said 'consulting and partnering with communities from coast to coast to coast to build bridges between communities and combat all forms of racism and hate including antisemitism and Islamophobia.' Even when in Holy Blossom, Carney mentioned Islamophobia, transphobia and other forms of discrimination several times when the day was about the anti-Jewish crisis in Canada.
'Canada is not facing an antisemitism awareness problem. Canada has an antisemitism problem,' B'nai Brith Canada CEO Simon Wolle said. 'The country has been poisoned with Jew hatred and we need a remedy.' Suddenly the scope of this council is changing course to tackle anti-Jewish racism, violence and terror? Time will tell, but nothing has happened in the five months since it was first announced. Now, the seven members of Carney's new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion are not technically qualified to rid Canada of antisemitism.
Big names, little experience on fighting antisemitism
Former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, who is a past critic of Israel and self-described on social media as a 'defender of Palestinian rights,' veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and LGBTQI+ advocate Martine Roy, Olympic gold-medal speed skater and Christian Catriona Le May Doan, Saskatchewan Metis advocate Gary LaPlante, who is known for taking on Indigenous cases, litigator Avnish Nanda, and former equity officer and current academic specializing in conflict resolution, Dr. Aftab Erfan, are not noted for their strong stands against antisemitism following Oct. 7, 2023.
Marc Gold's inclusion gives council Jewish perspective
The addition of Marc Gold to this group does give the council someone with a Jewish perspective, but that he recently retired as a senator who was appointed by former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not put him in an independent situation where he can easily criticize the very government that has given him so many opportunities. Even Carney, who appointed them, would not get a passing grade for his performance on combatting antisemitism. In their year in office, his government has taken a 'Muslim values are Canadian values' approach in which they have talked of recognizing Palestine as a state, and they have placed an arms embargo on Israel and indicated Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested in honouring the World Court in the Hague's war crimes complaints.
The council is made up of successful people and they may be well-meaning. But are any of these names the best experts on antisemitism that can be found? 'At a time when Canada's Jewish community faces a crisis of antisemitism the prime minister should have tasked only those capable of and who have demonstrated support for the Jewish community,' B'nai Brith Canada's director of research and advocacy Richard Robertson said. 'Jewish Canadians need to feel confident that this council will protect them.'
Big task for people with little insight into crisis
Time will tell as to whether Alghabra, Roy, Le May Doan, LaPlante, Nanda, Erfan and Gold are poised to 'reassess the nature, scale, and drivers of antisemitism in Canada — across public institutions, workplaces, campuses, and online spaces' and 'develop a whole-of-government approach to antisemitism to ensure federal policies, workplaces, public safety programs, and community initiatives are aligned in protecting Jewish Canadians and confronting hate.' They are also supposed to 'improve research and the collection of data on hate incidents and build stronger data-sharing systems so all orders of government, schools, and police services are working from the same facts' and 'measure the impact of our efforts so that investments in education, prevention, training, and community safety are delivering real results and helping build a safer Canada for everyone.'
Would Carney and his council be your first choice to achieve any of that? Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre does not think so, saying on X: 'I remember Mr. Alghabra lobbying me before he was in politics to keep Hezbollah legal, so I'm not sure that he's the right guy to combat antisemitism.' This council is off to a bad start. The focus should instead be on encouraging police to make arrests in every antisemitic action, the courts to keep the antisemites in jail until trial and for federal immigration authorities to deport and keep out people who hate Israel and Jews.
What has happened is supporters of Hamas and Gaza terrorists, as well those supporting Iran's proxies, are fighting those wars on Canadian soil. And it's not just a propaganda war, but a war where no target is off-limits, including shootings synagogues and Jewish girls' schools. This has all happened under the Trudeau and Carney Liberal governments, who now say they are going to create a 'whole-of-government' response to fix it. The problem is there is nobody in that whole government who has the ability or credibility to accomplish it.
