1 week Ago By Chris Selley
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and B’nai Brith both say they’re “alarmed” by news that “the government of Canada is considering a definition of anti-Palestinian racism.” “Canada risks branding legitimate critiques of Palestinian political narratives as ‘racist’ or ‘discriminatory’,” B’nai Brith warned. “This dangerous expansion of the definition of racism will censor open discussion of Jewish identity, history, and the right to self-determination — core aspects of Zionism and Jewish identity.
” This is all based on a statement by Amira Elghawaby , Canada’s special representative on combatting Islamophobia, welcoming what she sees as a federal-government “commitment (to) adopting a definition of anti-Palestinian racism to describe the bias and discrimination far too many Canadian Palestinians are experiencing.” I understand the Jewish groups’ trepidation. More on that in a moment.
But this “let’s define specific forms of racism” endeavour is descending rapidly into farce. CIJA and B’nai Brith were among those who successfully petitioned the federal government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which many pro-Palestinian advocates object to on the same grounds that the CIJA and B’nai Brith object to certain proposed definitions of anti-Palestinian racism. ( I share some of those concerns.
) Before that, those Jewish organizations successfully petitioned the government to add Holocaust denial to the Criminal Code as a specific form of fomenting hatred against a protected group of people. (The IHRA definition does not apply to the Criminal Code. It’s not actually clear what it’s meant to apply to.
Holocaust denial per se hasn’t been prosecuted since the Ernst Zundel affair ; the Supreme Court quashed the “spreading false news” law under which Zundel was convicted in 1992.) If Jewish organizations were actually “alarmed” or in any other way surprised that these efforts inspired other groups to push for their own specific treatment — or by the Liberal government in Ottawa being open to the idea — then I don’t really know what to tell them. This was as inevitable as the sunrise.
Canadian law sets an appropriately high bar for prosecuting hate speech against any group In fact, Palestinians are in the queue behind Indigenous Canadians who have been lately pushing for their own speech laws. “The federal government must amend the Criminal Code, making it an offence to wilfully promote hatred against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian residential school system or by misrepresenting facts relating to it,” Kimberly Murray, the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites, wrote in her final report , issued last month. Members of the Law Society of British Columbia were recently denounced as “denialists” simply for insisting the society use accurate language that possible gravesites, as opposed to confirmed gravesites, have been discovered at former residential school sites.
This is the world we live in. If Holocaust denial is illegal (or sort of), then, the thinking goes, why shouldn’t denying the Nakba or the disastrous effects of the residential school system be illegal (or sort of) as well? A reasonable person could give a reasonable answer to that question. But governments aren’t reasonable people.
As I say, I totally understand Jewish groups’ concern. Some of the definitions of anti-Palestinian racism out there certainly seem studiously, deliberately vague. Citing the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association , Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East includes as examples “erasing the human rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians,” which is meaningless; and “justifying violence against Palestinians,” which could easily include defending Israel’s right to retaliate against Hamas atrocities.
But it should also be noted that Elghawaby welcomed the prospect of a definition, not any specific definition. I see little point in such “definitions” if they’re not going to be enshrined in law. But it would have made much more sense for Canada to craft its own definition of antisemitism instead of signing on to an international one that, in my view, does activate freedom-of-speech concerns.
Free speech in Canada is far more protected than in many of our peer nations, and that’s a good thing. It probably would have made far more sense still to leave all of this alone. Canadian law sets an appropriately high bar for prosecuting hate speech against any group.
We don’t need the added confusion and division of “defining” every single form of bigotry. National Post [email protected] Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers.
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