Evidence of meeting #105 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was jews.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lena Metlege Diab
Thank you very much for your opening comments. We are checking on the letter you referred to. Once it's translated, it will be submitted to all members of the committee.
9:30 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Thank you.
9:30 a.m.
Dr. Ted Rosenberg Doctor, As an Individual
Thank you, Madam Chair. I truly feel honoured to be here today.
I feel the weight of Jewish physicians and health care workers across Canada, who feel attacked and marginalized in our universities and hospitals. I feel the weight of the majority of Canadian Jews, who have been shocked by the unprecedented outbreak of anti-Semitic Jew hatred and are demoralized by the inadequate response from our leaders. I feel the weight of thousands of Canadians, who are appalled by the blatant hatred, harassment and violence that have drowned out civil discourse and taken over our universities, streets, theatres and shops.
In January 2024, I resigned as an assistant professor from the UBC faculty of medicine because I believe UBC, like most medical schools and universities across the country, allowed naked Jew hatred to creep in, which has now become systemic.
I'm a physician who's been privileged to study and practise medicine for over 40 years. I have worked in remote indigenous communities and in public health and research, and I have spent the past 20 years doing house calls for frail seniors. I love teaching and mentoring.
Now, according to students and colleagues, like any supporter of Israel, I am falsely labelled a racist who supports the white, European, settler-colonial apartheid and genocidal regime that deliberately starves and ethnically cleanses populations and murders women and children. Can you think of anything more odious? How can any person of good conscience feel anything but contempt and hatred for any person who supports such a loathsome regime? That is who they say I am.
In November 2023, demonizing accusations about the so-called Israeli settler-colonial regime occupying and murdering Gazans for 75 years were circulated in a petition signed by one-third of the UBC medical school class. Similar false accusations of genocide were echoed by Gem Newman in his valedictorian speech at the U of M, my alma mater, to a standing ovation.
In addition to accusations about murdering 35,000 Gazan women and babies, he also included accusations of intentionally bombing hospitals and the deliberate murder of physicians and journalists. These were shared as facts, despite the al-Ahli hospital bombing being discredited and the tragic civilian casualty figure being downgraded by 50% by the UN the week before his speech. Sadly, facts have become irrelevant, even in faculties of medicine, which used to pride themselves on being evidence-based and scientific.
UBC medical professors and senior residents posted blood libels about organ trafficking, Christ killing and anti-Semitic conspiracies with impunity. They reposted that Zionist physicians, Jews like me, are racist and demanded that they be removed from the selection process for postgraduate resident positions.
These are not innocuous political differences. How are Jewish physicians supposed to teach students who hold us in such contempt? Will Jewish patients be safe with physicians who call to wipe Israel off the map? Will physicians who despise Israel and call for an academic boycott be willing to collaborate with Jewish colleagues over research, or even patient care?
I doubt I would be admitted to medical school in 2024. Do you want a health care system that prioritizes ideology and decentred and decolonized medicine over individual patient care?
There were 284 physicians who wrote a letter to the president and dean, Dermot Kelleher, expressing concerns about harassment, blatant anti-Semitism and a toxic, hyperpoliticized environment. He refused to meet with us.
We found out that anti-Semitism or Jew hatred is not officially recognized in the DEI search engine for vulnerable groups. This is despite a Canadian government 2023 document warning about the surge of anti-Semitic hate crimes on Canadian campuses.
In addition to the administration's tolerance of demonization, our concerns about Jew hatred were illegitimate. In fact, the faculty of medicine refused to acknowledge in their poster for International Holocaust Remembrance Day that the Holocaust was the anti-Semitic murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. Our concerns were illegitimate. We were told it was a universal lesson, not particular to the Jews. The poster was changed only after threats from donors.
We are also subjected to a double standard. There is, rightly, zero tolerance for homophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny or anti-Black and anti-indigenous discrimination. Every other group can define what they experience as systemic hatred, but for some reason, the Jews can't. Somehow, it's more complicated, just like the Ivy League presidents indicated. Calls for genocide against the Jews on campus can be acceptable. It's contextual. What about calls for genocide against Black or indigenous people? Are they also contextual?
Demonization, delegitimization and double standards—the three Ds—are excellent indicators to determine when legitimate criticism of Jews and the State of Israel crosses into hatred.
We are told by deans, presidents and politicians that the students are just expressing their right to free speech, venting their moral outrage and participating in social justice activism.
I'd like to remind them that after World War I, German students were also outraged by injustice and poverty. Russian students were outraged by the exploitation of workers. Chinese students were outraged by authority during the Cultural Revolution. Graduates from the Sorbonne, no less, and the Khmer Rouge were outraged by capitalism and western colonialism. Where did this end?
Now the students are outraged by Zionism.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lena Metlege Diab
Thank you, Dr. Rosenberg.
I will now ask the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics to share their five minutes however they please.
Thank you.
9:40 a.m.
Dr. Deidre Butler Associate Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
Thank you.
Madam Chairwoman and members of the committee, we thank you for the opportunity to share our insights into and expertise about the state of anti-Semitism on Canadian campuses.
My name is Deidre Butler. I am an associate professor of Jewish studies at Carleton University.
9:40 a.m.
Dr. Cary Kogan Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
Hello, Madam Chair.
My name is Cary Kogan and I am a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa.
We are the co-founders of the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, or NECA. NECA is a non-partisan group of Jewish and non-Jewish academics who are united in our shared concerns about rising anti-Semitism on Canadian campuses. We are a Canadian network of more than 300 academics from 40 universities and colleges across all disciplines. We advocate for academic freedom, diverse perspectives and an expansive understanding of inclusion.
Anti-Semitism is flourishing on campuses. It has reached crisis levels and represents a serious threat to Canadian democracy. It should trouble us all.
9:40 a.m.
Associate Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
We see the results of this crisis, especially since October 7.
For example, a Jewish student was called a “dirty Jew” by his lab partners. The student appealed for help. His professor instructed him to stop complaining. On one campus, graffiti depicted a Star of David on a scaffold with a swastika. On another, a Jewish student's mural that called for peace after October 7 was defaced with threats, including “I'm going to kill you”. Posters advocating the return of hostages have been repeatedly ripped down and pins stuck in the eyes of a victim. A student organization distributed stickers on campus displaying a hand tossing a Molotov cocktail. A Canada-wide student club is calling for anonymous tips to identify faculty members, instructors and courses that include “Zionist narratives” so they can “keep our campus safe from Zionist perspectives”.
Often, Jewish students aren't reporting these incidents because university policies are not being applied and officials do not recognize anti-Semitism when it happens. This hostile climate is a threat not only to Jewish people but also to the core values of Canadian society. It undermines open dialogue, diversity of ideas and the search for truth, which make our universities an essential part of a liberal democracy.
9:40 a.m.
Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
This isn't new. Its deep roots are evident in the speed, intensity and acceleration of anti-Semitic hate. Canadian campuses began convulsing with anti-Semitic activity while Hamas terrorists were still in Israel slaughtering innocent civilians, long before Israel launched its military response. Many on campuses say they're not anti-Semitic but merely anti-Zionist. You will even hear that a small minority of Jewish students and faculty share this view.
Do not be fooled. Political criticism of Israel is absolutely acceptable and appropriate. Spend time in Israel and you will hear similar criticisms. A willingness to engage in criticism is core to Jewish values. However, this is not what we're seeing. Rather, calls for the violent erasure of the only Jewish state in the world and of the long history of Jewish people in this place and claims that Israel is uniquely evil or categorically unfit to determine its own destiny are racist. We see that overt racism in the campus examples we cited earlier, and in many others.
9:40 a.m.
Associate Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics
We see the damage done to students. They say they avoid certain courses not because they cannot have hard conversations but because their perspectives are rejected and belittled. As well, they are forced to use course materials that make lurid, false claims about Jews and Israelis and that include data drawn from Hamas publications. Fellow students and their professors single them out to answer for the actions of the Israeli government.
Academic freedom is supposed to encourage the exploration of challenging ideas without fear of reprisal. This is crucial for intellectual growth, yet departments have published statements claiming that the only correct position on this conflict is one that aligns itself with the destruction of Israel. Some even justify rape and murder as tools for liberation. Departments sign one-sided statements demonizing Israel, stifling alternative viewpoints and imposing loyalty tests.
Anti-Israel activists claim they are being silenced while cynically demanding boycotts of Israeli academics. Make no mistake. Boycott and divestment are threats to academic freedom and responsible university governance. Anti-Semitism presents a serious and urgent threat to campus culture and student safety. Our leaders must acknowledge and confront its ugliness, its new and evolving forms, and the harm it poses.
Thank you.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lena Metlege Diab
Thank you.
We will now start with our rounds. Depending on timing, we'll see what happens after that.
We'll start with our first round of six minutes with Mr. Majumdar, please.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for your excellent contributions today, and apologies for the climate in which you have to appear before this committee.
Dr. Diamond, perhaps I could start briefly with you.
I only have six minutes, so I'm looking for a quick response. You set the table about the evolution of anti-Semitism over the ages, and it strikes me that you have concluded, sir, that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism today. Just to be precise, would you agree with that?
9:45 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes. Zionism—the definition of Zionism—is kind of a Jewish liberation movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland. If you are anti-Zionist, then for me you are singling out the Jewish people, of all other peoples, as not having the right to a national homeland. In this case, it's perhaps one of the only indigenous peoples—it's ironic—to return to their homeland. There's always been a community of Jews—always—in Israel, so yes—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Thank you, sir. I'm sorry to interrupt. It's just in the interest of time—
9:45 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
No problem.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
The State of Israel is probably the most remarkable indigenous revival on planet Earth over the last 75 years.
We saw recently, Dr. Diamond, that international courts have been weaponized against Jewish people and the State of Israel. Would you say, in your experience, that the ICJ shenanigans had a material impact on how Jewish life was impacted on Canadian campuses?
9:45 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Absolutely. It's simply another kind of legitimization of this insidious form of anti-Semitism that I would call “anti-Zionism”. What it does is lend credibility to this phenomenon that, for me, again, has unleashed another form of anti-Semitism, which has morphed many times over the ages.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Over the 1990s, we saw the introduction of critical theory thinking, in which pluralism was used as a normative guise for moral relativism, for equivalencies.
In that same context was the birth of the International Criminal Court, which today we see being weaponized yet once again through its equivalencies against the democratic law-abiding State of Israel, which is capable of implementing its own decisions and jurisprudence over war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression, versus the terrorist entity that is Hamas, which is interested not in any rule of law but in the obliteration of an entire state, being backed by another state, the state of Iran.
Do you fear for how the ICC is presently being weaponized against Canadian Jews and across the Canadian academy?
9:45 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Absolutely. I'll give my perspective from an academic point of view.
On the encampment that is presently active in the University of Waterloo, my administration, addressing the protesters' calls.... I'll read to you if I may, just briefly. This is a public communication. They are dialoguing with protesters about their demands for “divestment from companies...and complete severance from any academic or cultural institutional ties with Israeli institutions”.
This is quite incredible to me. On freedom of expression, they're fine. I'm fine with that, but freedom of expression doesn't mean that I need to listen to your expression. To divest from Israeli academic institutions—citing what you just mentioned, things like the ICJ or the ICC—in supporting these demands would lead to suppression of academic freedom, particularly targeting Jewish academics, particularly targeting Jewish academic institutions.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Thank you very much for saying that, sir, because I think that now is a time in which we should be responding, as some of your colleagues have said, with rededication to the freedom of critical thinking rather than the indoctrination of critical theory.
Perhaps I could close with this question. We're watching in the United States a bipartisan consensus emerging for sanctioning the ICC for how it is weaponizing terrorist propaganda against free-thinking people and, particularly, our treasured Jewish communities across the western world. Do you think Canada should consider something similar?
9:50 a.m.
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Absolutely. I'll just mention one particular facet of this seeking of arrest warrants. You have Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor, pinning up mug shots of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the atrocities, alongside Netanyahu. Why was that done? I mean, they could have, let's say, sought arrest warrants for Sinwar a number of months ago. The evidence was there for everybody to see. All the news media had seen this. However, of course, this was carefully orchestrated to put a democratic regime that is fighting for its survival alongside a leader of a terrorist group that committed rapes, atrocities, unimaginable.... I've actually spoken to the group that—
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lena Metlege Diab
Dr. Diamond, thank you very much.
I will now go to Mr. Housefather, please, for six minutes.
May 23rd, 2024 / 9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses. You've brought some very important testimony.
Dr. Rosenberg, on a whole, if you were to grade the universities in Canada—not singling out one university but as a whole—on how they're handling anti-Semitism since October 7, what grade would you give them?
9:50 a.m.
Doctor, As an Individual
I would give them an F.
I want to show you.... I have some posters here about some of the Jew hatred that is accepted in the faculty of medicine.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I'll get to that. Get ready for that moment. Thank you very much.
Ms. Butler...? Mr. Kogan...?