Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about the government's decision to give $50 million to UNRWA, an organization operating in the Palestinian territories, which, in our judgment, is far too tolerant of intolerance.
I had the opportunity in the last year to visit an UNRWA school in the West Bank, and I want to briefly share with members a bit of my experience there. I had an opportunity, along with other members of this House, to have a tour of the school and to chat with some students who were part of this school's school parliament. It was an all-girls' school. These were impressive, intelligent, accomplished young women whom we spoke to.
At the end of the conversation, we asked them if they had any opportunity to interact with Israelis, because there was an Israeli settlement very close to this refugee camp. They can see it from the school. The students told us that no they did not and they had no desire to, as a result of the political situation. As they explained the fact that they only could perceive the Israeli side through the lens of the political conflict, I noted teachers who were nodding along approvingly as this conversation was happening. I became frustrated because we should set a high standard for what Canada funds in terms of education. We should not be seeking less for Palestinian children. We should rather be seeking more, in terms of the quality of that education.
Members know, and we have discussed in the House, the fact that UNRWA teachers have posted virulently anti-Semitic material through social media websites. We know there are significant concerns about the content of curriculum and how it does not advance the ideals of peaceful coexistence. At a minimum, when we are funding education programs abroad, Canadian dollars should be clearly avoiding supporting curricular content that is promoting intolerance or supporting the employing of teachers who are promoting intolerant messages through social media. That is the minimum.
However, I would submit that we can do even better than that. When Canadians see their tax dollars go abroad for programs related to international education, they should expect that those dollars are always reflective of the highest principles in terms of Canadian values, in terms of peaceful coexistence. That is what we would want. We must end the soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to education programs that we might fund in the Palestinian territories. We must demand better. I do not believe this is the “least bad” option. We can expect the government to look for ways of investing in capacity building for a future Palestinian state that promotes educational materials to facilitate peaceful coexistence.
When the previous government was in power, we gave significant amounts of aid to the Palestinian authority, and we did so in ways that reflected our values. I had an opportunity while in the West Bank, as well, to tour a security facility that was Canadian funded and is used by the Palestinian authority to protect its own security, in co-operation with Israelis. It was an investment that Canada made in an institution that was facilitating security co-operation between both sides. That is what we could be doing. That is what we should be doing on education, but, unfortunately, the current government is buying into those low expectations by giving $50 million to UNRWA. We believe that, in the interests of the Palestinian people and the interests of the children we visited, the government can do much better with Canadian tax dollars.
