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THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

EVIDENCE

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OTTAWA, Monday, December 9, 2024

The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 4:32 p.m. [ET] to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally.

Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Deputy Chair) in the chair.

[English]

The Deputy Chair: Good afternoon. I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit people from across Turtle Island.

I am Wanda Thomas Bernard, a senator from Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaq territory, and deputy chair of the committee. In the absence of the chair, I will be chairing the first panel this evening.

I would like first to invite my honourable colleagues to introduce themselves.

Senator Osler: Welcome to all the witnesses. I am Flordeliz (Gigi) Osler, a senator from Manitoba.

Senator Pate: Welcome. Kim Pate. I live here on the unceded, unsurrendered and unreturned territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg.

Senator K. Wells: Hello, everyone. Kristopher Wells, a senator from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.

Senator Arnot: Good evening. I’m Senator David Arnot, from Saskatchewan. I live in Treaty 6 territory.

The Deputy Chair: Welcome, senators, and welcome to all those who are following our deliberations from home.

Today, our committee will continue its study on anti-Semitism in Canada under its general order of reference. This afternoon, we shall have three panels. In each panel, we shall hear from the witnesses, and then the senators around this table will have a question-and-answer session.

I will now introduce our first witness. Our witness has been asked to make a five-minute opening statement. With us today via video conference, please welcome Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism with Canadian Heritage. I now invite Ms. Lyons to make her presentation.

Deborah Lyons, Special Envoy, Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Canadian Heritage, as an individual: Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak about the unprecedented and frightening level of anti-Semitism in Canada today.

When I accepted this role, I could never have imagined that the situation would be so challenging, so dire. According to Statistics Canada, our Jewish community comprises only 1% of the population but endures now 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes and now tops the charts as the target for overall hate crimes, well ahead of LGBTQ, anti-Black and anti-Muslim hate.

Since anti-Semitism, Madam Chair, is a human issue, let me walk you through the day of a typical Jewish family in Canada.

Ben and Sarah, the parents, have two kids, Noah in Grade 5 and Aaron in university. Ben is a social worker, and Sarah works in a public security agency. Given that several Jewish businesses were vandalized recently in their neighbourhood and their local synagogue was firebombed, security is always on their mind, so they start their morning by checking their phones to see if there were any incidents overnight.

This morning, they are debating whether to send Noah, their fifth grader, to school wearing his kippah — his religious head covering. Noah has been bullied with anti-Semitic comments, and it has made him very anxious and ostracized at school. They have received little recourse from the school authorities.

Meanwhile, Aaron fearfully weaves his way through a protest encampment on campus. He arrives in class with relief, only to find that the professor has deemed the classroom a Zionism-free zone. Like the vast majority of Canadian Jews, Aaron himself is a Zionist, believing in the right for Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

At work, when Sarah raises a legitimate concern about a new international initiative, a colleague openly scoffs, “You only care about that because you’re a Jew,” implying that Sarah has dual loyalties, a particularly damaging accusation in a security agency. Her public service union ignores her concerns.

This evening, Ben will be taking his son to the local Jewish community centre for swimming classes, but unlike all other Canadian parents, he will have to pass by a police car as he enters, knowing that this security symbol is vital for the protection of his child.

Such is the life of a Jewish family in Canada today. There are so many more stories to tell, and I hear them every day.

There is much hard work to be done, Madam Chair, and I so wish this work had been done 10 years ago or 5 years ago. But I warn you: if we do not do it now, I truly fear for your grandchildren and mine.

So what are we doing about it? Our team is currently focused on five key areas — education first and foremost. We are working closely with Ministers of Education who have committed to reinforce Holocaust education in 2025. I am proud of their leadership. However, I also see it as essential that the K to 12 curriculum address contemporary forms of anti-Semitism and that that also be directed to school boards and teachers.

Second, Canadian universities and colleges are a top priority for my office. Post-secondary institutions have a basic responsibility to ensure the safety of Jewish students — indeed, all students — on their campuses. The administrations need and deserve our help in this effort.

Third, law enforcement. Anti-hate and anti-Semitism training for police officers, prosecutors and judges is essential. I would also like to see dedicated Crown prosecutors for hate crimes. Improving law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prosecute will benefit all vulnerable groups.

Fourth, online harms. As you all know, anti-Semitism, hate and atrocity denialism online have exploded in recent years. This is not a problem unique to Canada, which is why I helped form a task force of international special envoys like myself to force the accountability of social media platforms as a global imperative. And, of course, we support the work of Minister Virani and his team on their online harm legislation.

Inside government is the fifth area. The federal government is not immune to anti-Semitism within our institutions. My team is working with deputy ministers and Treasury Board to mobilize senior leaders to respond to anti-Semitism and to review government policies, programs, training, appointments and funding to ensure they are free of anti-Semitism and ensure the safety and well-being of all employees.

But we must also, Madam Chair, equip stakeholders with a better understanding of present-day anti-Semitism. I am proud to share with your committee the Canadian government’s handbook on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. Shaped by consultations with over 150 Canadians and organizations, as well as 8 federal departments, this is a true guide for governments at all three levels, educators, law enforcement and civil society. The IHRA definition was a global collaboration that took 16 years to develop and is now endorsed by 43 countries and most of our provincial governments.

My team and I cannot do this work alone, Madam Chair. We need support, and that includes stronger active support from all political levels. No matter what global or regional conflicts are occurring thousands of miles from our shores, Jewish Canadians deserve the same protections, support and allyship as other communities.

In conclusion, Madam Chair, yes, it is clear that I am alarmed by what I have seen during these past 15 months, but I believe we can turn this unprecedented crisis into a catharsis. It is a time to address our unconscious biases, our legal and procedural weaknesses, and reinforce our commitment to one another. We can emerge stronger — not weakened, nor permanently —

The Deputy Chair: I’m sorry, Ms. Lyons, but we’ve run out of time. We don’t have much time left for questions from the senators, but thank you for your opening remarks.

Ms. Lyons: Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just finishing up. Thank you so much.

The Deputy Chair: Yes, and I’m sorry to have had to interrupt you.

Senators, we’ll create a list for questions, and while we’re doing that, I just want to make a statement that I neglected to make at the beginning.

I would like to provide a content warning for this meeting. The sensitive topics covered today may be triggering for people in the room as well as for those watching and listening to the broadcast. Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 988. Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the Senate’s Employee and Family Assistance Program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for both personal and work-related concerns, as well as crisis counselling. Thank you.

Senators, we’ll now proceed to questions. You will have four minutes for your questions, which includes the answer.

Senator Arnot: Thank you, Ms. Lyons, for coming this evening.

Thank you for the handbook you referenced. It’s a really excellent document. I’m sure we’ll be able to use it.

Also, thank you for setting the context in the way you did this evening regarding the immediate and acute impacts upon Jewish Canadians, families and the community, as well as the fears that are very legitimate about what’s happening, especially with the impacts of anti-Semitism.

I also believe in the power of education. I would like you to talk about defining the problem and identifying your recommendations. I know those are big topics, and they could comprise a document you could put forward later. However, having served as the ambassador to Israel, how do you see Canadian’s approach to combatting anti-Semitism compared to other countries? Are there global strategies or better practices in other countries?

Second, what are the biggest challenges in keeping Holocaust education relevant and impactful for younger generations? How do you attack or address Holocaust denial and distortion in modern educational settings?

Ms. Lyons: I have about two minutes to answer that, I believe.

Senator, on the question of global strategies, we have produced a document — I and other special envoys for anti-Semitism — on global guidelines for combatting anti-Semitism. First of all, I want to highlight that. Second, yes, Canada has seen this huge uptick in anti-Semitism, but I would argue that we are also one of the most active countries in combatting it. That is part of the reason why our handbook was so readily received recently at an international conference in London last week. It demonstrates the commitment the government is applying to this. However, there is so much to do. I mentioned some of our key areas that we are going to continue to work on with the many stakeholders across the country.

With regard to your question about Holocaust education, we are all aware of the fact that we are losing, due to aging and so forth, our incredible Holocaust survivors, but there are many initiatives under way now, including a new project we launched recently as part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance called “My Hometown” to try to engage young people and help them better understand what happened during the Holocaust. We are also bringing together educators from across the country in education symposia in Canada to ensure that we are supporting the provincial ministers of education in their work in putting in place a much more robust curriculum.

Finally, I will highlight that it is not just about our kids. What we have seen in the past year is that it’s about our adults as well. We need to get better Holocaust awareness out there for our general population so that people can see the conditions that lead to that kind of incredible catastrophe for humanity. Working at a public awareness level is also absolutely critical.

Senator Arnot: Thank you for your good work.

Ms. Lyons: Thank you, senator.

Senator Osler: Thank you, Ms. Lyons, for being here.

You mentioned online harms, and I see that the IHRA definition could be used by civil society as a framework for monitoring online anti-Semitism and engaging with social media companies. Could you share with the committee your vision for how the definition could help prevent online harms, especially with social media being such a propagator of disinformation and misinformation?

Ms. Lyons: Thank you very much for that question, senator.

First and foremost, the definition is meant to help people understand anti-Semitism in its present-day form, the various manifestations of it and how it has mutated and changed over time. The definition, with its 11 examples, helps to scope out how one can identify anti-Semitism. What we have done with the handbook is use real-life case studies here in Canada — online, on the streets and on our campuses — to help clarify that for people.

Specifically with regard to online harm, we’re using the handbook and the IHRA definition in our discussions with social media platforms when I bring together this international task force of special envoys to work with the platforms in identifying where anti-Semitism is playing out online and how they might respond to it. For instance, we saw just recently that Meta made the decision to categorize “Zionist” as a replacement for “Jewish” or “Israeli.” It helps to educate the platforms on what words and comments might be seen as harmful and hurtful. In that regard, I think the definition for all of us in other aspects of fighting anti-Semitism is very much an attempt to clarify for people where anti-Semitism is reflected in the words — where the hurt, hatred and incitement are coming from. A perfect example of that, which we’re seeing a lot online, is in Holocaust denial and atrocity denial. Again, that is scoped out very clearly in the definition as one of the examples. We’re working with the platforms in trying to clarify where they see this happening and what the appropriate response is.

I’ll hasten to say, senator, that this definition and the work we have done with the handbook, whether we’re talking about online or in any other capacity, but mostly certainly in working with civil society, is also meant to help us clarify how important it is to continue with our emphasis on freedom of expression and freedom of speech. The definition and the handbook help people to see where we are ensuring true clarification about what is harmful and what should be accepted. We’re attempting to actually reinforce people’s ability to discern when the words and the actions are hateful or inciting hate, as well as for people to understand what the facts, context, intentions and impacts are. It’s important that we look at all of these dimensions so we are both fighting anti-Semitism and continuing with those important principles of a free and open society.

Senator Osler: Thank you very much.

Senator K. Wells: I wanted to pick up on your last two recommendations specifically focussed on hate crimes and the online harm bill. Do you have a concern that the Minister of Justice said he is planning to split that bill and that the hate crimes sections might not move forward in the first round of that bill?

Ms. Lyons: In fairness, senator, yes, I would say that I would have concerns that that very important section on hate and inciting hate might not move forward. It does require a robust discussion, of course, from our parliamentarians. But I think that the legislation came together as a result of an intensive consultative process across Canada with civil society groups. The Justice officials and Heritage officials put together a very strong set of legislation. It is important, of course, that the section on protecting our children move forward, but I’m hoping that the section related to hate crimes will also move forward, because certainly this past year, year and a half, we have seen how essential that is.

Senator K. Wells: Thank you.

You also mentioned the importance of specialized Crown prosecutors. We know that only one in ten hate crimes are ever reported to law enforcement. It’s very rare in Canada to see a successful hate crime prosecution. I’m wondering what you would envision that training would look like for those Crown prosecutors so we can see more not only charges but successful cases that move forward.

Ms. Lyons: Your committee had the benefit of hearing from Mark Sandler last week about his work in this area, and we’re working very closely with him, of course. With the Simon Wiesenathal Center we’re doing a lot of training with hate crime units, police officers on the street, prosecutors and judges. This is all very important to get that education out there to all of these interlocutors.

But the real interest in having dedicated special prosecutors for hate crimes is to ensure that we have those who are continuously deepening their understanding of the case law and have the best possible knowledge of how the law can be applied and can act as, if you would like, sort of specialists or experts that other prosecutors can consult.

Senator, we have something like 20 special prosecutors for car theft in at least one of our provinces. We have seen a huge increase in hate speech and incitement of hate and hate crimes across our country. We just have to look at the data. Surely this is an area where Canadians deserve a specific number of special prosecutors who are well trained, have deep experience and are continuously building their knowledge in this area so that they can advise others. It seems to me obvious for our law enforcement agencies and provincial governments to put this in place.

Senator Senior: Thank you, Ms. Lyons. I really appreciate your testimony today, as well as the way that you have painted the picture for us to take a peek into what happens in the lives of Jewish families.

Notwithstanding what’s happening online around hate and spewing hate, I’m curious as to understanding a national picture and having to develop a strategy in Canada to address anti‑Semitism. Is there a region in the country that you’re most concerned about? Is there a region of the country where it’s being handled well?

Ms. Lyons: Senator, our urban centres are the ones seeing the greatest intensity of hate speech on the street. We’re working pretty closely with a number of the mayors across the country. We’re also working with the association of big-city mayors. In fairness to everyone, including myself, we were all in a little bit of shock after October 2023 at the aftermath of hate that seemed to spew onto our streets, online and on campuses. Everyone is grappling with trying to address it — university administrators, mayors, school boards, et cetera.

I don’t know that there is any one region of the country dealing with this better than others. I do find that the local governments, because they are closer to the people and have the direct responsibility for law enforcement, are much more frontline and deserve a lot of our attention and support. I wouldn’t say that I see any one area doing better than others. I will mention that I think that our university presidents came back to the school year in September this year more prepared to address a calmer and more respectful university climate for all students. We have seen some improvements there, which I congratulate them for.

There is more work to be done. The truth of the matter is, senator, that we’re all learning how to make our way through this. We all are worthy of a little patience with one another, but with true determination and commitment to our Jewish community and future generations, we’re going to deal with this issue and learn from it. We’re in a somewhat calmer period right now than we were this time last year, but we have to take that time and the experience of this past year to think through what needs to change, either within our laws, within our codes of conduct, within some of our programming, federally and provincially, within our school boards and within our schools. It’s a huge learning process we’re in, senator, that isn’t just going to benefit our Jewish community but is going to benefit all of our marginalized communities.

Senator Pate: Thank you, Ms. Lyons, for being here with us.

I wanted to pick up on something you’ve mentioned in terms of enforcing hate crimes and special prosecutors. Most of the work I’ve done most of my life has been in that area, and it tends to be that laws are actually utilized against those who are the most dispossessed. It tends not to be leaders who are projecting hateful ideas or thoughts or propagating hateful policies who tend to be held accountable; it tends to be those who are the least powerful, least privileged. How would you see formulating these policies? If we have special prosecutors, it is unlikely they will be going after very senior people to prosecute them on this. It is more likely you’re going to scoop up the poorest, the racialized, the young who — while certain behaviours may need to be corrected — may not be the crux of where the risk and greatest threat emanate.

Ms. Lyons: I would hope that would not be the case, senator, but your experience may be more elucidating than mine. I would hope what the special prosecutors would bring is simply a greater depth of knowledge of the law and of the issues of hate as they are experienced by various marginalized communities, having, I would hope, good contact with the different communities, understanding the different elements of the various racist approaches that people might take, and that they would apply the laws of Canada with that deeper understanding. The last thing I would want to see is that they would go after the more dispossessed. I think what would be happening is that the law enforcement officers would bring cases to them and be advised by the special prosecutors how to act. The last thing we want is a targeting of the more dispossessed. What we want, from what we have seen in the past year, is law enforcement who are truly knowledgeable on the scope of the law that exists, is truly knowledgeable on the various human rights issues and concerns and therefore is able to better counsel officers on the street. It seems to me that it is absolutely possible.

I also think they would be in a position to perhaps better advise us when we think through whether or not we have the right set of laws in place. I’m sure you heard about this from Mark Sandler last week. He believes that much of the context or framework of the Canadian law right now is more than adequate, but it is simply not being utilized by prosecutors, judges and law enforcement officers. One would think that special prosecutors might be better positioned to help advise on that.

Senator Pate: Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: Ms. Lyons, thank you very much for agreeing to participate in our study. Your assistance has helped us a lot.

Colleagues, before we start our second panel, Senator Senior has joined us. I’ll have her introduce herself.

Senator Senior: Thank you for being here, especially in this weather. I’m Paulette Senior from Ontario.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you.

I shall now introduce our second panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We shall hear from the witnesses and then turn to questions from the senators. With us at the table this evening, from the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, please welcome Deidre Butler, Associate Professor; and Pamela Walker, Professor. I understand that Dr. Butler and Dr. Walker will be sharing their time. I now invite them to make their presentation.

Deidre Butler, Associate Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics: Thank you, chair and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Deidre Butler, and I am an associate professor of Jewish studies at Carleton University.

NECA is a non-partisan group of nearly 400 Canadian academics from 45 universities and colleges. We advocate for academic freedom, diverse perspectives and an expansive understanding of inclusion to combat anti-Semitism and uphold the core values of Canada’s universities.

Anti-Semitism is flourishing on our campuses. Why are universities targeted? Universities are the places where knowledge is created and young people’s minds and attitudes are shaped as citizens. Since October 7, a wave of anti-Semitism, which is often expressed as anti-Israelism, has swept our campuses. This hatred centres on the idea that Israel should not exist as an independent, sovereign state, nor as the home of nearly half of the world’s Jews. Claims are justified by false evidence, demonization and racist concepts. A recent study shows that 91% of Canadian Jews support Zionism. A campaign to target Israel, and only Israel, inevitably affects Canadian Jews. It creates a poisoned environment for university faculty, staff and students.

When student encampments proclaimed “Zionists off campus,” that was a call to exclude Jews from university life. Now, a campus group is asking students to name Zionist faculty so that they can get Zionists off campus. In the classroom, professors are glorifying the events of October 7, celebrating systematic rape and murder, while in the hallways student groups are shouting, “globalize the intifada.” Student groups have painted red triangles on buildings, a symbol used by Hamas to mark a target for assassination, and then posted photos of them on their social media to amplify this intimidation. Jewish women have been threatened with, “We are going to rape you like Hamas did on October 7,” and students hiss, “Jew, get back in the oven.”

As the delegitimization of Israel becomes normalized, administrations face intense pressure at every level of university governance. We are seeing increasingly inflammatory, baldly anti-Semitic statements in student unions and faculty associations, as well as boycott, divestment and sanctions — or BDS — in university senates.

Pamela Walker, Professor, Network of Engaged Canadian Academics: I’m Dr. Pamela Walker, and I’m a professor of history at Carleton University.

University faculty, students and advocacy groups are now seeking to establish BDS policies directed at one state: Israel. These motions claim that Israel is uniquely evil among states and that Canadian universities should end academic partnerships, investment in Israeli companies and cooperation with Israeli scholars. These campaigns seek no similar rejection of any other state and never have. It is an anti-Semitic campaign because it seeks to vilify and restrict only one country, Israel, and thereby ignores all other conflicts around the world.

These university motions threaten to undermine the very foundation of academic life. They would restrict the academic freedom of all members of the university to pursue research in any area. They would diminish Canada’s research potential and undermine open inquiry. They would hollow out the Canadian academic enterprise.

BDS relies on anti-Semitic claims. It asserts that there is only one proper response to the conflict in the Middle East. Because this conflict is different from all others, it requires an unprecedented response — the end of the state of Israel. BDS uniquely targets Jews in Israel and in Canada by holding them solely responsible for this complex conflict. BDS undermines Canada’s future by condoning a distorted, one-sided understanding of the Middle East. Canadian scholars would lose cutting-edge knowledge in high tech, health science, climate innovation and other areas. This ultimately restricts Canada’s competitiveness in addressing challenges faced by our own country and the broader world.

These efforts are a serious, anti-Semitic threat to the universities’ core mission. When universities are dedicated to equity and inclusion, how can we accept the heinous effects of anti-Semitism on campuses? We need decisive leadership now to counter this threat. Universities must be spaces where robust debate, sustained research and viewpoint diversity flourish. Our leaders must support university administrators by providing them with effective tools to protect our universities and stand against these threats to our society.

Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Dr. Butler and Dr. Walker.

We will now go to questions from the senators.

Senator Arnot: Ms. Butler, you have done a lot of work on gender and Judaism. That gives you a unique perspective. Do you see any significant gender differences in how anti-Semitism manifests or impacts individuals? If so, how can that be addressed?

Ms. Walker, as an innovator in teaching methodologies, how can educational institutes integrate teaching practices that directly address and challenge anti-Semitic tropes in historical and contemporary contexts?

Ms. Butler: Thank you for the question.

Professor Walker and I teach a course together known as “Anti-Semitism, Then and Now,” where we teach our students that in order to understand anti-Semitism, you need to understand both continuity and change. I have taught courses where I focused on the gendered story of Jewish women but specifically about gendered anti-Semitism. We can look historically and see how women have been targeted differently through anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic tropes.

Today, we’re seeing both continuity with that past but new one elements as well. After October 7, I spoke about how women are being threatened with rape. Also, at the same time, the rapes of October 7 have been denied and the stories of Jewish women’s suffering have been excluded from our public conversations about anti-Semitism and also on campuses, so we’re not having programs, events or teaching about the sexual violence of October 7.

Ms. Walker: Yes, I do work in very innovative teaching. I have a program with game-based learning to teach history. One of the things that methodology teaches is empathy and the ability to see the point of view of others. It asks students to immerse themselves in particular historical moments of change. Doing that kind of teaching is essential, and we need to find ways to move people out of their very tightly organized views and take the point of view of a peasant in rural France during the French Revolution, as an example, not necessarily because that allows you to understand anti-Semitism but it gives you the intellectual ability to move outside of your framework.

The other thing that Ms. Deborah Lyons mentioned that is also something I am alarmed by and seeing more increasingly is Holocaust denial among my students. Our collaboration first began a number of years ago when I had students openly arguing with me, a professor, and, in one instance, laughing at me, saying, “I can’t believe you actually believe in that nonsense.” As a historian, that undermines the very foundation of my discipline. It is not just this particular thing, but if you don’t believe in the Holocaust, you don’t believe in historical research, you don’t believe in truth and you don’t believe in data-driven knowledge.

When I teach now, when I teach modern Europe, I always ask my students how many of them are familiar with Holocaust denial and distortion and whether they have read about it. They respond that 100% of them are reading about it, and I ask them, “How many of you thinking, ’Yeah, maybe that makes sense; this never happened.’” I always get a sizable number of students who affirm that. I’m teaching against something that is very deep. In two instances, I even had students use their final exam to write me Holocaust denial answers. That’s a solid commitment to Holocaust denial. They are going to take an “F” because they are so committed to telling me this never happened.

A recent study showed a very high correlation between Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. They are obviously connected. We need to think again about how we teach the Holocaust, what we’re doing with that and how we can have young people understand this not only as an historical event but what led up to it. They need to know that anti-Semitism did not start in 1940 and did not end in 1945 and is a much larger problem. They need to understand the connection between the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, for example, in the Soviet Union in the 1970s or whatever you want to go.

So it is both the historical knowledge as well as an ability to think with empathy and to understand points of view you don’t share, not simply responding, “Oh, the Holocaust — you know, I don’t need to know about that.” It is both of those.

Senator K. Wells: Thank you for being here today, especially in person.

I want to pick up on something at the end of your opening comments where you talked about tools. I would like to give you an opportunity to talk more about what those tools might look like to create a safer post-secondary environment, particularly with this rise of anti-Semitism, while also maintaining the free expression we hold so dearly as valuable, particularly at a post-secondary institution.

Ms. Butler: Thank you for the question. Perhaps I will talk about existing policies and Professor Walker could speak about institutional neutrality.

One of the things you have already heard is that we have laws and policies. They exist, and they need to be implemented, and implemented in thoughtful ways. Universities do have tools they can use to address many of these issues. They also have tools that need to be improved and strengthened. I would like to point to EDI, or equity, diversity and inclusion, as the mechanism by which our universities address issues of discrimination, intolerance and uneven access to our universities.

When we think about anti-Semitism and that particular tool, that tool fails Jews and our universities. If you look at EDI statements across Canada — and I have done so as part of my research — you won’t find the word “Jew,” and if you do, it will be incidental. Anti-Semitism will be incidental. Concern will be on other populations that, of course, also need to be lifted up and supported, but there is a lack there and a problem there. When we have a problem with anti-Semitism on our campuses, if we’re relying upon a tool that doesn’t see us, it can’t do that work.

Ms. Walker: Institutional neutrality is the idea that the university, institutionally, does not take positions on issues outside of its operational needs. That imagines that the university is like a big bowl, and inside of it are all the professors and students who might have all kinds of positions they may advocate for, work toward and believe in. Yet, that’s not the view of the institution. The institution is neutral on a war, on foreign policy or on other social and political issues. That enables free expression to happen.

The idea is that instead of having universities say that they believe the right position on issue “X” is this or they believe that, they allow all points of view to be heard, so free expression flourishes and academic freedom in that context is possible. But once the university takes a position saying, for instance, that Israel is responsible for every wrong thing on the planet and the university totally rejects Israel, then you don’t have academic neutrality; you actually have the university taking a partisan position that would silence people like us. That should be at all the levels — departments, institutes and the university as a whole.

The point is not that the university doesn’t have an opinion — all the individual faculty members certainly do — but there is no external body in the university, a department statement, saying the university believes this to be true and all other positions to be wrong. That actually serves to silence many people.

Most universities in Canada don’t have a practice of institutional neutrality. Increasingly, a number of American universities and some British ones are taking this approach. I think we need to look at that as a way forward to encourage the free expression of ideas and the rich research that can happen, which is, in fact, stopped when you have a position where a department says they have already decided what the right answer is on the conflict in Israel and Gaza, or Ethiopia, Eritrea or any other thing.

Senator Senior: Thank you so much. I’m sitting here just thinking about a few of the things that you have said that create many questions for me. There are also some similarities. Being a Black woman, I don’t have a lot of faith in EDI practices either. I can really empathize there.

I think it was Ms. Walker who mentioned the game that focuses on empathy. I’m curious about that. I remember being a kid in public school, and we learned about the Holocaust. We grew up understanding that this happened in history, and I don’t know what has changed. I’m curious about how that kind of approach in terms of utilizing empathic means in an educational institution can actually shift people’s understanding if you create the atmosphere of academic curiosity. I’m curious how that has worked in the past, and is it still possible for that to work?

Ms. Walker: If you want to know about game-based historical teaching, that is a whole other topic. I’m happy to share with you some of the work that I do with an organization called Reacting to the Past Consortium.

Game-based learning in this context has a limit. I wouldn’t try gamifying the Holocaust. I wouldn’t do that. I do think that thinking empathetically and thinking from the point of view of others — Dr. Butler has wonderful online resources on understanding the Holocaust, and one of the things I learned from her was to use those stories in my teaching so that students are listening to living people. We can’t have them in the classroom, but they can listen to them speak on this resource. That way, you actually hear someone’s story, and you actually have to think about that, and you inevitably imagine yourself in that. Hearing from people who survived the Holocaust or, in some cases, did not, teaches us much more than a very distant perspective.

Ms. Butler: One of the things that I have worked on is to develop new oral histories with survivors, as well as the children of survivors, and the descendants and children of the Righteous Among the Nations during the Holocaust, and this became part of an online project known as Hear Our Voices, and we continue to work on this.

This idea came out of the experience I had teaching about the Holocaust throughout my career, which is that students who may have had no knowledge of the Holocaust before coming into the classroom may never have met a Jew before. They heard these stories, and they saw themselves in the stories. Part of what you can do is to share many different experiences.

While we’re talking about the Holocaust, this is also possible with anti-Semitism generally or any experience of discrimination or prejudiced bigotry. When you hear from people about who they are, what they experienced, what they’re concerned with, how they live their lives, then that helps to build that connection with the student learner. When my students come back to me years later and say, “I remember hearing this in your class; I remember reading this,” it is inevitably the oral histories and the diaries, the stories of people who lived what we’re trying to teach them about.

Senator Senior: Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, our chair has arrived, but she has asked me to stay in the chair for this panel. Chair, I would like you to introduce yourself, please.

Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, from Ontario. I apologize. The flight was late, and it took me over an hour to come from the airport. Please accept my apologies.

Senator Osler: Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.

In your opening statement, Dr. Butler, I believe you talked about why universities are being targeted. I would ask both of you, could you expand more on the conditions, whether they are economic, sociocultural or geopolitical, that help grow the rising anti-Semitism on campuses, and for these broader conditions, what have you found effective on campus to help counter that?

Ms. Butler: I think there is a lot to say there about the condition of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism did not start on October 7. It was already of concern years before. It has been a concern my entire career. I have taught at Carleton for 18 years.

The conditions for anti-Semitism on campus are also the conditions for off campus. Anti-Semitism is in our culture; it is in our history; it is in our world. Social media amplifies many of those ideas and those hatreds, and they are particularly effective at reaching a generation of students who are on our campuses right now and who have grown up as digital natives and for whom social media is an important source not only of connecting with each other but actually understanding the world they live in and understanding history. I have had the very unpleasant experience of teaching my students something and having them go to YouTube to study for an exam. It is difficult.

One of our colleagues who is a cofounder of NECA, Professor Cary Kogan, is a clinical psychologist, and we often speak about the setting of many hatreds and how this plays out in universities at this moment when students are invested so deeply in social justice, in changing the world, which is exactly what they should be doing. When there is so much misinformation, when there is so much distortion and hatred all around them, is it any surprise that that impulse for good can also be diverted in ways that are extremely damaging and harmful?

Ms. Walker: One of the core problems — hopefully this IHRA handbook that has recently been released will help us — is people genuinely don’t understand it. I sit in meetings with people who are in positions of authority to manage all kinds of university affairs, and it is clear to me that they don’t quite get it. They don’t understand it. They don’t know where it comes from. They don’t recognize it. One of the things that would be effective is to have a better way of communicating what it is and what to do about it. In terms of what’s working at the minute, I will sound a bit pessimistic and say, “Not much, and I am looking for change.”

Senator Osler: Thank you both.

Senator Pate: Thank you to both of you for being here.

I’m going to ask something that I think dovetails with what you have already been asked. I have spent a lot of time working with folks on residential school denialism, and I see some incredible parallels. My daughter’s father is Jewish. When my kids were young, we found lots of resources to talk about anti‑Semitism and not much to talk about anti-Indigenous hatred. I’m curious as to whether there are any partnerships and learning that you have about both of these in terms of real issues right now in Canada.

Ms. Butler: On October 8, I was in Nunavut, and I was invited to speak about anti-Semitism and the history of the Holocaust, and I did so through oral history. I did so, speaking to the college that was there in Iqaluit. There were high school students as well as a public lecture. In each one, it was so incredibly powerful to speak to this community and hear how they heard the connections between their experiences and what I was speaking about, but also the importance of oral history, of sharing these stories and having the next generation sharing these stories. There are very natural connections there, and many people have done that kind of work. Certainly, within the Indigenous community in Canada, there have been strong bridges that have been built between the Jewish community and different Indigenous communities and across. That’s where I would start my thinking.

Ms. Walker: I am sure you know the work of Harry LaForme. He has made important connections that are beautifully expressed and very clearly expressed, and I think about taking leadership from him.

I have often thought that in terms of the denialism of certain elements, those stories are very similar. I would take very seriously the question of where that leads you to in Holocaust denial or in forms of denial of Canada’s history as well and the very dangerous way that can take you places.

There are many examples of Holocaust denial that have been absolutely horrendous in their actual social effects on the ground. People in Canada and elsewhere in the world have been denied an understanding of something and the origins of problems, and it’s very serious. There are those partnerships and the recognition of elements of a shared history, elements of a story about what it means to be a minority people who are being persecuted.

Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you, both of you, for being here.

Ms. Butler. I would like you to expand on something you said. You said that anti-Semitism is not new. It’s in our culture, and it’s in our history. Can you give us a bit about the history of anti‑Semitism and the role that the media has played in this? I don’t know if someone else has asked this question, as I wasn’t here.

Ms. Butler: I’m laughing a little bit because the next panel is my former professor, Professor Ira Robinson, who literally wrote the book on anti-Semitism in Canada. You will be able to speak to him, and he will speak beautifully. Maybe I can answer kind of quickly.

When we look at the roots of anti-Semitism, we can go back to the ancient world and the origins of Christianity. It carries forward, and it changes over time, and it has specific manifestations in different places, but certainly it is within the culture of Christianity that spreads throughout the world. In the Muslim world, it is a very different experience. In other places, where you don’t have Christianity or Muslim or Judaism, it is expressed in different ways at different times.

Here in Canada, we have the inheritance of a Christian culture. We also have a global society that Canada participates in where immigrants from all over the world, including my grandparents, come to Canada, and they come with ideas and beliefs from all over the world. The ideas of anti-Semitism also get transported around the world.

One of the things that we do in our class is we show how the lines connect between the anti-Semitism, for example, during World War II and connects with the anti-Semitism that happened during the Soviet era that we’re seeing now in other parts of the world in the left. Anti-Semitism is often known as something that shape-shifts, but it’s always the same thing.

Ms. Walker: One of the important things about the history of anti-Semitism is frequently the criticism of Jews is that they’re too powerful, which is not necessarily true of other minority groups who are seen as a problem because they are too powerful. That is not typically the case.

One of the ways that anti-Semitism is often harder for people to see is they say, “Well, the Jews have all the power; they run the media; they run the banks. What’s the problem?” They don’t understand the nature of what they’re saying and how this actually operates. We teach an entire course on it. You’re very welcome to get a copy of our course outline.

But it’s also something that we are really innovating, because when we started teaching the course two years ago, there were no other people teaching this kind of material in the way we’re doing it. It is happening in a few places. We are affiliated with a research centre, an international group of people trying to learn how to teach this, because it’s not obvious to most people.

There is a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was published in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. It’s still being read and circulated. It’s nonsense. None of it is true. But in that book is the idea that the Jews run all of the banks — that is one of the big arguments — and they found out about this secret group. I have students who read it and said, “No, no, no, I read a book about that.” This book is still in circulation a hundred years later and still influencing the way people understand the world. That is an example of that kind of continuity. That book, which you would think would have died out long ago, hasn’t. Its life is very long.

Senator Ataullahjan: The role of media?

Ms. Walker: We’ve spoken of roles of social media, and it can be very difficult. One of the things we have seen is that certain really important things have happened; for example, a number of universities have rejected BDS motions, and, as far as I know, that doesn’t get covered in the Canadian press. I haven’t seen any coverage of it, even when looking. And other things are going on that I think are not getting the kind of coverage that would enable people to say, “Okay, there are remedies, and there are important, positive things going on.” And I’m not sure that is getting covered very well.

Ms. Butler: In terms of media, one of the things we’re struggling with is to help people understand the ways in which anti-Semitism intersects with anti-Zionism and how that targets Jewish identity in Canada. You’ve heard today already that 91% of Canadian Jews identify as Zionists in some way. What that means is that we’re not hearing the voices of that 91% in our media. If you look at what is often presented, you will hear minority groups within a minority saying that there’s no anti‑Semitism problem. The vast majority of Jews are telling you that there is an anti-Semitism problem. At my synagogue, there is security outside. What Deborah Lyons said earlier about the family, that could have been my family.

Ms. Walker: There is no one who would suggest that these little minority groups should be silenced, but they are taking a group that represents maybe 2 or 3% of the Jewish population of Canada and they are constantly being consulted and interviewed as if they represent a large constituency. They don’t. It’s not that their view is not important, it is, but it needs to be put into a context where people can see that this is where this view fits, and 91% of Jews would see things differently.

Senator Ataullahjan: Isn’t that true of other religions too? You have the majority has one view, and others deny what is happening. I’ve seen it in some of the other religions too. Thank you.

Ms. Butler: Also, we have to remember that sometimes a member of a group or a group is brought forward as a token example, and that tokenization tells a good story, but it may not always give us a good picture of what is happening on the ground. As Canadians, we need to understand what’s happening on the ground. Jews are a very tiny minority in this country. We’re experiencing a level of hatred that none of us have ever experienced before, or imagined. We don’t feel seen, we don’t feel heard and we do feel silenced.

The Deputy Chair: I would like to follow up on that and ask a question before we go to second round. Can you tell us how Canadians generally, and post-secondary students that you’re aware of on campuses, perceive the connection between anti‑Semitism and other forms of racism or bigotry?

Ms. Walker: That is more complicated than perhaps it would seem on the surface. On one level, it just depends on who you’re talking about and what other form of racism you mean.

The Deputy Chair: Anti-Black racism.

Ms. Butler: Yes, I understand what you’re trying to get at here. On the surface, you see this list of anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism and anti-LGBTQ+. There is that list, and anti-Semitism is usually on that list along with Islamophobia. When you speak to people, whether they’re just the general population or students, they will tell you all of those things are bad. Their depth of knowledge about what each of those things looks like, their frequency and how they’ve evolved historically is very shallow.

Add to that stereotypical beliefs about a certain population, such as what Professor Walker was mentioning in terms of Jewish power: the myth that Jews have all the power and control the banks. Those myths are also attributed to Zionism. That plays out in a very different way than it does in terms of other hatreds. Every hatred is specific, as much as they overlap in terms of some of the mechanisms that drive them and the experiences that result.

We have to work together in terms of understanding the different hatreds and the different experiences of minority groups and vulnerable populations, but we also have to listen to the distinct narratives and scholarship that helps us understand these experiences. We need good data about different populations. We need good data that will help us understand how these hatreds have developed, how they are manifesting and how they are experienced so that we can have data-driven policies and tools developed to address them together as a Canadian society and at each individual point.

Ms. Walker: I am going to give you a different area that is more anecdotal and not data driven. It is just my own experience. I teach a lot of African American history, and I have never had a student, in 30 years of teaching, tell me that slavery was a good thing, and I have never had a student tell me that it didn’t happen. In general, in the tone when I’m teaching that as part of, say, a European history class, the history of slavery and its relationship to European economy, students are very interested because they want to know the effects of this, how it began and why anyone would have thought this was a good idea, et cetera. They walk in committed to thinking that this is something that has had dreadful effects on the African continent, in Europe and North America, et cetera. They already think that.

When I teach something about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, they’re arguing with me and saying that didn’t happen. That is a very different take. I don’t feel, in the room when I’m with 100 undergraduates, the sense that we’re already here and saying anti-Semitism really is a problem and we should understand it so that we can operate against it. It is actually the opposite: it didn’t happen, that’s not true. I’m not Jewish. That also comes up often because students will say, “You must be Jewish if you think this.” No, I think this because I’m an educated historian. I’m not Black either, but I also understand slavery as a historian, not as a person who experienced it, obviously.

That difference is very, very stark. I’ve never had students dismiss me in the way that they do on these issues, and that is after decades of teaching. I just don’t have that happen, and I don’t have students arguing with me and saying they think it never was a good thing they gave women the vote, and, “Why would they have done that? That is bad.” They just don’t do that, yet I’m sitting here having these often quite engaged arguments about whether the Holocaust occurred, or that it’s so distorted and it was a couple of hundred people in Poland and it’s been blown out of proportion. Either of those two things is really a problem and not comparable. I wonder often why so few not‑Jewish people think this isn’t a serious issue.

Ms. Butler: May I close the circle on that for your question? One of the other things that happens in terms of thinking about anti-Black racism, for example, and anti-Semitism is the narrative that Jews are white settler colonialists, for example. That erases the experiences of Jews of colour in really important ways. When you speak to Jews of colour and listen to their stories, they are having those intersecting experiences. Throw in a woman, and you have it all. Part of our work is to be able to hear all of those stories and to have people understand that these are intersectional experiences, which include class as well. We have not talked about class today.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Senators, for the second round, we have three senators on the list, and you will have four minutes each.

Senator Arnot: I would like both witnesses to answer this, if they wish. As societal attitudes towards Jewish people evolve, or perhaps not evolve or evolve for the worst, what role do you believe universities should play in fostering greater understanding and allyship within diverse academic environments? Secondly, what strategies do you propose to foster greater allyships among non-Jewish Canadians if you accept the fact that non-Jews should actively participate in fighting against anti-Semitism?

Ms. Walker: I’ll just answer a bit on the non-Jewish part. It is very good to see that many members of NECA — which includes about 400 faculty across Canada from every province — that a growing number of them are not Jewish. I take comfort from that fact.

One of the ways that I’m trying to do it is integrating anti‑Semitism education and history and putting it in places where you wouldn’t necessarily find it, like in European history classes and women’s history classes, so that it becomes part of what students generally know and it doesn’t come in one five-minute thing — 1940 to 1945, Holocaust bad, move on. It is a deeper understanding.

There is also some work going on in some of the churches that I’m very distantly affiliated with, but I hope to build that alliance. I think that clergy will have an important role here — clergy across the spectrum. There is a new initiative of global imams who were just here in Ottawa a few days ago. We are working with one of them already, and I look forward to working more with them. I think that group could have a huge impact if they could get heard and listened to.

Clergy of all faiths will be important, as well as university administrators. Jews are 1% of the population. The majority of university administrators are not Jewish, so if we can bring them in, we are inevitably bringing in non-Jewish people.

Ms. Butler: To answer the question about things on campus, first of all, we have to think about what the missions of our universities are. First of all, we are educational institutions. We advocate for institutional neutrality on political issues for a reason, because we want to have that opportunity for rich debate and free expression. But when we talk about academic freedom, we also talk about academic responsibility and the importance of civil discourse at our universities. I think that piece needs to be built up and strengthened as a tool. How do institutional neutrality, freedom of expression, academic freedom and civil discourse work together so that everyone really can speak?

We keep talking about statistics. Jews are such a tiny minority. If we have to rely on a popularity vote or a democratic process where one person gets one vote for who is going to be abused, we can’t win that fight. We need allies. We need allies to understand that our experiences of discrimination, prejudice and harm are real and that they connect with other experiences of prejudice, discrimination and harm to other groups as well. All boats rise together.

Senator K. Wells: I want to come back to something you mentioned briefly about the rise of Holocaust denial. I’m wondering if you have seen, in the post-secondary environment or elsewhere, any connections between that and residential school denialism as well. To what extent do you think social media and/or its lack of regulation is influencing these views, particularly among this younger generation of students who seem to live a lot of their lives online?

Ms. Walker: I’m sure that is a large part of where that’s coming from. Certainly, that is where the Holocaust denial is coming from. I’m less expert on the residential school issues, and I would not have anything meaningful to say about that. But yes, there is obviously a very clear connection between saying something that is very well documented and highly studied, you can get research on it and look at government reports, it’s not a secret, it is something that I can show you the data on, here it is — and you can still deny it. There is something fundamentally disturbing about the spread of that way of thinking where it doesn’t matter that there are facts here and I just ignore them as I wish.

Ms. Butler: We have a student who has been in a few classes with us who advocates very strongly for her community and makes a lot of connections between the denialism of what happened in residential schools, and she learned about anti‑Semitism and Holocaust denial with us. I think what we’re seeing on campus is that there are a few very strong voices on these issues, whether you’re talking about Holocaust denial or the denial of what happened in residential schools, but they are drowned out by what’s happening on social media and what is happening in broader society. When you meet the right person and take the right course, you’re finding more about these stories and you’re understanding what this phenomenon is. But it’s very shallow in some places, and people need to learn more in order to understand that connection.

Ms. Walker: Arguably, it belongs in a much earlier level of education where people understand what data is, how to use it and how to understand a question. Going to TikTok is probably not your best first step. That needs to happen with six-year-olds and ten-year-olds. They need to be educated about history in a way that is clearly not happening. You said earlier that you learned about this in school, so what happened? I don’t know, but something happened, and it’s not getting centred the way it should be.

Senator Senior: I want to pick up on something and make a few linkages in terms of the transition into university of much younger students now than we’ve had in the past. Maybe I’m being very Ontario-centric, but kids are entering university at 16 or 17 years old as opposed to back in my day. I’m trying to make that linkage with deep ignorance and a generation of young people, who, as you said, go to social media before anything else and who tend to believe what they see and hear on social media and do not necessarily take in what formal educational or news sources tell them. We have that as an issue. Then I’m wondering about the difference between teaching undergrads and graduates. Do you see a difference there? Finally, I’m also thinking about the huge rise that happened during the pandemic of many -isms and how that has come into play.

Ms. Butler: The first piece I would like us to think about, because this is about Canada, not just Ontario, is that the problem is from coast to coast to coast. It’s in Nunavut, the territories — it’s everywhere. There’s a lack of people who are able to teach about these issues based on history and evidence at all of our institutions. We need to think about whether this is something important that should be taught at our universities and colleges. We have to think about what it is that students don’t have access to during that education because there isn’t a faculty member that can teach it or there is no course being offered. We are seeing the need for Holocaust courses across Canada at the university level, and we’re always fighting to keep them. When they exist, they tend to fill up, but we don’t always have people who can teach them. There are practical operational issues around this that we need to think about. Whether there is a commitment to Holocaust education, a commitment to teaching about residential schools or a commitment to teaching about the history of anti-Black racism in Canada — we need to think about all of that.

Ms. Walker: As an aside, one of the other problems we are seeing very recently is that students will try to shut down speakers who might have a point of view they don’t agree with. There was an incident at the University of Calgary a few weeks ago of the students having brought drums. They were screaming and trying to stop a person from speaking. There was another event at McGill where they had to shut the event down because they were receiving death threats to all sorts of people in the university community, such as the president, in addition to the speaker himself. They moved it to Zoom and put him in an undisclosed location so he could speak.

We are living in a strange time where people imagine that a person with deep expertise and knowledge can simply be drowned out with drums and screaming, “Zionists, whatever, whatever — this person should not have been allowed to be here.” That goes back to institutional neutrality and the freedom of expression, as well as civility, where we seem to be in a bad moment where that is what is happening.

Somehow, students are not being educated about what one does in university. You’re free to disagree, bring another speaker and ask hard questions — all of those are really good choices. Screaming and banging a drum so that no one can hear what a person is saying is not such a good strategy. We need to shift things so that universities become places of vibrant debate and intellectual engagement and where folks are listening with some degree of empathy to points of view you don’t agree with.

Senator Senior: Are you seeing that difference between undergrads and grads?

Ms. Butler: I think what happens at the graduate level is that you have people who are studying what they are already interested in and committed to. If you have someone who is interested in studying anti-Semitism, they have probably thought very deeply about anti-Semitism as well as other hatreds and bigotry.

The other thing I’m thinking about in terms of the university context is this idea of civil discourse. We need to find ways to speak with each other. Professor Walker and I were together at a seminar on anti-Semitism. One of the speakers talked about the need to tell our stories with kindness. That means that when you tell a story of your own experience, you leave room for the other person’s story. So if I’m speaking about anti-Semitism, I leave room for experiences of Islamophobia, anti-Black racism and the denial of residential schools — whatever the issues are. Those tools of being together in community at our universities have been lost, but they are being lost in the high schools and the elementary schools as well. My son is in high school. My friends have kids in elementary schools. Those kids are shutting down conversations too. This is a skill our entire country needs to strengthen.

Senator Ataullahjan: You talked about conversations being shut down. I find that in my experience, also. When you talked about anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and residential schools, I find there is always a certain group that doesn’t like to hear that, and you get a rolling of the eyes. You feel the same thing is beginning to happen on campuses. Universities are places where discussions took place in a civilized manner. Maybe “civilized” is not the right word to use — I take that back — but where debate was encouraged, let us say. Do you find that is lacking now?

Ms. Butler: I was speaking to a member who teaches in the social work field at a university not in Ontario, and she talked about anti-Semitism in the course but in the context of many other -isms. As she talked about anti-Semitism, some of her students walked out. That option of walking out, banging a drum or chanting so loudly that you can’t be heard is seen as the strongest statement of where your sense of social justice is. I wish we could turn to a place where we actually were listening to each other. It’s been many years since universities encouraged and modelled that civil discourse.

The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, that brings this panel to an end. Dr. Walker and Dr. Butler, on behalf of the committee, I want to sincerely thank you for taking the time to appear before us today and sharing your testimony. It has been very helpful to our deliberations and to this study.

Senator Salma Ataullahjan (Chair) in the chair.

The Chair: With us at the table, we have Ira Robinson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University. I now invite Dr. Robinson to make his presentation.

Ira Robinson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Religions and Cultures, Concordia University, as an individual: Madam Chair, honourable senators, thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee.

I will briefly introduce myself. I retired three years ago after an academic career at Concordia University lasting 42 years. My scholarly expertise is in the field of Jewish studies. More specifically, much of my study, teaching, research and publication over the period of approximately half a century has been in the area of Judaism and the Jewish community in Canada, and, more generally, the Jewish community in North America.

My chief claim to your attention is my book, A History of Antisemitism in Canada, published in 2015, which remains the most comprehensive guide to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in Canada to date. Since the book has been published, I have continued to pay attention to the issue, and I have a personal archive that I am constantly adding to with print and electronic publications on the subject. I have been actively working in the last few months on two forthcoming publications: the chapter on Canada in the forthcoming Cambridge History of Antisemitism and a supplement to my 2015 book.

Scholar Jeffrey Herf has stated in a recent book published in 2023 that anti-Semitism currently contains no ideas that have not been often expressed from the mid-20th century on. I find that to be true. Nonetheless, many if not most Jewish Canadians feel that their situation has changed for the worse after October 7, 2023. The reason is that, previously, their experience has not always or often been first-hand.

My colleague Professor Harold Troper wrote in the 1990s that his Jewish students’ experience of anti-Semitism was mostly at second or third hand. It is hardly credible today to say that Jewish-Canadian university students’ experience of anti‑Semitism could be dismissed in this way.

On the contrary, the 2023 report of Ayelet Kuper, the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine’s Senior Advisor on anti-Semitism, indicates that she personally has actively tried to hide her Jewish identity outside the Jewish community, including at the University of Toronto, because of anti-Semitism there. Kuper is not alone in her concerns and her actions.

Canadian universities in the past academic year, including my own university Concordia, have served as a major lightning rod for anti-Semitic manifestations, and these manifestations have adversely affected both Jews and other members of university communities who openly identify with Israel. As has been said by a previous witness, this includes the vast majority of Jewish Canadians. It has as well affected the smooth functioning of universities and, indeed, of Canadian society as a whole.

Law enforcement authorities have struggled to uphold the free speech rights of anti-Israel demonstrators while finding themselves unable to deal with the situation as Jewish schools in Montreal and Toronto have been damaged by gunshots and Molotov cocktails and synagogues and other Jewish institutions have received bomb threats.

Despite the rampant nature of these phenomena, a July 2024 article in The Globe and Mail by Michael Geist speaks of Jewish Canadians who have discovered that other Canadians often respond to their increased concerns about anti-Semitism with disbelief and denial. Geist cites many examples of this disbelief, including institutional disbelief. For instance, recently the editors of Wikipedia have determined that the Anti-Defamation League, one of the premier agencies in the battle against anti-Semitism in North America, should not be considered a “reliable source” on anti-Semitism, largely due to its support of Israel.

Anti-Semitism in Canada is by all standards detrimental to the Canadian-Jewish community and to the human rights of the individual Jewish Canadians who are its members. I therefore commend the members of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights for giving proper attention to this issue.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

I’m going to do something which I normally never do, and that is asking you the first question. I’m just so interested in your work. You must have heard my question to the previous witnesses about the history of anti-Semitism — the longest hatred, as it is known. I know you talk about anti-Semitism in Canada, but would you be able to share some information with us about what is driving this? I’m not talking about now, because we all know what is driving it now, but where did it start and what was driving it?

Mr. Robinson: That is a large question, and I don’t have 24 hours to answer it, but I will try my best.

There are many religions and ideologies throughout history that have determined that standing between them and their ideal world are the Jews. This was true of Hitlerian Nazism. It remains true of Hamas. Once again, Hamas has a vision of a pure, wonderful Islamic society, only standing in between are the Jews.

Now, it has to be said that anti-Semitism is something that does not remain the same. It changes according to the way the world changes. For instance, in the Middle Ages, when religion was the ultimate authority, what amounts to anti-Semitism came from the basis of religion and religious texts such as the New Testament, for instance.

In the 19th century, the influence of religion in society declined, and what was rising was science. Science was the great progressive thing of the 19th century, and anti-Semitism built up a pseudoscience of “scientific racism” to explain why the Jews should be denied.

In our age, religion is not being foregrounded, and science is not being foregrounded. What is really important to us in our society is human rights, and anti-Semitism is being brought to the fore in what I would consider to be a perversion of the idea that the Jews are responsible for denial of, for instance, Palestinian human rights.

Now, once again, this is a long story, and it is a very involved story. Looking at anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism from what historians would call the longue durée, one can see both continuity and change.

When I mentioned the book by Jeffrey Herf, he is absolutely right that there is nothing that is being brought to the fore now that we didn’t find a century ago. In fact, there was Holocaust denial before the Holocaust. In the 1930s, in Canada, leaders of the Social Credit movement in Alberta were saying that Jews are faking the persecution of Jews in Germany for their own benefit. There was denial of Jewish persecution in Germany in the face of much press coverage in North America that this was the case.

The Chair: Like you said, you could talk about it for 24 hours.

Mr. Robinson: I don’t have anything to do until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, but I think you perhaps do.

The Chair: I think judging by the weather outside, some of the senators might want to be out of here.

Senator Arnot: Professor Robinson, I’m going to give you a chance to expound some more here, which is good. You have extensive research in Canadian Jewish history, and you have documented patterns of anti-Semitism. Would you please describe some of these patterns — you already have a little bit — and could you also describe what you believe are the most enduring sources of anti-Semitism, the common denominators in the Canadian context, and how they have evolved or adapted in recent years?

Mr. Robinson: One of the key and probably most striking continuities in the history of anti-Semitism in general, but in Canada specifically, is the fact that anti-Semites do not wish to identify as such. One of the more interesting things I got to do in my history of anti-Semitism in Canada was to allow anti-Semites to explain to the reader why they are not anti-Semites. In Ontario, in the 19th century, there was the quite renowned public intellectual Robertson Smith, who was a really important intellectual influence on the future Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie King, and who absolutely denied that he had any sort of prejudice. He just said, “Jews are bad, and it is a fact. I’m not prejudiced.”

There are many aspects to anti-Semitism in Canada, and one of the more important things that I think served to make Jews different for other Canadians was the vision the Canadian political leaders had of Canada in the 19th and early 20th century. For instance, both in Quebec and in English Canada, there was an agrarian ideal. Good Canadians are farmers. We do not want immigrants to come to large cities and become part of an urban proletariat; we want farmers to come — preferably from the British Isles, of course, but farmers. Jews established agricultural colonies in Saskatchewan particularly but in other places in Quebec and Manitoba, all over the place; nonetheless, most Jews were urbanites.

The second issue was that Canada saw itself as divided into, of course, what MacLennan called the two solitudes, French Quebecers and English Canadians — French Quebec and English Canada — and Jews were neither French nor English speakers. They were neither Protestant nor Catholic, though for educational purposes, in Montreal, they were educated in the Protestant school system, with whatever difficulty. There is a long story to that too. Anyway, that is, in a very brief way, a highlight.

Senator Arnot: It is important to set that historical context. It is part of the foundation of the report that we need to do, in my opinion. I appreciate your advice. Thank you.

Senator Bernard: Dr. Robinson, thank you for being here.

You have an impressive body of work on the history of anti‑Semitism in Canada. I’m wondering if you have explored intersectionality in your work and how experiences are different depending on one’s social location.

Mr. Robinson: There are many theoretical bases on which the Canadian academy likes to classify. Intersectionality is one of them. There are many theoretical bases that are quite popular and widespread within the social sciences and humanities in Canadian universities and elsewhere. What happens is that theories are taken beyond, in my opinion, where they can carry. Theory, at its best, is brilliantly illuminating. At its worst, it distorts, because it channels people’s thinking in certain channels or in certain directions.

The phenomenon of anti-Semitism that I study and, more generally, the phenomenon of the Jewish-Canadian community, which I also study, is one which is, in a certain way, sui generis. It is a special case that needs to be engaged with within its specificities and peculiarities. A too-rigid adherence to theoretical doctrine, in my opinion, works to the detriment of a fuller understanding.

Therefore, what happens is that intersectionality, which ultimately says that everything is connected, in itself, is a quite reasonable idea, and yet a too-rigid adherence to intersectionality, in the hands of anti-Zionist academics, somehow leads to a blanket denial of Israel.

Another example I will take is from the Critical Whiteness Studies. Indeed, it is true that people who were legally considered to be White people were privileged. That is the absolute basis of truth upon which Critical White Studies begins, and yet as the literature of White studies develops, we find — particularly in the study in the United States — that it’s not merely that Jews were slave owners in a society where White people owned enslaved people; somehow, it turns out that Jews, a small minority of people, were somehow the linchpin and instigators of slavery. Once again, theory can be brilliantly illuminating. Sometimes, in practice, it is less so.

Senator Ataullahjan: I should have mentioned that senators have five minutes for questions and the answers. We will begin now.

Senator Osler: My question is on the role of education to combat anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred. I was struck by our last panel. The two professors spoke about university students they have taught who have firm Holocaust denial beliefs. I recognize that education is provincial and territorial jurisdiction, but do you have any data on Holocaust education in Canadian schools? Has the curricula changed over time? Are there standards in terms of what should be taught? Are there enough efforts around education in schools and on teaching the teachers?

Mr. Robinson: There have been quite significant efforts in terms of educating the public about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. One of the large factors in this has been the founding, starting in the late twentieth century, of Holocaust museums in Montreal, Vancouver and across this country. These are not mere museums; they have in their mission statements to bring in as many students, whether primary or secondary.

There are efforts beyond the Holocaust centres. I myself went to public school grades 4 and 5, for instance, to talk about it. Once again, it requires great forethought. How does one talk to grade 4 and 5 students? There are ways to do it. No one is perfect, and certainly I do not consider myself to be the last word in Holocaust education. There are lots of individuals at all educational levels who are thinking about this thought. Yet, we see that the issue does not rest.

Senator Osler: Thank you.

Senator Senior: I’m not quite sure I’ve gotten this question right, but I will take a stab at it because it’s something that I’ve been observing, and I’m trying to understand the role it plays in terms of anti-Semitism. There is a seeming link between what I would call the “Christian right,” so to speak, in Canada and the U.S. — very strongly in the U.S. — and strong support of Israel. My observation is questioning whether they are fighters of anti‑Semitism as well. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, I do. Once again, there is the short answer and then there’s the real answer. The real answer is not short and simple; its long and complex, I’m afraid. That is because people make the mistake of thinking of the Christian right, whether in Canada or the United States, as a simple bloc. It is anything but simple. There’s a very recent book on American Evangelical Christians in the United States that shows that there are, in fact, many facets to Evangelical Christianity in the United States, which certainly do include strong support for Israel by many, but it also includes significant support for the Palestinian cause.

As a simple generalization, I would say that many people who are motivated to be religious Christians in one way or another, not merely Protestant but Catholic and Orthodox, committed Christians, have a large tendency to be supportive of Israel in the present day, always with exceptions, and the exceptions have always been the case. Once again, as a broad generalization, the more liberal Christianities tend to be, relatively speaking, more critical of Israel.

Senator Senior: Speaking again in generalizations, I get the distinction, because there is nothing that is broken down in such simple terms, but the impression I’ve gotten is that the support for Israel doesn’t necessarily translate into being supportive of work against anti-Semitism.

Mr. Robinson: Once again, I can make no blanket statements, and I will not make any blanket statements. What I will say, however, is that religiously committed Christians are a large source of non-Jewish allies of the Jewish community.

The Chair: It raises another question for us, professor, when you say that you find that liberal Christians support Palestine. When we talk about Palestine and Palestinians, we’re not only talking about Muslims, right? There are Christian Palestinians, and there are people of other faiths also. Do you think that might have something to do with it?

Mr. Robinson: Certainly, Palestinian Christians are a factor. They are beleaguered from many sides because, on the one hand, they are Palestinians facing Israel with all the tensions involved there, but they are also Christians in a Palestinian population that is more and more Muslim, and not merely Muslim because they were born Muslim but Muslim in the terms of their societal vision. Hamas, for instance, as an example, is a Muslim movement that looks for the ultimate triumph of Islam and is, therefore, in somewhat tension with Orthodox or Catholic or, indeed, Protestant Palestinians whose community is, as a percentage of the Palestinian population, dwindling. Once again, that’s a large and an extremely fraught subject, but this is part of it.

The Chair: Your specialty is Canadian anti-Semitism. You briefly mentioned that, in the 1930s in Alberta, you saw a rise of anti-Semitism. What happened then? After the Second World War, where did it go? Did it quiet down?

Mr. Robinson: The short answer is that anti-Semitism did not quiet down. In fact, the period after the Second World War, from 1945 to the early 1950s, was a continuation of the restriction of Jewish immigration into Canada made famous by the book None Is Too Many by Abella and Troper. The revelation of the systematic destruction of European Jewry did not change that immediately. It took until the late 1940s and into the early 1950s for the impact of this to get through and for Jewish refugees in Europe to be admitted into Canada in any appreciable numbers. So it does not quiet down then.

What happened, however, in the 1950s and especially into the 1960s was the discrediting of institutional racism in Canada. There was certainly not just racism against Jews — Asian Canadians, Black Canadians, First Nations, it need not be said — but starting in the 1950s and into the 1960s, institutionalized racism such as segregated schools or segregated neighbourhoods become illegal and were looked upon not merely as illegal but immoral. The quieting down of anti-Semitism in Canada in the 1950s and into the 1960s is part of a larger story and a larger evolution of Canadian society.

Once again, Canada is a society that has never stood still. It is always in an ongoing conversation, and this conversation can be very tense at times. It is an ongoing conversation which takes us from a period where Black Nova Scotians needed to go up to the balcony of the cinema to watch the movies. Canada does not stand still. It evolves, and it evolves in conversation. Canadian conversations are not unidirectional. We are at a point in Canadian history where the conversation on Jews, particularly — not just Jews, but Jews in particular, this is what we’re talking about — is going in a direction that I personally do not like, and I believe that most Canadians do not like.

I commend this committee for paying attention to some of the directions that the Canadian societal conversation is going to see how we can possibly get the conversation going in different directions.

Senator Ataullahjan: I ask these questions because the panel before said that there are many people who have an ignorance of anti-Semitism and don’t realize it. They never heard of it. For those who are watching, I want them to understand that this is something that has been in Canada for some time. Those are questions that I was asking, since we have you here to learn from your knowledge. The previous panel also mentioned that you were the authority on the history of anti-Semitism in Canada. That was the reason I was asking you. We want it to be a matter of public record. Thank you.

Senator Arnot: Professor Robinson, given your involvement in academic and community leadership, what specific policy changes or education initiatives would you recommend to combat anti-Semitism in an effective way today?

Mr. Robinson: That, once again, is a large question, and I do not have two hours to harangue you. I will start, and I won’t finish. I can only start by saying that what is important is not merely the language we use but what comes after our wonderful statements.

I have heard political leaders in Canada on all levels — municipal, provincial, national — decry anti-Semitism, and one of the great words that they use is “unacceptable.” All right. We can all agree that anti-Semitism in Canada is unacceptable. Then what? If the Mayor of Montreal will say that anti-Semitism is unacceptable, which she has, where is the next word, which is, “Now here is what we’re going to do about it”? It is easy to say, “unacceptable.” It is agreeable to say, “unacceptable.” That’s the easy part. The hard part is working out the details.

It need not be said that there needs to be a political will to go beyond saying it’s unacceptable and actually utilizing the powers that law enforcement and the judiciary have. It is not a matter that there are no laws against hate speech in Canada; there sure are. There is a great hesitancy to use the powers of law enforcement or the powers of the judicial system. That is because Canada is also a country that values freedom of speech and expression.

So now where do you go? How do you balance freedom of expression, freedom of speech and protection of the human rights of communities like the community of Jewish Canadians? If I were smart, I would know the answer. I know how to present the problem.

The Chair: Thank you very much. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you, Professor Robinson, for taking the time to come and appear before us. Your testimony will help when we are writing our study.

(The committee adjourned.)