Politic?: Catering to the Demands of Antisemites Has Not Furthered Liberal Prospects

"I will unite every province and territory; business leaders and working people; and Canadians from every walk of life and of every political conviction."
"Protest is important. We are a free country, and one of the great things about our country is that people are free to express dissenting points of view."
"But what is not OK ... is to get in the way of others, expressing their point of view and putting forward their position."
Liberal leader candidate Chrystia Freeland

Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland speaks at a press conference in Toronto on Sunday Jan. 19, 2025, as she kicks off her campaign to become the next Liberal party leader. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

That sentiment, one imagines -- that people are free to express dissenting points of view, but not to interfere with the protests in respect of their rights of free expression -- is the reason why antisemitism and its free expression in a variety of public fora, is not interfered with by intervention of government authority at any level; above all, not by the federal government. So free expression of incitement to violence and race-hate, belittlement of others, threats and invasions of Jewish communities by supporters of Palestinian terrorism are not to be interrupted by the inconvenience of arrests even when such activities run afoul of Canadian laws against inciting to violence and hate expressed targeting an identifiable group.

Indeed, the governing Liberal party, of which Chrystia Freeland has been an outstanding cabinet member holding influentially prestigious posts, the last being Finance Minister and deputy Prime Minister, rewarding her staunch support of Justin Trudeau's government saw her in full support of isolating Israel as punishment for daring to defend itself against terrorist hordes. This government's very public stance in taking sides by curtailing, then forbidding any kinds of military arms sales to Israel, holding Israel to account for war crimes committed by its adversaries, calling for ceasefires rather than having Israel destroy a terrorist threat, and acceding to the ICC arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister, all expressed the position Canada chose to make.

And nor did Canada, traditionally a primary supporter of Israel, besieged by its Arab neighbours in a series of conflicts and more latterly by Muslim Brotherhood-and Iranian Republic-inspired terrorist groups see it as a betrayal of a fellow Democracy when it began censoring Israel at the United Nations at the presentation yet again of General Assembly censures of the Jewish State, brought against it by fellow Middle East states and the Palestinian Authority which traditionally pays homage to its 'martyrs' by providing them with handsome sums awarded for terrorist strikes against Israel.

It has not been the Trudeau government's failure to stand side by side with a country that shares so much of the values that reflect those of Canadians, but rather its generalized incompetence as a government and its furthering of hugely voter-unpopular stands on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Critical Race Theory that it promotes and which now runs deep in the ethos of Canadian universities, unions, school boards and government departments where skill, experience and merit are no longer considered optimum qualifications for employment, as opposed to minority status, in ethnicity, skin colour, and genderism is.

This is now a government on life support; the Canadian public having decided that the loathed special interest policies of the government, its contempt for the people, its alienating policies, estrangement and disrespect of the provinces, have earned it rejection with a strong majority viewing it as having long passed its prime. An election is in the offing, but one the ruling government evades even though it has lost even the confidence of his Liberal caucus and many in the Liberal cabinet, moving the hugely unpopular PM to finally announce his intention of stepping down.

His most prominent Cabinet supporter, Chrystia Freeland, stepped away when her adored Justin Trudeau lost his 'confidence' in her as Finance Minister, proposing to remove her and replace her with another prime candidate of his choice. Now she, along with a handful of others, is running to replace Trudeau as Liberal head and PM, for that brief period left before an election call is forced on the government by a Parliamentary vote of non-confidence.e

At the recent announcement of Ms. Freeland's intention to contest the Liberal leadership, she was faced with a horde of hecklers, interrupting her speech, shouting phrases like "genocide supporter", "fascist" and "free Palestine!". This to the individual representing a government that had chosen to abandon Canadian Jews to the criminal harassment of 'pro-Palestinian' groups that have for over a year disrupted public life in Canada with their hate-infested marches and threats in Jewish neighbourhoods with no remedial action from the federal government.

Obviously the estrangement and distance and condemnation of Israel by this Canadian government was insufficient to placate the demands made by those consumed with Jew-hate, manifesting their antisemitic views by targeting Israel as an 'Apartheid', 'genocidal', 'colonialist' state. Canada is infested not only with immigrants/refugees/migrants from the Middle East bringing with them to Canada the virulent detestation of Jews and of Israel, and communicating their hatred to traditional Canadians for whom antisemitism is no stranger.