Students are returning to campuses across Canada. Also returning, we can assume, will be some of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activism and encampments that we saw in many places last spring.
As British Columbia’s former minister of post-secondary education — and as a Jew — I witnessed the activism on our campuses last academic year veer from constructive idealism into explicit race-hatred. When we hear and see calls for violence and threats to members of identifiable groups, that ceases to be activism. That becomes a crime.
Campuses should be places of conflict around ideas. What we saw, far too often last spring, were Jewish and Israeli students challenged not on the basis of their ideas, but on the basis of their identities.
When I was minister, I made it explicitly clear to the administrators of the 25 post-secondary institutions in B.C. that I expected open dialogue — but I also expected that trespasses against Canada’s laws and norms around discriminatory expressions and incitement to hatred would not be tolerated.
Some administrators, understandably, expressed concerns about finding the balance between rights of expression and academic freedom, on the one hand, and the right, on the other hand, of members of identifiable groups to be free from threats, discrimination, intimidation and targeting.
Many of them were, quite rightly, concerned about lawsuits. But perhaps litigation is precisely what we need.
Provincial governments — and, ideally, foundations and philanthropists who share a commitment to inclusivity — should step up and encourage universities and colleges to test our laws should these activists again cross the line into discrimination, hatred and calls to violence.
On the one hand, institutions have been allowing hate and intolerance to flourish on campuses (and elsewhere) in part out of fear of lawsuits. Police may be hesitant to enforce existing laws because they suspect the Crown will not pursue charges. And the Crown may not believe that the courts will enforce the laws.
There’s only one way to find out.
We face a serious social challenge. We have laws against hate speech and incitement to violence that are not being enforced — at precisely the moment when our society is facing the very type of crisis for which these laws were enacted.
We need to test these laws.
We need to insist that laws we already have on the books are mobilized against those who celebrate the mass murder of Jews (“Long live October 7”), against those who encourage more harm to Jews (“Globalize the Intifada!”), and those who advocate genocide against Jews (“From the river to the sea!”)
Our post-secondary institutions need to know that we have their back when they bring in the police, evict these people from illegal encampments, and charge them on the basis that they are contravening our hate laws.
If the courts say that’s not hate speech, we need to go back to the legislators and tell them to fix the laws or bring in new legislation.
Until we test these laws, we will not know if they are adequate. If they are not adequate, we are not going to get them fixed unless we test them. In the meantime, we are too often behaving as though we have no laws at all.
At a minimum, even when they are not enforced to the extent of their authority, laws exist as a society’s statement of ideal principles. Our laws around hate speech and incitement to violence are intended as an expression of our collective will to create a Canada that is inclusive, safe and welcoming of diversity.
Our refusal to enforce these laws makes a mockery of these values. We are sending precisely the opposite of the message our society intended when we put these laws on the books. What is the point of having laws against hate when Jewish students are literally prevented from entering what amount to enemy-occupied parts of campuses, where overt expressions of hatred and threats of violence, even genocide, are openly expressed without consequence?
These laws must be tested in court.
If not now, when?
Special to National Post
Selina Robinson was British Columbia’s minister of post-secondary education and future skills, and previously served as minister of finance and minister of municipal affairs and housing. She is writing a book about her experiences.