The most civic engagement I have witnessed in Canada has been over the last year. Sounds lovely, right? It sounds suggestive of a much-needed renaissance within Canadian civil society. But alas, it was not.
Sadly, the civic engagement I have witnessed in Canada over the past year has been enacted by shills for terrorist organizations, organized street mobs braying for genocide, while falsely accusing Israel of the same, and by Canadians celebrating October 7 and (we can only assume) the killing, raping, or burning of victims — some babies — and the kidnapping of hostages that occurred on that terrible day one year ago. In our capital, Canadians shouted “Long live October 7!” Useful idiots.
The most people I’ve ever seen fill the gallery of my city hall, and spill into the overflow gallery, for weeks on end, were there to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Most got up and left as soon as they spoke, not staying to engage in municipal affairs. They were there for Hamas, not their community. In my city (New Westminster, B.C.), they sniggered and laughed at a Jewish woman who said she felt unsafe over rising antisemitism. Once, they refused to leave chambers, grinding city council to a halt because of a terrorist-initiated war in the Middle East, thousands of miles away.
The largest Canadian campus protests I have ever observed occurred over the year following October 7. Pro-Palestine tent encampments stood for months on end on campuses. The students (and others) inside called themselves the intifada: the Arabic word for uprising.
Canada could use a good uprising for our own domestic crises: unchecked opioid overdose deaths; poverty and homelessness; our healthcare system in its death throes; the erosion of our Charter rights and freedoms; foreign interference — my god, things are bad — or any other Liberal scandal that has scarcely registered in the minds of our citizens over the last decade. Where the hell are Canadians?
Are we a nation of fools that shows up to march in the streets not for ourselves, but for terrorists — Hamas, or Samidoun, or Hezbollah? For the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? Can we not discern support of terrorist regimes — or even brazen glorification of terrorism — from a show of solidarity for those suffering and dying in a terrible, but arguably necessary, war?
We have lost our way. We’ve proven ourselves to be a population susceptible to well-funded foreign astroturf movements. There is nothing grassroots about “Free Palestine” or their infiltration of western nations, where collecting shiny and new social justice causes is apparently as irresistible to many as the latest iPhone model. We want it, we need it, we have to have it. “From the River to the Sea,” we chant, hoping that no one asks which river, or which sea. Please don’t embarrass us, we are only trying to annihilate the evil colonial oppressors. We’re Queers for Palestine!
Our subservience has not gone unnoticed. For our anti-Israel protests, we stand out. “If you think it’s bad in America, Canada’s somehow worse,” American journalist Bari Weiss said on the day that Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel last week. We are not the polite neighbour of yesteryear.
Many of our own politicians proudly demonstrate that they’ve fallen for the propaganda of Qatar-funded Al Jazeera and the like. New Democratic Party member of parliament Niki Ashton posted a video on X claiming that “Canada used to be a champion of peace and justice.” Is Ashton angry about the Canadian citizens now marching in our streets daily, calling for the destruction of Israel? Is she angry about the unprecedented antisemitism within our borders following October 7? Nope. Canada is “failing to stand up to Netanyahu’s far right, genocidal government,” Ashton said with not a hint of irony. “Canada must act for Peace now. No to War,” she posted. Absent from Ashton’s rant: any mention of the terror and violence inflicted by Hamas or Hezbollah.
When I was growing up, Canadian students participated in the “National Youth Remembrance Contests” put on by The Legion National Foundation each November 11. We made artwork or wrote essays in honour of Canada’s veterans and the sacrifices they made for our country. Believing myself to be particularly clever at the ripe age of 11, I penned an essay about how stupid I found war to be. If our veterans had decided not to fight, there would be no war, I argued. Problem solved. Predictably, I won no awards for my fantastic insights into global geopolitical conflict. “Just play nice and stop fighting” is the argument of a child — and now, apparently, of some of Canada’s elected politicians.
How did our nation become so waylaid by thoughtlessness?
In the aforementioned conversation with Bari Weiss, journalist Douglas Murray lamented the same idea. “We’re weak and we’re silly and we’re drunk on peace,” Murray said. He’s right.
Given the choice, I’d rather that Canadians were politically disengaged versus shilling for Middle Eastern terrorists. I’d rather that we didn’t show up to city hall in the first place, than show up to do the bidding of foreign actors waging two wars: one of terror, and one of propaganda.
Can we put down the terrorist agitprop for a moment and start using our heads?
National Post