I served as minister of finance and held other cabinet portfolios in British Columbia’s New Democratic Party governments over the past seven years. Ostensibly, for my impolitic words about the state of the land that became Israel, I was fired from cabinet by David Eby, who hopes to be elected B.C.’s premier next Saturday.
My experience with the provincial NDP is a lesson for Jews, for other Canadians, and — although they seem unlikely to learn from it — the New Democratic Party itself. My memoir, which will be released next month, addresses the specifics of my firing from cabinet and my resignation from caucus. It also contains lessons for the federal party, as well as important considerations for Canadians struggling to decide which party would be best to lead Canada into the future in an election that could happen at any time, considerations I feel are too important to wait for the release of my memoir to share.
The federal New Democratic Party has used Israelis and Palestinians as wedges in an attempt to gain political advantage. In March 2024, the NDP Foreign Affairs critic Heather McPherson led what must be one of the most acrimonious, damaging attacks on our multicultural harmony a political party has ever perpetrated.
McPherson put forward a motion to recognize Palestinian statehood, suspend the sale of military equipment to Israel, and generally declare Israel bad/Palestine good. The content of the motion, eventually watered down by more than a dozen amendments, matters little. It was a non-binding motion and neither Israelis nor Palestinians, to be frank, really care much what Canada’s parliament has to say about their situation.
The motion had zero practical impact on the conflict in the Middle East. What it did was exacerbate the conflict among Canadians.
We were five short months after the horrors of October 7 and in the midst of a tragic, bloody war that started that day — and the NDP caucus in parliament used this excruciatingly painful conflict for crass political advantage. McPherson, leader Jagmeet Singh, and the rest of the NDP caucus looked at Canadian multicultural communities in pain and decided to try to score some points off them. It made me ashamed to be a New Democrat.
The situation, as everyone knows, is that the federal NDP caucus was unified on one side of this issue. The federal Conservatives were unified on the other. The Liberal government and caucus were deeply divided. And so the NDP thought it would be fun to watch the Liberals squirm.
What the NDP did was take an issue that was explosive and agonizing for (at least) two cultural communities in our country and poured salt all over it. They ensured that people — no matter which side they were on — became more entrenched and divided on an already deeply painful issue.
I have often wondered what benefit the federal NDP sees in poking sticks around this particular conflict. If it were a genuine concern for Palestinian well-being, the NDP would not be promoting a polarizing, one-sided narrative. They would be encouraging dialogue and coexistence.
So I assumed it must be an ideological motivation driving this, a simplistic binary that powerful Israel is oppressing powerless Palestinians.
But a third possibility exists, and McPherson’s deplorable motion convinced me this is the likeliest explanation.
The Canadian Jewish community is small — and, as a proportion of the population, shrinking. Moreover, as it has gone from being a mostly immigrant community to a more established ethnocultural group over the decades, many Jews have shifted right economically and politically. (Aided, of course, by NDP policies that make us feel unwelcome in the party.)
The Canadian Muslim community is now about five times the size of the Jewish community — and growing fast. New Democrats can read those tea leaves. Voting numbers matter.
The federal NDP, I think, has made a crude political calculation. It may be the same calculation B.C. Premier David Eby made when confronted by imams and Muslim organizations threatening his party’s access to Muslim voters unless I was fired.
While this might seem like a wise political calculation, there is a problem. Like evangelical Christians, many religious Muslims are deeply conservative on social issues. They are, according to opinion polls, however, deeply invested in the Palestinian cause.
We have already seen a sort of unholy alliance over Palestine between the progressive and Muslim activists who may disagree on marriage equality, women’s rights, pluralism, the separation of religion and state, and a host of other issues. But they can find common cause on Palestine.
There are liberal Muslims, to be clear. Just as there are liberal Christians and Jews, and liberal members of every other group. But many of the people the NDP is hoping to attract by waving the Palestinian flag are not progressives. They may create a schism in the party that could blow the entire enterprise wide open. It’s possible they may come for the Palestinianism, but they’ll also stay for the debate on queer rights, reproductive freedom, women’s roles in society, and funding for religious educational institutions.
As recently as a year ago, I thought my party might be able to handle that debate. Now, I have every reason to believe that political expediency will trump core values.
The NDP has already demonstrated no loyalty to the thousands of Jews who invested decades to build the left in Canada. Their commitment to fighting antisemitism is limited to hollow words — if that. If we cannot trust the NDP to stand firm against antisemitism, can we trust the party to be any more loyal to the other things we consider inviolable to the left today?
If the party becomes addicted to the votes of religious conservatives who hate Israel, what else will they sacrifice to keep those voters and activists happy? Gay rights? Feminism? Inclusive curricula? Separation of religion and state?
It sounds ludicrous, I know.
But if you had told me a few years ago that Jews would not feel welcome in the NDP, I would have called that outrageous too.
National Post
Adapted from Selina Robinson’s memoir, “Truth Be Told,” which will be self-published on Nov. 21. Robinson was the NDP MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville in British Columbia from 2013 until she left caucus to sit as an independent in March. She served as cabinet minister in three portfolios: municipal affairs and housing, finance and post-secondary education.