The NDP is facing serious criticism for disavowing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The occasion was the release, by the Department of Canadian Heritage, of a 40-page “Canadian Handbook” laying out how the definition should be applied (could be applied? Must be? It’s unclear) in this country.
The major issue is an evergreen one: whether and in what circumstances criticism of Israel or of Zionism should be considered antisemitic. That relates most specifically to the following example of antisemitism included in the IHRA definition: “Applying double standards by requiring of (Israel) a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
Edmonton MP Blake Desjarlais, the NDP’s diversity and inclusion critic, pointed to alternativedefinitions that “have explicit language that protects the right to criticize (Israeli) state or government policies, without being labelled antisemitic.”
“(The government must) ensure that the federal government’s working definition is not weaponized to silence legitimate criticisms of state institutions and their actions or to deny the experiences of others,” said Desjarlais. “Furthermore, New Democrats emphasize that the definition should remain non-binding and that no specific approach be imposed on other institutions, including with federal funding decisions and university campus policies.”
In a statement from B’nai Brith, the Jewish group’s senior legal counsel David Matas argued “the IHRA definition has become the object of misinformation and disinformation, generating unnecessary controversy.”
“The NDP’s insistence that IHRA be ‘non-binding’ and not influence ‘federal funding decisions and university campus policies’ ignores the pressing need for substantive measures against the alarming rise in antisemitic incidents across Canada,” B’nai Brith added.
Montreal Liberal MP Anthony Housefather called the NDP’s decision “deeply disturbing,” and urged New Democrats who disagree to speak out. Jeremy Levi, the outspoken mayor of Hampstead, Que., accused the NDP of being “on the wrong side of the fight against antisemitism.”
The thing is, the NDP is right about this. I suspect they’re right for a bad reason, namely, to placate their anti-Israel constituency. (They need any constituency they can get nowadays.) The party certainly isn’t a stalwart on free-speech issues, happily promoting Winnipeg MP Leah Gazan’s private-member’s bill that purports to outlaw “residential school denialism.” And as recently as 2015, New Democrats supported the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism, a predecessor document to the IHRA definition that contained nearly identical language about applying double-standards to Israel.
Double standards deserve to be called out, not banned
To be clear, most of the IHRA definition makes perfect sense, laying out entirely justified definitions and examples of antisemitism. including examples we’ve seen on Canadian streets over the past 13 months since last October 7th: notably holding Jews and their businesses responsible for the Israeli government’s and military’s decisions, if not comparing them to Nazis. It’s entirely understandable that people are desperate for the government to do something about it.
But the “double standard” rule is highly problematic on several levels.
Raving antisemites are reliably obsessed with Israel over all other nations. But not everyone obsessed with Israel over all other nations can be presumed to be antisemitic.
And it’s not at all clear to me how one would even go about applying the IHRA’s double-standard test to other advanced democracies in the world, because no comparable situation springs to mind in any other advanced democracy. The situation in and around Israel is nothing if not unique.
Any free-speech advocate worth their salt should have qualms about this. Double standards deserve to be called out, not banned.
But there’s the rub: What does this project really wish to accomplish?
The Heritage Canada “handbook” makes clear that nothing in the definition or its analysis of the definition alters the legal status of any speech relating to antisemitism. But the IHRA standard has been adopted by Parliament as Canada’s “official definition” of antisemitism (along with more than 40 other countries). And the handbook also suggests the definition be incorporated into training materials for lawyers and judges.
“While the IHRA definition is not legally binding, for law enforcement it could increase awareness of the varied manifestations antisemitism can take for … law-enforcement officer and support-staff training, and professional development; and … identifying and recording hate incidents and crimes, drafting police reports, and laying charges,” the handbook explains, bafflingly.
At best, I think, this is going to sow even more confusion among Canadians as to what constitutes illegal and illegal speech in this country.
Since 2022 there has been a law on the books that purports to target someone who, “by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust.” Here’s how you know the Liberals took the initiative very seriously: It was jammed into that year’s budget implementation bill, and it doesn’t bother to define “antisemitism.”
Canadians can easily be forgiven if they think the IHRA definition is now active in the Criminal Code, when it is not. And the new “handbook” doesn’t shed much light on what the IHRA definition is for, if not for that.
The definition would be much less troubling if it lost the bit about “double standards” — as I say, most of it is uncontroversial and not wildly different from the alternative, more “progressive” definitions Desjarlais says the NDP prefers. But the weirdness of all this would remain: Why is the government adopting a definition of antisemitism if it doesn’t intend to use it in any official capacity? And what will it attempt to define next?
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