44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 27, 2022 02:00PM
moved that Bill C-250, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (prohibition—promotion of antisemitism), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before we get into tonight's debate on my private member's bill, I would like to acknowledge Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is actually today. Today is a time, I feel, to renew our commitment to combatting anti-Semitism in all its forms.
I am honoured today to rise and speak to Bill C-250, an act to amend the Criminal Code, prohibition—promotion of anti-Semitism, which is my private member's bill. Bill C-250 is modelled on subsection 319(2), “Wilful promotion of hatred”, in the Canadian Criminal Code. However, the bill focuses specifically on Holocaust denial because of the gravity of the event in our history. If the House chooses to pass Bill C-250, it will make Holocaust denial, which is one of the key indicators of anti-Semitism and radicalization, illegal in this country, and the offence will be punishable with incarceration.
B'nai Brith just released its 2021 audit of anti-Semitism incidents this week, and for the sixth consecutive year, records were set for anti-Semitism in this country. There was an increase, unfortunately, of 7.2%. Nearly eight anti-Semitic incidents occurred every day in this country in 2021. The actual number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded last year was 2,799. This marked the fourth consecutive year in which the 2,000 plateau was exceeded.
Heather Fenyes is a past president of Congregation Agudas Israel Synagogue, in my city of Saskatoon, a CIJA local partner, a Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights board member and the chair of the Concentus Citizenship Education Foundation. This is what she had to say about Bill C-250. “When the Holocaust is denied, Jewish people die. This malignant seed of hate left unchecked threatens Jews at home, in their synagogues and within their communities. Anti-Semitism, the most pernicious of hates, is the canary in the coal mine. Where hate is left unfettered, nobody is immune from its consequences; signalling a threat to all communities. Making Holocaust denial illegal is a step towards creating safer spaces for Jews in particular and building a healthier society.”
Kevin Sharfe, president of the Congregation Agudas Israel Synagogue and Jewish Community Centre, said, “Holocaust denial is often a symptom of ignorance or intolerance. Sadly, denying the history of a people can lead to anti-Semitism, and more generally, widespread racism in our community. Healthy education is the way forward.”
The CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, made this statement: “Holocaust denial is a dangerous form of anti-Semitism. We deeply appreciate the leadership of the member from Saskatoon—Grasswood who introduced a private member's bill to criminalize this insidious form of Jew hatred. Thank you to the member from Thornhill for seconding [this bill].”
Ignorance and intolerance must be confronted and condemned wherever they exist. Ideally, I would be happy if this Criminal Code amendment were never used. Punishment is the last resort. Criminalization is an imperfect tool, but it is also an important tool to stop a behaviour that we as a society consider offensive. Criminalization is also an important step toward changing attitudes in this country. Criminalization will help draw a moral limit on the erosion of history. It will be a message to those who wish to erase historical truths.
Suppression of anti-Semitism is not the goal. Education is the key to ending anti-Semitism and the hateful fallout that comes from ignorance. Education is the safeguard of history. Holocaust denial is not free speech; it is an abuse of free speech. It is an abuse of a freedom that we all cherish in this country. It is an attack on Canadian values and our respect for diversity. If we stand by and allow history to be erased by allowing the Holocaust to be denied, distorted or minimized, we allow democracy to be eroded.
Research has shown that people who learn about the Holocaust are more likely to care about other communities, develop anti-racist attitudes and oppose persecution. It is imperative that our future generations know and understand that, from early 1941 until 1945, six million Jewish children, women and men were murdered in a state-sponsored genocide we now remember as the Holocaust. We cannot allow this chapter in history to be denied, minimized or lost. We must continue to educate Canadians to face history with courage and to call out and confront intolerance and racism every time it emerges.
If we do not continue to educate Canadians about the horrors of the Holocaust and the dangers of anti-Semitism, we leave room for hatred, racism and radicalization to take root and grow more in this country.
I will point out two recent examples that come to mind. The first one is the case of Joseph DiMarco. He was a Timmins, Ontario, school teacher who was fired in 2019 after teaching Holocaust denial. The Ontario College of Teachers held a disciplinary hearing last year to deal with the allegations that he taught Holocaust denial theories in the years 2018-19. When DiMarco's teaching licence was pulled, Michael Levitt, president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center had this to say:
The disturbing actions by this former teacher demand nothing less than his inability to set foot in a classroom ever again. Instead of using the opportunity to teach about the Holocaust and [even] 9/11 and their lessons, he decided to spread Holocaust denial and antisemitism, doing an extreme disservice to his students.... Educators have a duty to not only provide students with factual information, but to also inspire them to be upstanding citizens who stand against hate and intolerance.
I think we would all agree that the most publicized case would be the James Keegstra trial a number of decades ago. For those who do not have the background, Keegstra was charged and convicted of hate speech in 1984 for willfully promoting hatred against an identified group by teaching his students that the Holocaust was a fraud and by promoting anti-Semitism.
Keegstra was a high school teacher in Alberta until he was fired in 1982. He expected his students to accept his views, and their grades suffered if they dared to oppose them. Keegstra, by the way, served as mayor of Eckville, Alberta from 1974-83, when his offensive and anti-Semitic views caused citizens to overwhelmingly vote him out of office in 1983. He appealed the conviction to the Supreme Court, where it was upheld.
Most Supreme Court justices believe that hate speech is not a victimless crime. They understood the potential of hate speech and anti-Semitism to be harmful and dangerous, and to promote violence.
Violence and radicalization cannot be allowed a space to grow in this country. We cannot overcome and overlook the obvious causes, and when these offences are being perpetrated by educators, they are especially egregious and very harmful. I understand that hatred and anti-Semitism are not eliminated by legislation, but legislation alone is one rung on the ladder.
I have heard the criticisms all over on this legislation. I have read media reports that imply that criminalization will only muffle anti-Semitism, but doing nothing is not a solution. It deeply concerns me that for some people doing nothing is an acceptable path forward. Paying lip service and making virtuous gestures is somehow seen as a substitution for action. I want there to be no mistake that education is the action that is needed and that criminalization is the tool to demonstrate that anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, minimization and distortion are not going to be tolerated in this country anymore.
A 2020 study on Holocaust awareness by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, conducted by Nanos, supports the notion of education. I will quote that study and I am happy to table the study if there is consensus among members in the House. The 2020 study on Holocaust awareness and education reveals that 59% of people in Canada's Prairies believe that young people are not taught enough about the Holocaust in school, and 73% believe young people are less aware of the Holocaust and its lessons today than in the past, while 92% of people in the Canadian Prairies say teaching about discrimination is either somewhat important or important and 96% believe teaching about the Holocaust is either somewhat important or important.
In a July 2021 report on hate crimes in Canada by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, Statistics Canada data indicates an increase in hate crimes. Again I am happy to table the part of that report that says that. If we go back to July 27 last year, it stated, “Statistics Canada released hate crime statistics for 2020 today, revealing that police-reported hate crimes increased by 37 per cent last year and reached the highest number ever recorded, 2,669. According to StatCan's annual police-reported crime statistics report, the Jewish community saw an almost five per cent increase in hate crimes”.
I am going to move now to a person I have known for a number of years. He was an educator in the city of Saskatoon. Right now, he is the president of B'nai Brith, David Katzman. He is from Lodge 739 in my city. He made the following comments on a bill to criminalize willfully promoting anti-Semitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust. He described the Holocaust as the industrialization of the mass murder of over 11 million people, including six million Jews. As he said, condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust has always been the most powerful magnet for those who hate Jews, and most often these same haters have a long list of “others” who must be abused or banished. Canadians, he said, treasure our national commitment for all persons to live freely and safely.
The government has now taken the precedented step once again of appropriating the private member's bill I introduced as the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood. In the last Parliament, it took my bill and fumbled it, and then I actually held on to the ball and got it over the goal line. This time, though, it has taken the text of my private member's bill and parked it halfway through seven pages of potential future promises in annex 3 of the budget document. There is no commitment here, just a vague suggestion of future consideration.
I urge members to understand the difference between my bill, Bill C-250, and the version of this bill that the government has chosen to place into the omnibus budget legislation. Bill C-250 will have the teeth that the “budget lite” version will not have.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks today by thanking all members of the House for ensuring that we have a meaningful debate about the meaning and importance of today, about Holocaust remembrance in particular and about how important this bill truly is. The planning and carrying out of the destruction of six million Jewish lives is a terrible tragedy to reflect upon, particularly here in Canada, a place where we are not unfamiliar to this.
Today and every day, we are called on to remember the truth, the brutal truth, that six million Jews died simply for being themselves, for being who they are, for being true to that promise. Women, children and men were executed by the terrible and evil Nazi regime simply for being themselves. All Canadians deserve to be who they are. That is a basic principle that I believe our country can stand by.
Today we must not only remember, but challenge ourselves to go even further and do more. Families across our country are still grieving from the reality of this painful and lasting experience. We must acknowledge and recommit to the elimination of hatred, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in all its forms. We must combat the poisonous hatred that is anti-Semitism. It is our duty, but sadly anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada and around the world. Jewish people continue to face discrimination, prejudice and physical violence simply for being themselves.
I know the struggle of wanting to ensure that we are honest with ourselves and that this country has the protections to ensure it. It is our job as parliamentarians to ensure that we not only stick up and stand up for the things that our country has been able to achieve, but also go back and attempt to remedy all the things that we have not, including truly ensuring that anti-Semitism does not continue. Those who deny and condone the Holocaust should rightly face criminal prosecution. Their actions motivate hatred.
I am grateful to the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood for his leadership in tabling Bill C-250, legislation that would finally ban Holocaust denial in Canada. I want to thank the member for that.
Canada has an obligation, particularly as a democracy and a vibrant one, to condemn and combat Holocaust denial in every way, shape and form. The Jewish community has truly suffered from the horrors of the Nazi regime, but it continues to suffer. That is truly a pain that all Canadians must bear. This unique and truly painful experience is one that we must learn from and overcome. The New Democrats welcome Bill C-250 and hope that it will finally tackle this long-standing denial, which puts today's generation at risk.
I want to take the opportunity to shed some light on Canada's deeply problematic and anti-Semitic history.
Frederick Blair is one of the most shameful taints in Canadian history. As a high-ranking immigration official in the Government of Canada in the 1930s, Blair deliberately worked toward formulating immigration policies based on racial purity. This also included the exclusion of Jewish people. Notorious anti-Semites were in control of our policies here in Canada toward Jewish people during the Holocaust, at the time they needed us most. In 1941, Blair wrote, “Canada, in accordance with generally accepted practice, places greater emphasis on race than upon citizenship.” It is no secret that many other elite officials and such people with power were openly hateful. I am deeply remorseful for this facet of Canadian history, among many, many others.
Instead of accepting Jewish refugees with open arms, Canada's immigration policy openly denied them safe refuge. When people were coming from every corner of the world to this place, they were seeking refuge. We denied them. When many other allied countries were accepting tens of thousands of refugees, Canada only accepted 5,000 during the entire duration of the Holocaust.
Liberal prime minister William Mackenzie King's political decision was to limit Jewish immigration in Canada. In one of many such moments of shame, when the MS St. Louis arrived in 1939 from Germany carrying 937 refugees, Canada turned them away. It is shameful. Eventually, 254 of those passengers would perish, simply because they were being themselves and the complicity of Canada. We had the opportunity to act, and we failed.
It is also a documented fact that, when a Canadian immigration agent in 1939 was asked about the refugees and if Canada would commit to admit, he replied, “None is too many”.
“None is too many”. Can members imagine fleeing a terrible and atrocious event in history, such as the Nazi regime, and being denied? This despicable and discriminatory hate was on display for the entire world to see, and it si something we, in Canada, must recognize.
How can we claim the moral authority on the international stage without rectifying these mistakes? Our past is truly filled with shameful instances, but I believe our country is willing to fix it. The fear is that those past haunts will continue to haunt existing generations, and the fear is for the next generation. We must ensure a place of safety for them here in Canada.
This year, shockingly, we witnessed violent and undemocratic protests right outside this building, this Parliament, which is meant to be a symbol of our democracy, our unity and our diversity. Among them, Canadians witnessed something terrible. They saw truly disturbing visuals of hate symbols, such as the Confederate flag and the swastika.
These groups are beginning to accumulate copious amounts of power, with explicit intentions to increase crime, division and a continuation of the undermining of our democratic institution. This is precisely how power works. Large displays of anti-Semitic hate symbols on Parliament Hill must not become mainstream elements of our society. We must deny them. The power to control that narrative belongs to us, to those who are elected to speak on behalf of others.
We must confront these harsh truths. As a country, we must radically shift the gears to never forget and never again, by force and by action. We must never forget the crimes committed by the Nazis and continued by horrid hate groups around in Canada today.
New Democrats have always, and will always, stand for fighting against hate, and I am proud of my incredible caucus members who have proven their solidarity with vulnerable communities and brought them stern legislation to outlaw hate.
I would like to take this moment to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for introducing the private member's bill that would outlaw hate symbols such as Nazi swastikas.
I want to conclude by thanking many of those Jewish Canadians who continue to fight for justice, continue to fight anti-Semitism. I stand in firm solidarity with Jewish Canadians across our country in ending anti-Semitism as it spreads.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-250, presented in this House by my colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood. I thank him for that, and I thank other colleagues for their speeches today.
I rise to speak to this bill on the eve of Yom HaShoah, a day that commemorates the six million innocent Jewish men, women and children who were systematically murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. On this eve, Canadians across the country reflect on the unique horror of the Holocaust and pay tribute to the innocent victims, honour the survivors and recognize the righteous who risked their own lives to save the lives of strangers. The Holocaust was one of the darkest chapters in human history and on this day, we are presented with a sobering reminder of that history, which is why Yom HaShoah presents a fitting opportunity to debate this bill.
I will admit this bill is not entirely clear-cut for me, nor for everyone in the largest Jewish community in Canada, whom I have the distinct honour of representing in this House as the member of Parliament for Thornhill. It is not entirely clear-cut for those connected to the Holocaust directly, either one generation removed or two generations removed, or indirectly as Canadians who, on this day, help dignify the memory of its victims, of the survivors and of its unthinkable horrors.
Remembrance is at the core of this debate, so that this never happens again. For many, the protection and promotion of free speech are paramount. Given my own world view, it is difficult to square the circle on the necessity in the face of ideological purity. Hate speech is not free speech. In an ideal world, Holocaust education, remembrance and research would be sufficient to ensure a future where the denial of history would simply cease to exist, but sadly, that is not the case.
There is an enormous amount of evidence, of survivor testimony and of eyewitness accounts from those who liberated death camps. There are survivors among us still, our grandparents, our friends, those who bore witness to what happened. In the face of all that, Holocaust denial and distortion persist. Because they persist, it is a necessity to fight with the tools of legislation when existing laws fail to protect the truth, the truth about the horrors of the Holocaust.
Denial and distortion need to be prosecuted successfully as a powerful deterrent to say that this is not acceptable, that this is not okay, that this is not allowed in this country. Countering Holocaust denial and distortion is necessary to combat the efforts of those who blur the facts of what transpired about those complicit in the horror of trying to rewrite history. We must combat the distortion that insults the victims and the survivors. We must combat the distortion that perpetuates anti-Semitism. We must combat the distortion that fans the flames of violent extremism.
We must combat that distortion not only for the Jewish community, but for the thousands of people who defied the rules set down by the Nazis, set down by Hitler, and collectively saved countless LGBT people, disabled people, Roma and other minorities from certain death. The perversion of Holocaust denial attempts to erase their bravery and courage against Hitler and his followers. We must combat the distortion so that it does not threaten our own ability to understand the past and learn from it. Most importantly, we must combat the distortion so that the distortion does not become history itself.
The bill ensures the successful prosecution of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, and in the end should aim to prevent the resurgence of Nazism.
There is a rising tide of anti-Semitism. I have talked about it here in this House. I have talked about it outside of this House. It is not just rising out of the far right, and it is not just rising out of the far left. It is rising out of faculty clubs. It is rising on our university campuses, out of our social justice organizations and out of those very close to government.
There were 2,799 recorded anti-Semitic incidents of hate in 2021. One of the most common forms of that hate in attacking Jews was the denial and the distortion of the Holocaust. Almost eight incidents occurred every single day in 2021. That was a 59.8% increase from 2017. Those numbers should be alarming to everybody in this place, and those are not my statistics. They are from B'nai Brith's most recent audit, which we heard about this week. There is no question that they are under-reported, and that should be of concern.
The long history of the Jewish people has been characterized as a repetitious cycle: eras of oppression and darkness are interrupted by all-too-brief golden periods of liberation and flourishing creativity. However, as we know, the old anti-Semitism of persecution, pogroms and Nazi gas chambers has become a new, more subtle, but just as dangerous, cancer. It has an indirect genocidal goal that targets the Jewish national homeland.
Its proponents vilify Israel because it is the home of the Jewish people, and while this bill would not address that fact, there is no question that it is a driver of hate levelled against the Jewish people, and it is difficult not to acknowledge in a conversation about anti-Semitism in the House. Some members of the House have been complicit in fanning the flames of rhetoric against Israeli statehood that fuel the pernicious rise of a new anti-Semitism cloaked in Zionism, and they say to those who fan those flames outside of the House that this is okay.
Our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, talked about anti-Semitism in a speech at the Israeli Knesset. He was the first and only Canadian Prime Minister to do that. In that speech, he named a new anti-Semitism. It uses sophisticated language: words that are acceptable in polite society. That Prime Minister said, “I find it interesting that when I’m in Israel I’m asked to single out Israel. When I’m in the Palestinian Authority I’m asked to single out Israel. And when I am in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel.”
The public displays of hate we have seen lately across Canada have yielded no action, and that is why this bill is important. They have been encouraged by those in the House, those close to it, and those in polite society singling out Israel, as described by the Prime Minister in his speech, as okay.
It was unacceptable to see the flag of the Hamas terror group at an anti-Israel protest in Toronto just before the last election, when Hamas calls for the genocide of Jews in its charter; to see an anti-Israel manual sent to the country's largest school board by somebody on the school board in Toronto; to see the overt Jewish hatred of kids playing hockey for the Avenue Road Ducks, in the largest organized sports league in the city I am from; to see the countless swastikas drawn on schools, playgrounds, parks and homes in my community and communities across the country; or to see an open display of anti-Semitism last week in the streets of Toronto, as a pro-Palestinian rally cheered enthusiastically for rocket attacks on civilians.
It is anti-Semitism dressed up as anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish statehood, and any suggestion that the two are separate is part of the problem. Through this bill, the understanding that the Holocaust is a very unique history and that its denial drives hatred, perhaps someone will choose principle rather than coddling prejudice the next time the opportunity for courage presents itself, and that opportunity will come very soon.
This law is necessary as the number of Holocaust survivors, eyewitnesses to the event, declines. It recedes into history and gets further and further away, and as these views become more mainstream and creep into popular culture, the law will be able to avoid the problem of proving the Holocaust in court before those who deny it are held to account. Members should be aware that this proposal has found its way into the budget. There have been seven years of inaction that have seen anti-Semitism become an even more pervasive problem in this country.
I hope this is not theatre. I hope members will support this bill. From what I have heard tonight, I think that will be the case. I will certainly trust the intentions of what is in the budget, but I hope that members will support this bill.
I will end with this: Ignorance fuels intolerance and, as my colleague said, education is the safeguard of history. We must continue to teach the truth. The passage of this bill would protect that truth.
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