Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for recognizing me for debate on this motion. I quickly want to read through the motion and then get into a little bit of my deliberations here. I’m just going to read the motion here:

“That this House condemn the ongoing and reprehensible attacks being carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas, including the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israeli civilians, including babies, children and seniors, and recognize the inalienable right of the State of Israel to defend itself and its people against this horrific violence.”

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to talk about this afternoon. I’ve had a chance to visit Israel twice; it’s a beautiful country. It’s really neat to be able to see how the interplay between so many faiths can come together in one place—obviously, a lot of that coalescing around Jerusalem. I know there are some other colleagues here who have had a chance to visit Israel as well, and I know they probably had as much admiration for the country as I do.

It reminded me of something that happened about three or four years ago. I think it was about a year after we had taken government in 2018, pre-pandemic. I was meeting with a group of individuals from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, better known as CIJA. We were speaking in a boardroom with about four or five members, and we were just talking about some of the different challenges that Jewish people face here in Canada and some of the backstory, the history, and where CIJA thought things were moving as we went forward.

We were having a great, very open dialogue and discussion, and I asked them a very poignant question. I didn’t mean it in a derogatory way, but I thought it was something that—you know, we were in kind of a safe place to be able to ask this question, and the question that I asked, that I posed to this group was, “Do you think that sometimes CIJA and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and some of the different organizations that we see here in Canada are out there too much talking about anti-Semitism? Are they really being that proverbial squeaky wheel?” The response to me was, “Mike, we don’t ever, ever, ever want anybody to forget the atrocities that happened during World War II, where over six million Jews were systematically exterminated during the Holocaust.” I thought, “Okay, well, sure, that’s a valid point. I don’t see something like that ever happening again in the future.” But here we are today, talking about this very issue, where just a short couple of weeks ago, we’ve seen a terrorist group that was formed in 1988—this isn’t all that long ago—known as Hamas, that has now perpetrated the second-largest killing of Jewish people, outside of the Holocaust.

It struck me to think, “Well, you know, maybe these guys are being a little bit over the top with what they’re doing,” but, clearly, they had a little bit of foresight to think that just because things have calmed down in the region or that people are much more educated about these types of issues, that they still couldn’t happen today. I thought that would be an interesting thing to open up today’s debate with, or at least on my end of today’s debate, because I think it really hits home what a lot of these organizations are trying to do.

When we saw what happened during World War II, starting in the late 1930s and into the early 1940s of people being rounded up and sent into areas and identified—the member for Peterborough–Kawartha was talking about the book that he read about the tattoo artist who was putting those tattoos on people to say that they were Jewish and their number is what would be displayed in the ghetto so they couldn’t leave and come back and forth freely like other citizens were able to do. It’s a bit sad.

We talk about the indiscriminate killing and rape and slaughter of innocent people in Israel. And these aren’t just Jewish people; these are people of Palestinian and Arab origin. These are Christians. They’re people who have left these other areas of strife where they’re often being held down by oppressive regimes and have moved to Israel because they want to have an opportunity at a better life for their family, their kids, their grandchildren.

I haven’t really heard that brought up in the conversation yet, and I think it’s really important to note that Israel is not just made up of people from Judaic origin. This is an area where, for thousands and thousands of years, you’ve had people of different ethnic groups, different races, different faiths coming together and being able to celebrate one another in that space.

When I had toured through Israel back in the early 2000s, I had a really great opportunity to go there with my father, obviously former Premier Harris, as an Ontario company was actually building the Cross Israel Highway, which was pretty neat. So we got to tour the country; we got to look around. It’s not a very big country, so it is fairly easy to navigate. But it was really neat to go through Jerusalem. I know the member for Essex hopefully will get a little bit of a chance to speak about some of the things that he saw while he spent three months in Israel. I was there for about a week, and it was really neat to be able to go through Jerusalem and see all the different quarters and how everybody interacted together and how there wasn’t animosity toward each other. Everybody truly was able to get along.

But when you mix in organizations like Hamas, and I’ll quote from their founding document, who are there to “obliterate Israel”—that is their sole mission. I thought the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke was quite eloquent when he spoke about that, because that is their sole mission. Their sole mission is to destroy the lives of Israelis, but I think that’s, again, what’s lost in this conversation. It’s not just the Jewish people who are being persecuted by Hamas, it’s anybody that lives within Israel.

I’m very hopeful that members of the opposition are listening to this and are hearing what we have to say on this side of the House. I’m sure many of them feel the same way, that they want to see peace, that they want to see everybody being able to raise their families, work on their farms, be able to enjoy music festivals, for example—we’ve heard about that today, Madam Speaker—without having to look over their shoulder any time they wake up in the morning or any time they go out of the house.

As Canadians, as someone who maybe doesn’t really understand what war in perpetuity could mean, I think it’s important that we educate ourselves and that we understand what is currently happening in the Middle East and the interplay, not only between the Hamas regime and Israel but some of the other actors that surround them, and how the Canadian government can play a role, how the US government can play a role and of course other governments around the world. I just want to quickly touch on a few pieces here.

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States have reiterated their support for Israel. I believe actually President Biden is heading to Israel; I think it’s today or tomorrow—

Interjection.

I like to talk about, when we’re doing trade missions or overseas or taking part in conferences, how Toronto and our government here in our provincial capital is the fifth most powerful seat of government in North America. I think we have a true opportunity to lead when it comes to how we view what’s happening and the statements that we put out as parliamentarians, and to make sure that we are truly putting our best foot forward. If the Canadian government is going to be slow to act, we need to make sure and it’s incumbent on us here in Ontario that we are the ones who can lead, we’re the ones who can rally Canadians, we’re the ones who can hold Hamas to account.

As I wrap up my remarks, I just want to thank everybody for the opportunity to have this debate. I think it’s very important. When we have these special motions that come before the Legislature, I know often they can be very impassioned and sometimes they can choke you up.

I just want to leave everyone with this: We all know I have five kids—that’s no secret. One of the reasons that I got involved in politics is because I want to leave Ontario and Canada a better place for my kids to be able to raise their children, my grandchildren, and I know that the people of Israel want the same. That’s why Israel was created back in the 1950s, to allow people in the Middle East, in that region—to afford them the same kind of ability that we have here in Canada, where we have a peaceful democracy that wants the best for the people of their country.

So I hope everyone will support this motion. I hope everyone will condemn the terrorist organization known as Hamas. And I hope that in another four years we’re not up here having this same debate again.