When I was speaking on this matter earlier, I had been recounting how I had travelled to Jerusalem, how I had been staying with the Sisters of Sion in their house and how I encountered interesting people in my travels. One of those interesting people was an Irishman from the UK, and his name was Paddy. One day, Paddy and I decided we would go down to the Western Wall. The Western Wall is the last remaining wall of a great temple complex that was built in the ancient times. Much, if not all, of it was destroyed, and the Western Wall is the last remaining portion. It’s considered a very holy place, and I was privileged to go there.

When we arrived, there were thousands of people there, and Paddy and I, we immersed ourselves into the crowd. While we were there, an individual sidled up next to me. He looked very official. He had on official identification. He said, “Hello,” and I said hello back. He said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “I’m from Canada. Where are you from?” He said, “I’m from here, Israel.” He asked me if I was Jewish. I said, “No, I’m Catholic. What are you?” He said he was Jewish. He said, “Welcome to Israel. I hope you enjoy your stay.” And then he melted on into the crowd.

I thought that was a curious interaction. I suspected that he might be some kind of security agent who was doing surveillance and just randomly selecting people out of the crowd to make sure he was doing certain types of surveillance, but I was wrong. He was actually an immigration agent; that’s what I learned later. What he was doing is he was trying to identify people who might be interested in immigrating to Israel, and after he had that brief conversation with me, he probably determined that I probably wasn’t interested and so he went on to find another prospect. That’s how I wound up here.

Now, as a matter of fact, that didn’t just happen to me once, it happened to me other times as well in other countries. At a certain time, I actually applied for and received citizenship in the Republic of Malta, so I am actually a dual citizen. I’m a citizen of Canada, and I’m also a citizen of Malta. Malta is a member of the European Union, which means I’m a citizen of the European Union, and that gives me a great amount of liberty. I can go to a lot of places in the world. I’m welcome in a lot of places in the world. I feel safe in a lot of places in the world, and the reason I bring that up is because not everybody can say that.

Sometimes people go to places in the world and they’re not welcome. Sometimes people go to places in the world, and they are harassed, they are assaulted and they might even be killed. Nobody knows that better than Jews, and that brings me to the comments made by the member from Hamilton Centre. I read those comments. I think the comments can only be interpreted one way. The comments can only be interpreted as endorsing terrorism and endorsing terrorism specifically against Jewish people. That is the only way you can interpret those comments.

I find them offensive. Everybody should find them offensive. There are in fact Jews who sit as members in this chamber, and I ask the question, and I put it to all the members of this House: What if some other member of this House advocated terrorism against your ethnic group? How would you react? I know how I would react if somebody advocated terrorism against Catholics. How would you react if somebody advocated terrorism against your ethnic group?

Now we made it very easy for the member from Hamilton Centre to correct this error. All she had to do was retract the statement and apologize. That’s a very easy thing to do. She refused to do it. In fact, she has not retracted the statement; she’s done exactly the opposite. She has pinned the statement and highlighted it on her social media platform. That is obstinate, and I would submit that it’s not an isolated incident coming from the member from Hamilton Centre. It is actually a pattern of behaviour.

In fact, I make specific reference to the member’s comments of April 3, 2023, in this chamber. I say that the member does not have respect for this chamber or its traditions and, as our government House leader said, brings, by her comments, the reputation of the Legislature into disrepute.

Here are the statements made by the member from Hamilton Centre on April 3, 2023: “I’m not here to be preoccupied by the strange rituals or this colonial building.” That was her first statement in this House. The first opportunity the member from Hamilton Centre had to address this chamber, she immediately denigrated our traditions and our Legislature and then it went downhill from there.

I remember my first comments in this House. I spoke about my family and where I came from, how much respect I had for my teachers—and yet the member from Hamilton Centre uses her first opportunity to denigrate the Legislature.

Now, if I’ve said anything that the member from Hamilton Centre disagrees with, she will have an opportunity to contradict me. After I finish these statements, I’ll sit down, and if the member from Hamilton Centre wants to, she can take her place and refute me. I invite that member to do so. I’d like to hear what that member has to say about what I’ve said. If she wants to contradict me, if she wants to refute me, she will have a chance. I will stay in my place and I will listen to what that member has to say.

I want to take this opportunity also to address what we would do as Canadians in the event of a similar situation taking place on our soil. I began this analysis yesterday. I’ll continue with this analysis. If the terrorist group Hamas launched an attack from Canadian soil, committed atrocities in another country and then took hostages, kidnapped them and brought them back to Canada, what would we do? Would we give them shelter? No. We would not shelter terrorists who seize hostages from another country. We would hunt them down. We would bring them to justice. We would probably send them back to the country where they had committed the atrocities in order to face the consequences.

What is happening in the current situation that occurred on October 7—I’ll tell you what is happening. They took hostages out of Israel, they escaped into another place and they melted into the mainstream. That government either was unwilling or unable to do what Canada would do. That government was either unwilling or unable to hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice.

In that situation, what would Canada do? We would not stand by idly. No, we would not. We would hunt down the terrorists. We would try to recover the hostages. And if that is the standard that we apply to ourselves, then that is the standard we must apply to others. If another country has had its citizens seized and hostaged away to another place, then that country has the right to go try and free those hostages and bring the terrorists to justice. That’s what we would do.

The motion before us is as follows: “That this House expresses its disapproval of, and dissociates itself from, continued disreputable conduct by the member for Hamilton Centre, most specifically her use of social media to make anti-Semitic and discriminatory statements related to the existence of the State of Israel and its defence against Hamas terrorists; and

“That this House demands the member desist from further conduct that is inappropriate and unbecoming of a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario; and

“That the Speaker is authorized to not recognize the member for Hamilton Centre in the House until the member retracts and deletes her statements on social media and makes an apology in her place in the House.”

This is an appropriate motion and, as I said earlier, this entire thing could be avoided if the member simply apologized and deleted the statements, but the member has been intractable. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to stand and to make sure that the reputation of this Legislature and its traditions are not brought into disrepute by that member.

For all of those reasons, I will be voting in favour of this motion.