Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2020, pp. 16-18

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, as well as the City of Toronto, have been working for three years to ban the citys annual Al-Quds Day demonstration. Both Torontos city council and Ontarios provincial parliament have taken steps to silence the demonstration.

Bill 84, the Prohibiting Hate Promoting Demonstrations at Queens Park Act, is currently before the Justice Policy Standing Committee in Ontarios legislature, and has gone to a second reading. Conservative member of parliament Roman Baber, who was born in Israel, proposed the bill. Meanwhile, last year, the Toronto city council held hearings into the annual rally.

People have been observing Al-Quds Day worldwide since 1979 to protest the occupation of East Jerusalem and treatment of Palestinians by Israel.

In Toronto, the event previously took place on the grounds of the provincial legislature, but that changed several years ago to make room for the Pan Am and Parapan Games (a sporting event for people with physical disabilities). Since then, the demonstration has been held at Queens Park West, which is municipal property.

Toronto city council member James Pasternak has been trying to restrict Al-Quds Day demonstrations since 2017, when he asked the city for advice on the feasibility of banning hate-infested rallies and hate speech on city property. He was proposing that Toronto police use some of their resources to prohibit the Al-Quds demonstration. The pro-Palestinian demonstration is the only event Pasternak mentions in his motion.

At the time, ten city council members supported Pasternaks administrative inquiry. Toronto Mayor John Tory also supports banning the event, though city legal staff does not feel comfortable with such an action.

Supporters and organizers of the Al-Quds Day event say the action is being unfairly targeted. Karen Rodman, voluntary director with Just Peace Advocates and member of the Canadian BDS Coalition, said Bill 84 is focused entirely on Al-Quds Day, with no mention of the almost 20 hate rallies that have been held by right wing, Islamophobic and nationalist hate groups in Toronto over the past two years.

The real problem is that under the guise of fighting hate, the motion aims to silence progressive society, said Robert Massoud, who has acted as a consultant and guide to the Al-Quds demonstration committee. Al-Quds Day is a legitimate protest against the injustices and actions of Israel toward the Palestinians, which have also been condemned internationally, he added. The opponents of Al-Quds Day conflate legitimate protest against Israel with anti-Semitism, Massoud said.

Bnai Brith, a pro-Israel organization, has referred to the annual Al-Quds Day demonstration as a hate fest, and after this years Al-Quds demonstration, which was held as an online event due to COVID-19, the organization filed a complaint with the Toronto police.

There is a strong element of Islamophobia inherent in the opposition to Al-Quds Day and banning the event would reinforce this, charged Sheryl Nestel from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

Nestel pointed out that Premier Doug Ford believes the demonstration to be incontrovertibly anti-Semitic. She explained that the fight around Al-Quds has been complicated by the provinces move to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which, if invoked, could have the power to ban the event from city or provincial property.

Under the IHRA definition, some of the sentiments expressed by demonstrators, including that Israel is an apartheid or racist state, constitute anti-Semitism. IJV believes that such a statement [of Israeli apartheid] is, in fact, accurate, and in no way misrepresents the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine, Nestel said. She added that any attempt to ban the demonstration would result in a challenge to Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects freedom of speech and assembly. She said many activists would welcome an opportunity to put the legality of the IHRA definition to the test.

Nestel said the bottom line is that those participating in the Al-Quds Day rally have a right to express their views, even if a minority of demonstrators express radical or even offensive views her organization does not support. While IJV may be hesitant to endorse the event, we support the right of the protesters to gather, she said. We encourage the organizers to continue to be vigilant against overt expressions of anti-Semitism.

For the past four years, members of Ontarios provincial parliament (MPPs) have been taking steps toward restricting the voices of Palestinian solidarity activists.

In February 2020, Bill 168, the Combating Anti-Semitism Act, was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy after a second reading. The bill is guided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

The bill was introduced by two Conservative MPPs, Will Bouma and Robin Martin. Bouma has cited the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as an example of anti-Semitism. If Bill 168 passes, Ontario will be the first province to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

Karen Rodman, voluntary director with Just Peace Advocates and member of the Canadian BDS Coalition, says Bill 168 is an unsound piece of legislation. It purports to create a legal definition of anti-Semitism, but the definition it adopts was not intended to serve as a legal definition. Its vagueness leaves it susceptible to being abused and manipulated by opponents of free expression, Rodman said.

Hundreds of academics have signed an open letter denouncing the IHRA definition. U.S. attorney Kenneth Stern, the creator of the definition, also opposes its use to police speech. In testimony to the U.S. Congress in 2017, he noted that it was solely intended as a working definition to help researchers track anti-Semitism. Stern warned that legislation like the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in Congress is a hate speech code which, if enacted, will do much damage to the university and to the Jewish students proponents seek to protect.

Rodman pointed out that a quiet approach to shut down BDS in Canadian universities started in 2016, when Bill 202, an anti-BDS bill, was proposed in Ontarios legislature. The bill would have imposed severe limits on the BDS movement, such as preventing the province from doing business with institutions that support BDS, and also stopping universities from endorsing BDS. It failed on its second reading.

At this point no anti-BDS legislation has been passed in Canada, unlike in the U.S., Rodman noted. The Canadian federal government accepted the IHRA definition as part of its anti-racism strategy in 2019. While the definition informs the governments approach to anti-Semitism, it is not legally binding.

Months of work by activists has paid off, as Canada lost its bid for the much-desired temporary seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Canada lost in the first round of voting on June 17, with Ireland and Norway winning the two available seats. Norway received 130 votes, and Ireland 128, while Canada only received 108. In its last UNSC bid in 2010, Canada managed 114 votes. Canada has been elected to the Security Council six times, and last held a seat in 2000. There are ten temporary member countries that each serve two-year terms.

By rejecting Canadas bid, the international community also delivered a blow to the Israel lobby, said Karen Rodman, voluntary executive director at Just Peace Advocates, the organization that initiated Twitter and letter writing campaigns opposing Canadas UNSC run.

As part of the campaign, in the month leading up to the UNSC vote, over 1,300 individual letters from around the world were sent to 193 U.N. ambassadors asking them to vote for Ireland and Norway instead of Canada. More than 100 civil society organizations also wrote expressing their opposition.

Hundreds of artists, activists and academics joined the open letter, including Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, Richard Falk, John Dugard, and English filmmaker Ken Loach. Roger Waters also posted a link to the No Seat on the United Nations Security Council for Canada petition on his Facebook page.

The letters focused on Canadas abysmal record on Palestinian rights. The messages highlighted Canadas many failings in regards to Palestine, among them adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which targets critics of Israel. Canada has also added Palestinian organizations to its terrorism list and threatened to cut off funding to the International Criminal Court if it continues investigating Israeli crimes.

The reach of the campaign caught Canada off guard. On June 11, Marc-Andre Blanchard, Canadas permanent representative to the U.N., delivered his own letter to all U.N. ambassadors defending Canadian policy on Palestinian rights and claimed Just Peace Advocates letter contained significant inaccuracies.

Rodman, from Just Peace Advocates, said Canada was undeserving of the U.N. position for many reasons. Canada has consistently isolated itself against world opinion when it comes to Palestine, she said. Canada has voted 166 times against Palestine at the U.N. this century. She also noted that Norway and Ireland have much more respectable records on Palestine.

Yves Engler, a Montreal author and activist, said the Canadian governments policies are anti-Palestinian, militaristic and aggressive toward the Venezuelan government. Engler asserted that the likely result of Canada getting a seat at the Security Council would have been a de facto second vote for the United States, noting that they share a similar voting record, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

Long-time Winnipeg peace activist and videographer Paul Graham expressed similar concerns. He said Canadas aggression toward Venezuela, as well as supporting Israeli actions against Palestinians, waging war in Afghanistan, bombing Libya and selling arms to Saudi Arabia, all indicate that Canada is closely aligned with U.S. imperialism.

When Canada demonstrates consistent, active work for international peace, development and cooperation, it will have earned the right to aspire to Security Council membership, he said.

With regard to what he referred to as Canadas orphan vote at the U.N. in December 2019, when Ottawa voted in favor of Palestinian self-determination, Engler pointed out that Canada had previously voted against 67 different resolutions for Palestinian rights. Engler said the vote, which received a huge amount of media attention, was almost certainly designed to respond to the Just Peace Advocates letter writing campaign. He believes that single vote was a way for Canada to counter the opposition to its Security Council run.

Engler also noted that Canada played a direct role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson rejected a Palestinian call at the time for an end to the British Mandate and establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Most Canadians, if they understood any element of international politics, they would be very uncomfortable with Canadian policies, Engler said.

Michael Lynk, United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and a Canadian citizen, said that although Canada may be one of the great advanced liberal democracies in the world, it doesnt have a lot to be proud of in the international arena.

We lost the Security Council seat bid in 2012, in part, because of our record and embrace of Israeli policies around occupation, and while we have made some changes in policy since 2015 with the new liberal governmenttheir voting record, among other things, is really no different from the Harper years, Lynk said. Former conservative Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper was an emphatic supporter of Israel.

Lynk explained that both Ireland and Norway have very strong records with respect of voting in favor of U.N. resolutions on Palestine and both are widely thought of, either because of their peace keeping or because of their international mediation efforts.

Canadians apparently desire to see a new foreign policy from their government. A survey conducted from June 5 to 10 and sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Independent Jewish Voices, and the United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine, reported that 75 percent of Canadians polled want their government to oppose Israels annexation of large portions of the West Bank and, almost half of those who responded, support the use of sanctions against Israel.

Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg.

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Canada's Attacks on Free Speech May Have Cost It a Seat on the Security Council - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs