FIRST READING: Senate report on Jew hatred makes zero mention of Islamic extremism

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Nevertheless, the Senate’s only explicit mentions of extremist ideologies are when it mentions far-right extremism.

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As an example, one of the Senate’s recommendations is for Canada to consider banning the display of “hate symbols.” This precise issue came up in early 2024, when Toronto Police took the rare step of laying hate charges against a man accused of waving a “terrorist flag” at anti-Israel rally.

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But the only “hate symbols” the Senate can offer as examples are “Nazi and White supremacist symbols.”

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In fact, the final report would even accept testimony from an anti-Israel group in declaring that Jew hatred should only be addressed within a wider agenda of “decolonization.”

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The fringe group Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is explicitly anti-Zionist, and is a frequent collaborator with Palestinian Youth Movement, a group that held Canadian rallies to celebrate the October 7 massacres.

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IJV has also issued defences of Samidoun, a group now listed as a Canadian terror entity.

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The Senate heard from two IJV representatives, Corey Balsam and David Mivasair, and would highlight their view that “antisemitism should never be taught in isolation, nor privileged above other forms of racism and discrimination.”

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Rather, said the group, Jew hatred can only be countered “within a broader commitment to anti-racism, decolonization, and solidarity among communities facing discrimination.”

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This sentiment would make its way into one of the Senate committee’s final recommendations.

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It recommended that Canada could better encourage “antisemitism awareness,” but partially as a vehicle to encouraging “broader historical literacy regarding racism and discrimination in Canada, including the histories and experiences of 2SLGBTQI+ communities, residential schools, and anti-Black racism.”

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IN OTHER NEWS

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Mark Carney has more assets to his name than any other Canadian prime minister save Paul Martin, who briefly owned a major shipping line while serving as head of government. And since much of that is held as stock for Brookfield Asset Management, a multibillion dollar investment conglomerate, it’s rare that Carney doesn’t do something that directly or indirectly benefits a Brookfield holding. This week, the House of Commons ethics committee recommended that the best way to get around all of this is simply to require politicians be “fully divested from their controlled assets” before they can enter the PMO.

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The government of B.C. Premier David Eby has just entered a bizarre state of ossification that may not be survivable.

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It’s all surrounding DRIPA, a 2019 B.C. law that codified the tenets of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

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Although pitched as a largely symbolic gesture of reconciliation, public opinion turned hard against DRIPA after it effectively became a kind of veto over all other B.C. laws. DRIPA enshrines a right for Indigenous people to “own, use, develop and control” any land that they’ve previously occupied.

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And in December, an Appeals Court judge ruled that this meant First Nations now effectively have final say on almost everything. DRIPA was “the interpretive lens through which B.C. laws must be viewed,” it ruled.

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This has not been a popular view among BCers, with one recent Angus Reid Institute poll finding that 53 per cent think it goes “too far,” against just 30 per cent who call it “necessary.”

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Which is why Eby has pledged all along to rescind at least some of DRIPA until it could no longer be used as a lever to put courts “in the driver’s seat” of the province’s basic functions.

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But then this week, he surrendered, announcing in a joint statement with a First Nations activist group (the First Nations Leadership Council) that he wouldn’t be touching DRIPA after all.

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As retired Aboriginal law expert Geoffrey Moyse told the National Post, “you have a First Nations advocacy organization co-governing a province.”

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“They told him he couldn’t legislate, couldn’t change legislation, without their consent.”

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And in a press conference, Eby would even seem to admit that the decision had been influenced by First Nations threats to pursue “collective resistance” in the form of road and rail blockades.

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When a reporter asked if “threats” had caused him to back off, Eby replied “there is a very real threat to our province in continued conflict with First Nations.”

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First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

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