|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
“This is an opportunity for Canada to completely reassess the role it plays in the Middle East. Canada has to lead the way in the fight against terror organizations and deal with the issues of antisemitism domestically,” Guidy Mamann, president of the Toronto Zionist Council, told JNS.
“Overseas, we’ve been fairly silent on how to deal with terror organizations. The government needs to step up its game and make sure we choke off any support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis,” Mamann said.
“In years past, we’ve been a country that didn’t tolerate any group that threatens our peace,” he added. “The Middle East is in flames in part because the government did not make sure these terror groups did not have oxygen. We’ve been far too tolerant.”
Mamann told JNS that the Canadian Jewish community was “appalled” when Trudeau said that he would arrest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face prosecution for what Mamann said are “specious war-crimes allegations.”
“This statement will go down in history as a huge blemish on its relationship with Israel and Canadian Jewish communities,” he said.
The next Canadian prime minister should “ensure that we support democracies and we do everything possible to place barriers in front of terror organizations and those who fund it and cheer them on,” Mamann added.
Joe Oliver, a Canadian finance minister under then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told JNS that Trudeau, whom he has criticized in newspaper columns, has a “lack of moral clarity about Israel’s defensive war against genocidal terrorism.”
“His validation of the outrageous International Criminal Court arrest warrant against the prime minister of Israel and his lack of firm action to counter domestic antisemitism represent a betrayal of a democratic ally and the Jewish community in Canada,” Oliver added of Trudeau.
Echoing Hamas
Every leader “sets the tone for moral leadership,” Avi Benlolo, chairman and CEO of Abraham Global Peace Initiative in Toronto, told JNS. Given the “rash of unprecedented antisemitism in the country,” Trudeau “failed to show that leadership,” he said.
Benlolo said that Trudeau’s Liberal government holding back weapons from Israel was a “small but a symbolic move.” He also cited Canada’s anti-Israel votes at the United Nations and Mélanie Joly, the minister of foreign affairs, smiling and holding hands with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Trudeau also inspires “deep disappointment” for “repeating the Hamas lines” about Israel striking the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Oct. 17, 2023, without a follow-up correction noting that an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, aimed at the Jewish state, hit the hospital when it fell short. (Still, Benlolo isn’t sure that Trudeau’s replacement will be any better on Middle East policy.)
Vivian Bercovici, whom Harper named Canadian envoy to Israel and who served as the ambassador until Trudeau replaced her in 2016, also thinks that Trudeau’s replacement might not be an improvement.
As long as the Liberals remain in power,“the Islamists will continue to be bolder,” said Bercovici, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. “Law enforcement will do what it’s been doing, which is pretty much nothing.”
Bercovici told JNS that Trudeau “aligned with the values of his caucus” and the “contenders are as bad, if not worse, than him in terms of issues important to, and relating to, Israel and Canadian Jews.”
None of those lining up for leadership in the Liberal Party represent “traditional, Canadian foreign-policy values, and certainly not Western democratic values,” Bercovici said.
‘Urgently needed policy change’
“The Jewish community overwhelmingly feels this is also an opportunity for urgently needed policy change, particularly on issues that speak to Canada’s core values,” Noah Shack, interim president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a Jewish Federations of Canada agency, told JNS.
“Diplomatically, we need to renew Canada’s ties with our democratic ally Israel,” Shack added. “At home, we need to move beyond statements of support by implementing concrete actions to combat the rise of antisemitism, extremist protests on our streets and campuses and attacks against Jewish institutions.”
B’nai Brith Canada wrote on social media that it is “a critical moment for the nation” without naming Trudeau.
“It is imperative that the governmental transition process moves forward efficiently and without unnecessary delay. The stakes are too high for anything less—our nation needs a government that is fully functional, focused and ready to address the critical challenges facing Canadians,” it stated. “The public deserves leadership that prioritizes action, stability, and progress. This is not a time for partisan games or prolonged uncertainty.”
“It is a time for decisive, cooperative and expeditious action to ensure that governance resumes as quickly and effectively as possible,” it added. “As the process of transition begins, we call on all parties involved to approach this moment with a sense of urgency, responsibility, and commitment to the public good.”
Melissa Lantsman, the deputy Conservative Party leader who is Jewish, stated that “any new Liberal prime minister will be someone who has supported Justin Trudeau for the last nine years—someone incapable of delivering the change Canadians desperately need.”
The pro-Israel professor Gad Saad denounced Trudeau bluntly on social media. “Cosmic Justice: Donald Trump’s victory is certified on the same day that malignant narcissistic psychopath Justin Trudeau resigns,” Saad wrote. “Apparently God is a great scheduler.”
In another post, Saad wrote that Trudeau’s resignation is “insufficient.”
“There should be severe consequences for the astounding negative repercussions that have taken place as a result of his dictatorial narcissism. Taxpayers should be refunded every cent that are linked to his endless corruption,” Saad wrote. “It would be the greatest crime in Canadian history if he is allowed to walk away free and unaffected by his nine years of torture of all Canadians.”
“It is impossible for me to put into words the extent to which he is loathsome,” Saad added. “He defies human comprehension.”
‘Chance to get involved’
Trudeau, 53, the son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was first elected as a parliamentarian to the House of Commons in 2008. He began serving as the 23rd prime minister of Canada in November 2015 and has won three general elections since.
News of his imminent departure comes amid increasing calls for his resignation from at least a dozen Liberal members of his caucus in light of precipitous sinking support for the party, believed to be worsened by the sudden ouster of Chrystia Freeland as finance minister in mid-December.
Marco Mendicino, who sits in the Liberal caucus, announced last week that he would not run again for his seat in the district of Eglinton-Lawrence of midtown Toronto, home to one of the country’s largest Jewish populations.
Mendicino is vice president of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group and was a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when it issued the May 2024 report, “Heightened Antisemitism in Canada and How to Confront It.”
In addition to his Montreal-area colleague Anthony Housefather, Mendicino has called out the Trudeau government on various policies and statements that have unfairly singled Israel out for opprobrium.
Housefather, the federal government’s special adviser on Jewish community relations and antisemitism who has defended Trudeau in the past, told JNS that the prime minister’s resignation “means that Jewish Canadians have a chance to get involved and register to vote in the leadership race.”
They also have the chance “to ensure that a candidate who will prioritize tackling antisemitism and return to a strong and robust support for Israel is elected leader,” he told JNS.
By law, the next federal election must take place no later than Oct. 20.
Trudeau’s Liberals hold 153 of 338 seats and have been in a coalition with the leftist New Democrat Party, with 25 seats, to ensure a 169-seat majority in the House of Commons. New Democrat Party leader Jagmeet Singh recently vowed to dissolve the coalition in a no-confidence vote to trigger an election.
Support for Trudeau’s party has taken a nosedive in the past few months with CBC News reporting a record low of support among Canadians.
Election projection site 338canada predicts that when the country returns to the polls later in the year, the Conservatives—at present the opposition party—are expected to win 236 seats with the Liberals falling to 35.
