Recently, we amplified CIJA’s Ontario Election Hub that provides recommendations to combat antisemitism on campus, in schools and in relation to community safety and public order. The Election Hub also provides potential questions for the community to direct to those running for elective office. Today’s article complements the election-related work done by CIJA and other ALCCA member organizations. It can be used for upcoming election events they are sponsoring or others are participating in.
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In this article, I focus on my wish lists for federal, provincial, and municipal politicians. Generally, governments at all levels have failed to effectively tackle unprecedented levels of antisemitism in Canada. Each government has a critical role to play. My wish lists are organized in a way to further assist the community in posing questions to or demanding action by the appropriate levels of government. The wish lists are very specific, to compel direct responses and accountability.
Where jurisdictions of governments overlap, the wish lists contain similar items applicable to more than one level of government.
The Federal Government
Although universities and colleges fall within provincial jurisdiction, the federal government provides significant funding to universities and colleges, including grants made by three government agencies.
Defunding or Making Funding to Universities and Colleges Conditional
1. The federal government should commit itself through new or amended policies, directives, and legislation to defund universities and colleges, make funding conditional or withdraw existing funding when university and college administrations or their specific programs have failed to adequately address campus antisemitism.
This recommendation mirrors the work currently being done by the U.S. government to hold universities and colleges accountable, through Title VI legislation, for their failures to take decisive action to protect their students, faculty and staff against rampant antisemitism.
Robust Use of the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
2. The federal government should fully utilize the IHRA definition of antisemitism and accompanying illustrations, consistent with the recommendations contained in the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on antisemitism.
Canada, along with 43 other countries, has adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, along with illustrative examples. Recently, the government also published the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism that explains how the definition can be used by educational institutions, governments, and law enforcement.
Reasonable people can differ on the precise definition of antisemitism, but the IHRA definition represents the gold standard. The House of Commons Standing Committee recommended its robust use in combatting antisemitism. Nonetheless, the IHRA definition remains under attack, often by those who reject any acknowledgement of the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. In the United States, federal agencies responsible for enforcing Title VI anti-discrimination legislation are required to take the IHRA definition into account. No less should be required of the Canadian federal government, its ministries, and agencies.
Defunding UNRWA
3. The federal government should commit to defunding UNRWA, while supporting humanitarian aid distributed by honest brokers and demanding the UN ensure that curriculum for students in Gaza and the West Bank does not glorify terrorism or support antisemitism.
The evidence is overwhelming that UNRWA has been complicit in terrorist activities in the Middle East and remains complicit in educating Palestinian children to hate Jews and demonize Israel. The U.S. government has now terminated funding to UNRWA. It is inappropriate for the Canadian government to continue to fund UNRWA.ⁱ
Rejecting the Misuse of Anti-Palestinian Racism
4. The federal government should commit to rejecting the introduction of anti-Palestinian racism (APR), as defined by its proponents, into its anti-racism strategy.
Anti-Israel organizations are demanding that the federal government incorporate anti-Palestinian racism (APR) into its anti-racism strategy. Discrimination against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, is always unacceptable and is addressed through existing anti-discrimination legislation.
However, APR has been defined by its proponents so as to effectively label anyone who supports Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, challenges Palestinian narratives as to how Israel was created or Palestinian entitlement to the entirety of “occupied” Palestine, as racist. APR, so defined, promotes hatred and discrimination, rather than seeking to reduce it.
Mandatory Education
5. The federal government should promote mandatory education within government and its agencies on contemporary antisemitism and on the holocaust, delivered by mainstreamᴵᴵ organizations.
Education on contemporary antisemitism has often been coopted through delivery by those who are anti-Zionist (Jewish and non-Jewish), undermining efforts to combat antisemitism. Moreover, holocaust education has been tainted in some circles by those who attempt to distort its historical significance or to advance a geopolitical anti-Israel agenda in the Middle East.
Essential Components of a National Law Enforcement Strategy
6. The federal government should urgently adopt and implement a national law enforcement strategy for addressing extremism and rampant antisemitism, including:
Enhanced coordination between anti-terrorism joint task forces and local law enforcement, with specialized training for police, prosecutors and others involved in law enforcement.
Priority given to investigating and taking enforcement action respecting extremist money laundering and financing taking place in Canada.
Priority given to investigating and taking enforcement action respecting ongoing terror related activities of organizations designated as terror entities under the Criminal Code and their principals and adherents.
Priority given to investigating and taking enforcement action respecting foreign participation in hate activities, through funding, manipulation of social media and other means.
The federal government should also ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to prevent extremists’ entry to Canada and give priority to investigating and taking enforcement action respecting the presence of extremists engaged in unlawful activities in Canada.
With a few exceptions, existing criminal law measures are adequate to address extremism and hate activities in Canada. However, they are being underutilized by some police services across Canada. Moreover, there is no national law enforcement strategy to address rampant antisemitism, and insufficient coordination between multiple law enforcement agencies tasked with addressing extremism and public order. The federal government should play a critical role in ensuring that all relevant federal, provincial, and municipal agencies are fully engaged collaboratively in this work.
In relation to third bullet point above, it is insufficient to designate organizations as prohibited terror groups under the Criminal Code unless the post-designation activities of those involved are investigated and enforcement action taken when (a) they continue to operate under proxy organizations and (b) modify their communication channels to evade detection.
Changes to Criminal Code of Canada
7. The federal government should also adopt several changes to the existing Criminal Code to enhance its ability to address extremism and hate activities, including the creation of an offence of possession of terrorist symbols, flags and other paraphernalia, analogous to existing legislation in other countries.
Support for Respectful Dialogue Initiatives
8. The federal government should financially support respectful dialogue initiatives across Canada, particularly those involving communities directly impacted by the conflict in the Middle East. Participants should reject intimidation, harassment, or the glorification of violence, and all forms of hatred prohibited by s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and applicable human rights codes.
Provincial Governments
Provincialⁱᵛ governments, which have jurisdiction over universities and colleges, are well situated to effectively address pervasive antisemitism on campuses. Indeed, in some critical areas, they are better situated to address campus antisemitism than the federal government.
Defunding or Making Funding to Universities and Colleges Conditional
1. Provincial governments should commit themselves through new or amended policies, directives and legislation to defund universities and colleges, make funding conditional or withdraw funding when university and college administrations or their specific programs have failed to adequately address campus antisemitism.
Robust Use of IHRA Definition
2. Provincial governments should fully utilize the IHRA definition of antisemitism and accompanying illustrations, consistent with the recommendations of the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on antisemitism.
Rejecting the Misuse of Anti-Palestinian Racism
3. Provincial governments should commit to rejecting the introduction of anti-Palestinian racism, as defined by its proponents, into its anti-racism strategy and into strategies developed by universities, colleges and school boards.
Outlawing Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Programs
4. Provincial governments should outlaw boycott, divestment and sanction programs and end the efforts to compel institutions of learning to take positions incompatible with academic freedom, institutional neutrality and research integrity.
The BDS movement was designed, from the outset, to contribute to the elimination of the State of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. In the context of universities and colleges, adoption of BDS programs undermines academic freedom, institutional neutrality and research integrity. Faculty and students should be free to work with Israeli academics, researchers and students without fear of adverse consequences. Indeed, partnerships with Israeli institutions also promote respectful dialogue.
Use of Ministerial Directives under Bill 166
5. In Ontario, the Minister of Colleges and Universities should issue directives to universities and colleges under s. 20(4) of Bill 166, Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, 2024 in relation to the manner in which their policies and rules address and combat racism and hate. Such directives should specifically address items 1 to 4 above. In this way, the Ontario government could take a leadership role in combatting campus antisemitism.
Essential Components of a Provincial Hate Crime Strategy
6. Provincial governments should adopt, on an urgent basis, provincial hate crime strategies that include, among other things:
Hate crime units should receive adequate financial and human resources to perform their work.
Hate crime unit and public order unit officers, amongst others, should be educated by experts on antisemitism and its contemporary manifestations, including the use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in their work. Officers should also be educated by legal experts on the full range of criminal law, provincial and municipal bylaw measures available to them to combat hatred. That latter education should be coupled with “case scenario” training on how to apply what they have learned to concrete situations.
Dedicated prosecutors, similarly educated and trained, should be assigned to all alleged hate crimes cases to promote consistent and timely prosecutorial decisions and where required, the personal consent of the Attorney General.
The process for obtaining the Attorney General’s consent should be streamlined to ensure timely decisions.
Ensuring Strong Public Order Policies
7. Provincial governments must ensure that police service boards create strong public order policies that explicitly set out the important factors that should inform the policing of protests, demonstrations and occupations. These policies must be premised on zero tolerance of hatred in all forms.
Police must have the support of their oversight boards and governments for the robust use of law enforcement measures to combat hate. Provincial governments should also incorporate these principles into provincial policing adequacy standards.
Enacting Provincial “Bubble” Legislation
8. Provincial governments should create “bubble” legislation at the provincial level and support such legislation at the municipal level. Such legislation should regulate the proximity of protests and demonstrations to places of worship, faith-based community centres, and schools.
Coordinating with National Hate Crime Strategy
9. Provincial law enforcement, in coordination with others at a national level, should prioritize investigations and enforcement action respecting the items described as part of a national hate crime strategy.
Addressing Antisemitism in K-12 Spaces
10. Provincial governments should also address, on an urgent basis, antisemitism in the K-12 educational space, including the measures identified in CIJA’s Ontario Election Hub respecting schools.
Mandatory Education
11. Provincial governments should promote mandatory education within government and its agencies, as well as in educational institutions, on contemporary antisemitism and on the holocaust, delivered by mainstream organizations.ⁱⁱ
Municipal Governments
Municipal governments do not direct the day-to-day operations of the police, but police are informed by the municipality’s policies, must comply with municipal police service board policies and can utilize municipal bylaws to combat antisemitism.
Effectively Utilizing Municipal Bylaws
1. Each municipality should ensure that its municipal bylaw officers are working in collaboration with local police to effectively utilize municipal bylaws to deter unlawful activities during hate-filled protests and demonstrations. Such bylaws include those relating to noise infractions, flares and incendiary devices and, most significantly, obstruction of roads and the interference with the lawful use and enjoyment of property by others.
Creating Municipal Policies that Address Anti-Zionism
2. Each municipality should develop or amend anti-discrimination policies and codes of conduct to validate and establish zero tolerance for antisemitism. These policies and codes should adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism as an interpretive tool or otherwise recognize, in comparable language, the connection between antisemitism and the demonization of Zionism and all Zionists (a topic I've discussed previously).
Existing policies are often inadequate, in part, because they draw upon an incomplete definition of antisemitism. Antisemitism’s contemporary manifestation involves the demonization of anyone who supports Israel, without distinction.
Municipalities should utilize the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA definition. Contrary to some circulated misinformation, the definition does not immunize Israel, its government, policies or practices from robust criticism. Such criticism of the same type as directed against any country is not antisemitic. Demonization of all Zionists is antisemitic and should be recognized by municipal governments as such.
Use of Permit Regime
3. Municipalities should consider introduction of a permit regime for protests and demonstrations. Alternatively, they should utilize municipal legislation, sometimes already in existence though unenforced, to require approvals for protest activities that will temporarily close city streets and/or intersections.
Freedom of assembly and expression can be fully respected while regulating how, when, and where those freedoms are exercised. There is no entitlement to close down a city or major intersections, exclude access to public spaces by others, or significantly interfere with the lawful use and enjoyment of private and public property by others. It is time that municipalities use their permit and bylaw powers to ensure that the rights of all Canadians are respected.
Conditions of approval should address disruptions, damage to or misuse of city property, noise restrictions, restrictions on use of flares and similar devices, and the identification of organizers to ensure accountability for non-compliance with the law.
Creating Municipal Policies on Protests, Demonstrations, Occupations, and Conferences
4. Municipalities should also create a zero tolerance policy on hate-filled protests, demonstrations, occupations and conferences on municipal property. Items 2-4 complement each other. Municipalities should have general anti-discrimination policies and codes of conduct, as well as specific policies on protests, demonstrations, occupations and conferences on municipal property, accompanied by a permit regime or approval process for protests that will temporarily close city streets and/or intersections.
Creating Police Service Board Public Order Policies
5. Municipalities should support the timely development by their municipal police service boards of policing policies on public order events, including protests, occupations and demonstrations. The policy should support the robust use of enforcement measures to address hate on our streets (see my submissions to Toronto Police Service Board).
Municipal “Bubble” Legislation
6. Municipalities should enact “bubble” legislation that regulates proximity of protests and demonstrations to places of worship, faith-related community centres, and schools.
General Recommendations
These action items share a common theme. Governments must act decisively, informed by a correct understanding of the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which is long overdue. We can no longer allow hatemongers to immunize themselves from accountability by simply substituting Zionist for Jew.
We must stop allowing the radicalized or uninformed to treat virtually all speech as protected. Mere criticism of Israel, its policies, its government, its conduct of war does not amount to prohibited speech, even if one-sided, distorted, ill-informed, inflammatory, or offensive. Contrast this with these activities, all of which cross the line into criminality:
Calling for the death of all Zionists (note that 91% of Canadian Jews are Zionists),
Labeling all Zionists without distinction as racist, genocidal and evil,
Chanting “from Water to Water, Palestine shall be Arab”,
Calling for the violent destruction of the State of Israel and its supporters,
Intimidating Canadian Jews through deliberate choices of protest venues in proximity, to Jewish community centres, places of worship, businesses or neighborhoods,
Blocking roads, tunnels or bridges to compel others to change what they are entitled to do or not to,
Chanting support for designated terrorist organizations and their terrorist leaders,
Calling for a global intifada through armed resistance or “by any means necessary”, when the context makes it clear that the call is for the destruction of the entire State of Israel.
These activities do not amount to protected speech. They must be called out by all governments for what they are: wilful promotion of hatred, public incitement of hatred, criminal intimidation, hate-motivated mischief (involving either vandalism or interference with the lawful use and enjoyment of property), unlawful assembly, depending on the circumstances of each. It is time for all Canadians of good will to say it. Antisemitism erodes Canadian democratic values and imperils all of us. It is also time for governments to acknowledge this clearly and act upon it.
Education should always take place in a safe environment, free from intimidation, indoctrination, and demonization.
It is the obligation of university, college and school administrations not to create or allow, through inaction, a poisoned environment for their students, including Muslim, Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab. The fight against antisemitism recognizes, as it must, that hatred against Muslims because they are Muslim, against Arabs because they are Arabs, or Palestinians because they are Palestinian is equally odious.
And that they should not be discriminated against because they express political views, as long as they do so in compliance with codes of conduct that promote freedom of expression, not hate, intimidation, harassment, and demonization of students and faculty with opposing perspectives.
Educational institutions fail their students, staff, and faculty when they:
Permit “Zionists Off Campus” signs to be displayed at school,
Allow professors/teachers, without any accountability, to indoctrinate their students, rather than fairly expose those students to conflicting views and critical thinking on the Middle East,
Allow courses to be coopted to politicize students on topics unrelated to those courses,
Accredit student hate groups and allow them to promulgate their messages of hate and intimidation unchecked,
Do not proactively address antisemitism in universities, colleges and schools through education and active support of respectful dialogue,
Do not exercise their rights as property owners in a timely way to prevent activities by non-students or students that significantly interfere with the rights of other students and faculty to a safe educational environment.
Conclusion
Governments at all levels must act decisively to combat antisemitism. The recommendations outlined here provide a clear roadmap for politicians at all levels, through:
Ensuring robust use of the IHRA definition,
Ensuring accountability in education,
Addressing hate-fueled protests, and
Strengthening law enforcement strategies.
This is not about suppressing free speech – it’s about governments’ demonstrating no tolerance for hate activities, extremism, intimidation, harassment, and poisoned environments, while promoting respectful dialogue, education, and safety and security for those victimized by hate.
Governments have not yet shown a significant commitment to fighting antisemitism. Regretfully, Canada is recognized on the world’s stage for its failure to act decisively. The time for governments to step up is now. Elections provide the Jewish community and all Canadians concerned about extremism and hatred the opportunity to be heard when it counts, and to hold politicians accountable. Use this opportunity.
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Endnotes
i) Canadian families of Hamas victims and CIJA have launched a legal challenge of the Federal Government's decision to continue funding UNRWA.
ii and iii) - That is, organizations truly representative of the vast majority of the Jewish community.
iv) References to "provincial" includes "territorial" unless the context suggests otherwise.
About the Author
Mark Sandler, LL.B., LL.D. (honoris causa), ALCCA’s Chair, is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading criminal lawyers and pro bono advocates. He has been involved in combatting antisemitism for over 40 years. He has lectured extensively on legal remedies to combat hate and has promoted respectful Muslim-Jewish, Sikh-Jewish and Black-Jewish dialogues. He has appeared before Parliamentary committees and in the Supreme Court of Canada on multiple occasions on issues relating to antisemitism and hate activities. He is a former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a three-time elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, and recipient of the criminal profession’s highest honour, the G. Arthur Martin Medal, for his contributions to the administration of criminal justice.