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May 7, 2010
Two votes, two results
Ontario and Manitoba propose IAW resolutions.
RHONDA SPIVAK
The resolution to condemn Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), recently proposed by Thornhill, Ont., member of provincial parliament (MPP) Peter Shurman, received support from all parties and passed unanimously.
After the vote, Shurman said, “Passage of this resolution ... sends a clear message to Ontarians and the rest of the world that use of the term ‘apartheid’ in relation to the state of Israel borders on hate speech and that the events staged during Israeli Apartheid Week have no place in Ontario, particularly on its university campuses.”
In part, the resolution read, “the term Israeli Apartheid Week is condemned as it serves to incite hatred against Israel.” According to Shurman, the resolution was intended to have moral suasion, but did not prohibit the week from continuing on Ontario’s campuses.
In contrast, Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative (PC) member of legislative assembly (MLA), Heather Stefanson, followed Shurman’s initiative to have politicians from all parties, including the provincial NDP government, support a motion condemning IAW, but was unsuccessful.
Stefanson introduced a private member’s resolution on behalf of the PC caucus and leader of the opposition Hugh McFadyen, calling on the legislative assembly “to urge the provincial government to denounce Israeli Apartheid Week as divisive, promoting intolerance and undermining a balanced debate of the Israeli-Palestinian question.”
According to the rules of Manitoba’s legislature, a private member’s bill does not automatically come to a vote. Accordingly, the speaker of the legislature was asked to grant leave for such a vote. Despite Stefanson’s request, the government refused to extend the clock on the resolution and allow it to come to a recorded vote.
“By ‘speaking out’ the resolution, the NDP killed it,” McFadyen told the Independent, immediately following the event.
Minister Gord Mackintosh said that while applying the term “apartheid” to Israel was “profoundly unhelpful” and constituted “unwelcome speech,” it was speech “likely protected” by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He rejected the notion that it is the “new function for provincial governments of the day in Canada to formally denounce and chill unwelcome speech.... I am then at risk of being their next target.”
Steve Ashton, minister of infrastructure and transportation, noted he had been to Israel and the Palestinian territories, and said, “We should never, in any way, shape or form, do anything other than encourage freedom of speech.”
McFadyen, however, argued, “If proponents [of IAW] can make a statement advocating it, then why can’t we as a House be able to make a statement condemning it?... Had the resolution been voted on and passed, it would not have had binding legislative effect on a university, but it would have sent a powerful declaratory message about what we as a legislature think about the event. It would have been our statement.”
David Chomiak, minister of innovation, energy and mines, explained that he did not agree to grant leave for the resolution because he did not want to give the IAW event credibility. Chomiak said IAW in Manitoba was “a non-event” and that by “voting on this ... we give a platform for those who failed.”
Asked about differences in the the resolution she put forth and the one that was passed in Ontario, Stefanson said, “There are different rules about how resolutions are brought forward, so it’s slightly different, but the main concepts are the same.... The words ... put forth by MPP Peter Shurman were, ‘I move that in the opinion of this House, the term ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ is condemned as it serves to incite hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights and the use of the word ‘apartheid’ in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa.’ ”
Both McFadyen and Stefanson said that the Tories and the NDP had been in negotiations to try to agree on wording for a resolution, and they were surprised that an agreement hadn’t been reached.
Shurman is pleased with the result in Ontario. Speaking to Shalom Life, he said, “The name is hateful, it is odious, and that’s not how things should be in Ontario, in our Ontario. My Ontario is not about drawing lines between different elements of our diverse society and fighting battles 10,000 kilometres away by using labeling and unilateral positioning and sometimes even outright intimidation to make points,” Shurman said. “It creates a toxic atmosphere on campuses that labels supporters of Israel as racists and lessens their feelings of security. I have seen it personally.”
Rhonda Spivak is a freelance writer and editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Review.
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