MK Dan Illouz opposes legislation that would enshrine the exemption of Haredim from military service. (photo from Knesset)
Dan Illouz, a Montreal-born Likud rookie member of the Knesset, is making a name for himself in Israel’s Parliament by speaking against his own party’s policy of opposing the draft of Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) into the Israel Defence Forces.
“Exempting such a large group of people from their obligation to serve in the IDF at such a critical time is anti-Zionist,” the freshman lawmaker tweeted recently on X.
Responding to the challenge to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s leadership, the Likud has taken steps to clamp down on internal dissent by party lawmakers opposed to legislation that would enshrine the exemption of members of the ultra-Orthodox community from military service.
The IDF’s personnel shortage has become acute in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israeli cities and kibbutzim ringing the Gaza Strip, followed by Hezbollah’s rocket campaign against the Galilee andCentral Israel that began the next day. Reservists, called miluimnikim in Hebrew, have been repeatedly called up for months at a time. But, Netanyahu must balance his party’s stability in government with military personnel considerations, not to mention growing casualties.
In a move widely seen as linked to then-defence minister Yoav Gallant’s opposition to the controversial military draft exemption legislation – which has been demanded by ultra-Orthodox coalition partners whose support Likud needs to stay in power – Netanyahu fired Gallant last month and appointed Israel Katz in his stead. The prime minister then pushed for party discipline against dissenters like Illouz, who holds the rank of captain in the IDF reserves.
Coalition whip Ofir Katz informed Illouz that he was being removed from the Knesset’s economic affairs committee and foreign affairs and defence committee due to his “statements regarding coalition discipline and his conduct in recent days,” a spokesperson for Katz said.
In a further slap on the wrist, Illouz was barred from submitting private bills for six weeks.
Illouz has long spoken out against efforts to pass new legislation regulating exemptions for yeshivah students following a High Court ruling in June that they must enlist in the IDF unless a new bill is passed.
Digging in recently, Illouz announced his opposition to the coalition’s Daycare Bill, which seeks to circumvent a High Court ruling preventing state-funded daycare subsidies from going to the children of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.
“Exempting such a large group from the duty to serve in the IDF in such a critical period is a non-Zionist act that is unworthy of us as a nation – whether it be called ‘the enlistment law’ or ‘the daycare law,’ whose purpose is to cancel the daycares sanction and restore the funding,” Illouz declared.
The Daycare Bill was removed from the Knesset agenda last month after it failed to garner sufficient coalition support.
A member of the Quebec and Israeli bar associations, and a former legislative adviser to the Knesset’s coalition chair, Illouz previously served in a legal capacity at Israel’s Foreign Ministry. He is a graduate of McGill University Law School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s master’s program in public policy.
Drawing on his legal expertise, Illouz co-authored a law banning any Israeli interaction with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), due to some of its members’ being involved with Hamas in general and in the Oct. 7 massacre in particular.
Humanitarian aid and services to the two million people in Gaza must now be based on alternative agencies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund and the World Food Organization, said Illouz. (More than 200,000 Gazans have fled to Egypt and elsewhere since war broke out in their coastal enclave 15 months ago.)
Born in Canada to Moroccan immigrants, Illouz made aliyah in 2009 after completing his law studies. Like all newly elected MKs holding foreign citizenship, he was required to surrender his second passport before being sworn in as a member of Israel’s Parliament.
Illouz continues to serve as the chair of the Knesset delegation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and be a member of the Knesset delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international body that brings together parliamentarians from 180 countries.
Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.
Left to right: Haleema Sadia, Emily Schrader, Christine Douglass-Williams and Goldie Ghamari formed the panel of the Dec. 4 event in Toronto called The Head of the Snake, the Islamic Republic of Iran. (photo by Dave Gordon)
American-Israeli journalist Emily Schrader believes it took years for Canada to designate the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps a terror group, as it did in June, because of “moral cowardice.”
She said other Western countries have “refuse[d] to stand up for moral values and their countries and civilizations” and that is “all the reason to vote for those who will protect democracies and freedoms in Canada.”
Schrader spoke in Toronto at the Lodzer Centre on Dec. 4. She was part of a panel with cofounder of TAG TV Haleema Sadia, Iranian-born Ottawa-area Member of Provincial Parliament Goldie Ghamari, and journalist Christine Douglass-Williams, in a talk called The Head of the Snake, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Schrader is an anchor on ILTV in Israel, co-hosts a panel show on Jewish News Syndicate, and is a contributor to ynetnews.com. In her opening remarks, she spoke of growing up “nominally pro-Israel” until her time at the University of Southern California as an undergrad student. “I didn’t realize how much people passionately hateIsrael and Jews until I went to university,” she said.
Her first time “really seeing this visceral, irrational obsession with the Jewish state, which really is an obsession with Jews,” was during an Israel Apartheid Week, held by Students for Justice in Palestine. She said she was “irritated” by the “lies they spread across campus.” She joined Students for Israel in response to “this obsessive hatred towards Israel.”
“I always joke that Students for Justice in Palestine – the best thing they ever did was make me the biggest Zionist in the world,” said Schrader. “I would not be Israeli today if it was not for Students for Justice in Palestine. So, I guess I have them to thank for that.”
It was only after making aliyah that Schrader became aware of the historical connection between Iranians and Jews, going back to Cyrus the Great (circa 590 – 529 BCE), who allowed the Jewish exiles to return to the Holy Land. Iranians and Israelis are “really fighting the same evil,” she said.
American-Israeli journalist Emily Schrader spoke in Toronto on Dec. 4. (photo by Dave Gordon)
In 2024, Schrader founded the Israeli Iranian Women’s Alliance (IIWA) to promote women’s advancement and democratic values.
She said Iran’s human rights violations have gotten worse. “There are more restrictions and gender apartheid than we have ever seen before.” She added: “The world is not paying attention because of everything else that’s been going on.”
Ghamari said Canada has been “courting the Hamas votes,” meaning immigrants from countries with “fundamentally different values than Canada.”
Schrader added that “the left overestimates the values of these voters” and “they are against the West – whether it’s a right or left government – so courting them is a fundamental mistake.”
“One of the best ways to support Iranians is to support our king,” Ghamari said of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi – son of the late, deposed shah – who visited Israel in April 2023. “He is the one true voice of the Iranian people. He has 90% support,” she said.
A way to battle the anti-Israel forces is to build connections with like-minded allies, said Douglass-Williams. “They want the outreach just as much as the Jewish community.”
Ghamari seconded that: “All your support gave me the motivation to speak out and speak up.”
Sadia’s advice to win hearts and minds was to “multiply the voices” on social media.
Douglass-Williams alerted the audience that Venezuela has now sold a million hectares of land to the Iranian regime. “The IDF says they are developing weapons there that could reach America and Israel,” she said.
The Dec. 4 talk was organized by the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, OneGlobalVoice, Allied Voices for Israel, Tafsik, and Canadians for Israel.
In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Independent, Schrader said the new Trump administration will be “excellent” on cracking down on Iran. She believes that moral-minded countries need to “de-recognize” the Islamic regime and ramp up sanctions. “It’s going to be a tall order,” she said of countries who have economic ties.
As for the wave of anti-Israel protests, they are primarily concerned with “support for terrorist organizations and an attempt to infiltrate and undermine Western values and the West,” Schrader told the JI.
If they cared about Palestinians, she said, they would protest the estimated 4,000 Palestinians killed in Syria by the Assad regime during that country’s civil war, she said. The Islamic regime’s “vast majority of the victims” are Arab and Muslim, but again, these protesters are silent.
Law enforcement, she believes, is to blame for allowing “multiple antisemitic assaults and attacks,” because “there’s zero accountability for these crimes that are being committed with a racist, hateful, pro-terror agenda.”
“You have to deter it, or it will only grow,” said Schrader. “And we see that happening. It’s a year after Oct. 7 and, I would argue, that it’s worse.”
Dave Gordonis a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.
Panelists Margaret Gillis, left, and Dr. Melanie Doucet were the experts featured at this year’s Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which focused on ageism.
“Ageism is anytime we make an assumption, a judgment, a stereotype, or discriminate based on age. And this can go in any direction. You’ve often heard people say, ‘too young to understand,’ ‘too old to understand.’ It can be directed toward oneself. It manifests in our interrelationships with others. And it is evident in our institutions and organizations. In fact, it is everywhere,” said Zena Simces in her remarks at the sixth annual Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which took place over Zoom on Oct. 28.
Ageism impacts many aspects of life, said Dr. Simon Rabkin. “It affects our health, both physical and mental,” he said. “Studies have shown that psychosocial impacts of ageism include low self-esteem, self-exclusion, lack of self-confidence and loss of autonomy, both for older and younger people. The data indicate that workplace ageism is associated with increased depression and long-term illness. Importantly, studies have found that older persons with more negative self-perceptions of aging have significantly reduced longevity.”
Simces and Rabkin set the stage for the dialogue, which was called Too Old, Too Young: A Conversation on Ageism and Human Rights. It featured Margaret Gillis, founding president of the International Longevity Centre Canada (ILCC) and co-president of the International Longevity Centre Global Alliance, and Dr. Melanie Doucet, an associate with the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University, who is a former youth in care. The discussion was moderated by Andrea Reimer, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, who herself survived as a street-involved youth.
Gillis focused on the impact of ageism on older persons. She gave examples of human rights violations taking place in Canada, including that Canada’s long-term care homes have been under strain and in need of reform for at least two decades. She said an estimated one in 10 older Canadians experiences some form of elder abuse, adding that such abuse is underreported. She spoke about ageist employment practices and negative media representations of older persons.
“Ageism is toxic to the global economy and to health,” she said. “For instance, a US study showed a massive $63 billion per year impact on the economy as a result of ageism in health care. Perhaps one of the most distressing aspects of ageism is its prevalence, the World Health Organization finding one in every two persons is ageist.”
Nonetheless, not much is being done about it, said Gillis.
“I should note that there are protections against ageism in the Canadian Human Rights Code and the provincial human rights codes. But, the problem is, this takes time, money and know-how and our legislation and court process are not well-equipped to remedy complex situations like ageism easily and cost-effectively.”
Gillis encouraged people to join the Canadian Coalition Against Ageism, which she established. It comprises organizations and individuals who are working to confront ageism and bring about changes, based on the WHO global report on ageism.
She advocates for the adoption of a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.
“In general, a convention is a method to achieve positive change by combating ageism, guiding policy-making and improving the accountability of governments at all levels, which we most certainly need,” said Gillis. “A convention would also educate and empower, and we’d see older people as rights holders with binding protections under international law.”
Doucet spoke about the human rights of younger persons, specifically youth who age out of the care system. She explained that youth age out of care at the age of majority and that, in British Columbia, about 1,000 youth age out annually.
A video Doucet made as part of her doctoral research included data on the difficulties most young people exiting care experience: 200 times the risk of homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder rates on par with war veterans, and fewer than 50% finish high school.
Statistics Canada Census data from 2016 indicated that nearly 63% of youth ages 20 to 24 were still living with their parents, with almost 50% staying home until the age of 30. “And I’m sure those statistics have even increased since the pandemic,” said Doucet.
“Youth in care don’t have that luxury. They’re legislated to leave the system at age of majority. So, they’re deemed too old to remain in the child-welfare system after they reach age 18 or 19, depending on where they live in Canada, but, yet, too young to be sitting at the table when policy decisions are being made that impact them, sometimes even at their own intervention planning meetings with social workers.”
Additionally, in the last 20 years or so, a new developmental phase – “emerging adulthood,” which occurs between the ages of 19 and 29 – has been acknowledged in the academic literature, said Doucet. “It’s a phase that encompasses young people who are not necessarily children anymore but they’re not quite adults, and it provides room for identity exploration, trial and error, obtaining post-secondary education, and just figuring out one’s own place in the world. Youth in care aren’t able to experience this crucial developmental phase because of the legislated age cutoffs.”
There are studies that measure the benefits to both the youth affected and society at large of extending the age cutoff: “a return of $1.36 for every $1 spent on extending care up to age 25,” Doucet said.
Meanwhile, the cost of not extending care is high. For example, youth in care lose their lives up to five times the rate of their peers in the general population, she said. Poverty is more prevalent, as is homelessness, as previously noted.
“Out of the 36 countries in the global north, Canada is one of the six that does not have federal legislation to protect the rights of youth in care,” said Doucet. “While Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC], it only provides human rights protections for children and youth until the age of 18. So, youth in care who are transitioning into adulthood actually don’t fit within the UN CRC because they’re deemed too old, even though they are a vulnerable population that experiences multiple human rights violations. This highlights that age-based discrimination is very much entrenched into the mainstream child welfare system in Canada.”
In the question-and-answer period, Gillis outlined three recommendations in the UN’s report on ageism: education/awareness campaigns; changes to laws, programs and policies, starting with long-term care and other basic human rights; and intergenerational work. We need to look at what other countries are doing, the evidence, best practices, she said, and pensions and other financial programs must keep up with cost-of-living.
Doucet spoke about initiatives she and her colleagues have undertaken.
“We developed what we’re calling the equitable standards for transitions to adulthood for youth in care. We released those in 2021, myself and the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates, which is comprised of people with lived experience from across the country, youth-in-care networks, and a couple of ally organizations, like Away Home Canada and Child Welfare League of Canada. This was our way to provide a step-by-step rights-based approach that centred on lived expertise, research and best practices, to guide how youth in care need to be supported as they transition to adulthood.”
There are eight pillars: financial, educational and professional development, housing, relationships, culture and spirituality, health and well-being, advocacy and rights, emerging adulthood development. And each pillar has an equitable standards evaluation model. For example, about housing: “Every young person should have a place they can call home, without strict rules and conditions to abide by.”
“The ultimate goal [of] this project for us is, eventually, we are living in a society where the term ‘aging out’ no longer exists for youth in care, that they transition to adulthood based on readiness and developmental capacity instead of an arbitrary age,” said Doucet.
The Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights was introduced by Angeliki Bogiatji of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which is a partner of the annual event. Juanita Gonzalez of Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education, also a program partner, closed out the proceedings.
Samidoun was an organizer of an Oct. 7 rally celebrating Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel ayear earlier. Protesters tried to burn the Canadian flag while shouting that Israel should burn. They also chanted “death to” Canada, the United States and Israel. (screenshot Global News)
Last week, the Government of Canada designated Samidoun, a not-for-profit corporation based in Canada, as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. At the same time, the United States Department of the Treasury announced Samidoun is now a “specially designated global terrorist group.”
Also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Samidoun has close ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated by Canada and other countries as a terrorist group for many years.
At rallies in Vancouver and throughout Canada, Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, has expressed open support for the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, she led a rally where chants of “death to Canada, death to the United States and death to Israel” were heard. Videos show rally participants setting fire to the Canadian flag, while shouting “Israel, burn, burn,” among other things.
“We’re very thankful for today’s decision by the Government of Canada to designate Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code,” said Nico Slobinsky, vice-president, Pacific Region, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). “For the past year, they’ve organized some of the most vicious protests in Canada, openly and explicitly celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks and, just last week, they were chanting ‘we are Hamas, we are Hezbollah’ at their rally.”
Kates was arrested after an April 26 rally, at which she called the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks “heroic and brave” and led chants of “Long live Oct. 7.” The conditions of her release order – which prohibited her participation or attendance at any protests, rallies or assemblies for a period of six months – expired Oct. 8 because the Crown had yet to file charges against her.
Slobinsky said CIJA called for the BC Prosecution Service (BCPS) to charge Kates under hate speech laws four months ago, so that she face the full consequences of her actions for glorifying terrorism. But just how long it will take for the BCPS to make a decision is unknown.
Damienne Darby, communications counsel for the BCPS, confirmed that the BCPS had received a Report to Crown Counsel in relation to Kates. “We are reviewing it for charge assessment, and I am unable to provide a timeline for completion,” she wrote in an email, declining to provide further comment.
In a statement, Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and chief executive officer of CIJA, said, “Listing the group as a terrorist entity means they will no longer be able to use our streets as a platform to incite hate and division against the Jewish community; this is a significant step toward ensuring the safety and security of Canada’s Jews.”
But, while the designation as a terrorist group will affect Samidoun’s ability to fundraise, recruit and travel, it is unclear whether it will affect their ability to hold rallies and further promulgate hatred.
CIJA has asked the federal government to re-examine whether Kates and her husband, Khaled Barakat, obtained Canadian citizenship fraudulently by failing to fully disclose their affiliation with the PFLP. The United States has put Barakat on a terrorism watch list for his connections with the PFLP.
Public Safety Canada notes that one of the consequences of being listed as a terrorist organization is that the entity’s property can be seized or forfeited. Banks and brokerages are required to report that entity’s property and cannot allow the entity to access their property. It’s an offence for people to knowingly participate in or contribute to the activity of a terrorist group. Including Samidoun, there are now 78 terrorist entities listed under the Criminal Code, according to Public Safety Canada.
This terrorist designation is long overdue, said Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, chair of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. “To have an organization that creates chaos, hatred and threatens the Jewish community operating freely in Vancouver and Canada was terrible,” he said. “When Samidoun burned the Canadian flag and called for the destruction of the US and Canada on Oct. 7, they demonstrated who they truly are. I hope this decision will give the Canadian government and the police the ability to prevent Samidoun from operating in the manner they have and to prosecute.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.
(Editor’s Note: For the CJN Daily podcast host Ellin Bessner’s conversation with NGO Monitor’s Gerald Steinberg about Samidoun’s terror links and more, click here.)
Gerald Steinberg, founder of the pro-Israel research institute NGO Monitor, recently spoke with Ellin Bessner, host of The CJN Daily podcast, about Samidoun being listed as a terrorist organization. (screenshot thecjn.ca)
Canada’s federal government has now formally listed Samidoun as a terrorist entity, effective Oct. 11.
“Violent extremism, acts of terrorism or terrorist financing have no place in Canadian society or abroad. The listing of Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity, and will do everything in its power to counter the ongoing threat to Canada’s national security and all people inCanada,” read the Oct. 15 statement from Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister of public safety, democratic institutions and intergovernmental affairs. (photo from pm.gc.ca)
The decision was formally announced as a joint action with the US Department of the Treasury, which called Samidoun “a sham charity” in a statement from its Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Jewish leaders had long been arguing that the Vancouver-based nonprofit organization has direct ties to known militant terrorist entities, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which pioneered airplane hijackings, suicide bombings and assassinations of Israelis, and were directly involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
The week prior to the government’s announcement, Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal Conservatives, demanded Ottawa declare Samidoun a terrorist organization – as several other countries have already done. Doing so would block Samidoun’s ability to fundraise and would make it a crime for anyone to help it.
The PFLP is outlawed in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel and many other countries, and some countries, including Germany and Israel, have banned Samidoun, too. The Netherlands has voted to consider doing the same.
Samidoun’s status in Canada fell under scrutiny after the group organized protests to coincide with the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel. Some supporters in Vancouver tried to set fire to a Canadian flag, calling, “Death to Canada, death to the United States and death to Israel.”
Meanwhile, authorities in British Columbia were forced to lift bail conditions that had preventedSamidoun’s Vancouver-based international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, from participating in any protests for a period of six months. Vancouver police arrested Kates after she gave an antisemitic speech in April that praised the Oct. 7 massacre, but charges had not yet been laid before the bail deadline expired on Oct. 8. Kates is married to Khaled Barakat, suspected of being a high-ranking member of the PFLP, who also was granted Canadian citizenship.
Gerald Steinberg founded the pro-Israel research institute NGO Monitor, and is a professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University. A former columnist for the Canadian Jewish News, he spoke to me earlier this month to explain more about Samidoun’s terrorist ties, including how they operate on Canadian campuses.
Gerald Steinberg: I stumbled into the world of NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, about 20 years ago, when Canada was one of the main funders of something called the UN Conference on the Elimination of Racism around the world – that’s the infamous Durban Conference. A lot of antisemitism there. They didn’t care about racism. It was about labeling Israel as an apartheid, genocide state.
That was in September 2001, 23 years ago. I began to see nongovernmental organizations as important players and nobody was looking at that. Why are they allowed to be? What is the reason that they have gained so much political influence? And I began to do research. We look at the impact, the capabilities, the funding … [of NGOs that advocate against Israel]. We do look at some other cases, for comparative purposes.
Samidoun was not high up on our radar. Samidoun was something that gradually we began to understand the importance of. It’s officially called the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. They’re a branch, as they make quite clear, and unusually clear, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is a banned terror organization in the United States, in a number of European countries, in the UK and elsewhere.
So, what is this organization doing? Organizing these kinds of rallies and mob actions that label Israel as a genocidal state and call for the destruction of Israel, as we’ve seen around the world. And, as I began to look further and further into them, the Canadian connection became more dominant.
It wasn’t always like that. Samiduon operated out of Germany for a number of years. Khaled Barakat, who was the head of Samidoun, lived in Germany. Partly or significantly because of the work that NGO Monitor did vis-a-vis the German government – we said, “Look, they’re a terrorist front. Israel has officially labeled them a terrorist front and the evidence is clear, they’re connected to the PFLP” – the Germans then expelled Khaled Barakat and made Samidoun unable to function in Germany. They are banned. They can’t raise money. They can’t hold rallies. They can’t do anything in Germany.
There are other countries in Europe that are, at some level, looking at this, and have restricted their capabilities. Belgium is one of them. In Canada, they’re operated out of Vancouver, where Charlotte Kates lives. Basically, they went from Germany to Vancouver. Both Kates and Khaled Barakat, the two people who run Samidoun, are Canadian citizens. We don’t know anything really about how they became citizens or what they said in their application. Did they claim refugee status? At least, did he claim refugee status as a Palestinian who left Israel and is labeled as a terrorist agent by Israel?
Canada’s become the base of operations. And the question is, how did that happen? And what are Canadians doing about that? And then we began to look more and more at this network.
It’s important to understand that Samidoun is a worldwide network. They have branches that runanti-Israel public events, vicious anti-Israel public events, and recruit people and raise money in Brazil and other countries in South America, throughout Europe. They have operations in the United States – the United States has not banned them. Spain is a prominent place where they operate.
We mapped for the first time Samidoun’s international operations. And then the question comes up: who funds them? It has come up, particularly since Oct. 7, in the US Congress. And, just as there is a process in Canada, there is also a process in the United States, although less acute, because they are based out of Vancouver and not in the US.
Ellin Bessner: What evidence has your NGO monitor seen of what they’ve actually been doing here?
GS: The evidence is clear to everybody. You see the rallies that they are organizing. You see their posters. You see their events. I see a lot of them in Vancouver and I’ve talked to a number of people in Vancouver, and the Jewish community feels the threat there. They’ve had some very violent demonstrations in the last year…. I call them mob violence.
They’re quite visible and they’ve also had visibility in Toronto, I think in Montreal as well. They are on campuses where there are encampments, [and you see] Samidoun flags, Samidoun posters, and there is a Samidoun presence. That’s throughout North America, both in the United States and in Canada. They’re very visible.
EB: What are the benefits to them of operating in Canada?
GS: Well, they have citizenship. I’m not sure that Khaled Barakat would have gotten any kind of resident status in the United States. I think the rules for entry are tighter in the US if there is a possible terror connection. I think maybe that’s understated, but I’ll let you deal with that. Being in Canada as citizens gives them protection, gives them a place to operate from.
EB: Obviously that’s important for an organization like this. How much money do they get? And where does it come from?
GS: We have no idea. Either question. Because of the PFLP connection, because they run a lot of events, because this is what they live off of – there are other people as well, but Barakat and Charlotte Kates are the two most visible ones, this is their life – so, therefore, they must be drawing salaries. They must be able to get funding, and there’s probably more. Plus, they do a lot of traveling.
Maybe the Iranian government paid for Charlotte Kates to go to Tehran to do what she just did. [In August, she received an Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Award from the Islamic Republic of Iran.] It’s most likely. But they could be getting money from Qatar. There’s a lot of speculation.
The United States’s members of Congress have put Samidoun, as well as Students for Justice in Palestine and a few other groups, on a sort of watch list. And they’ve asked the Internal Revenue Service, which is the equivalent of the Canada Revenue Agency, to provide information that up until now Samidoun and other organizations have been allowed to hide – their anonymous donors. But it must be a significant amount of money to be able to pay for all these activities and their salaries and everything else.
Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s Vancouver-based international coordinator, appeared on Iranian television in August. (screenshot MEMRI REPORTS)
EB: You mentioned the trip to Iran. We should remind our audience that the Iranian government issued an award on state television to Charlotte Kates, who had to wear a hijab over her hair to appear on television…. And so, she went and she was talking about how she was arrested in Canada, in Vancouver….And they were glorifying the words that she had said on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Do you want to remind us of some of the things they have been quoted as saying, that your NGO Monitor has kept track of?
GS: If we’re looking even in the last year, the very virulent attacks against Israel, against the right ofIsrael to exist, has been a repeated theme in all [their remarks], including what we heard from Kates in Tehran, what they call the right of resistance. Particularly, they make it very specific – they use the term that Hamas used, the Al-Aqsa Flood resistance operation.
And they condemned “The Zionist retaliatory strikes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” This is from Oct. 10, 2023. Just one example of many others. They talk repeatedly about the right of the Palestinians, the brave Palestinian people and their resistance movement, stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, support Palestinian resistance and revolution. There are many, many variations on that theme. That is very prominent in their, I was going to say propaganda, but it’s probably their hate campaigns.
One other aspect that I want to raise here is the connection to the PFLP that’s important. What is the PFLP? Some may remember that the PFLP was involved in airplane hijackings. They were the original airplane hijackers – the Entebbe hijacking of 1976.
And, even before that, the hijacking of planes in 1970, and blowing them up. There are a whole series of events, including just taking machine guns and going into synagogues in Jerusalem and killing people. There are a series of terrorist events. They are a terror organization. They are also members of the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization]. They were founded probably in the 1960s, maybe earlier, as a Marxist, revolutionary, Palestinian movement, which means they’re not Islamic, they’re not Muslims.
Most of the people who are involved in the positions of power of the PFLP are Christian, they come from Christian families. They call themselves Marxists, but they are not part of the Fatah movement, which is the main part of the PLO, they are the Marxist liberation element and they’ve developed very close relationships – personal and political and ideological – with radical Christian groups across Europe and also, after that, they went out to North America. I think one of the questions is, who are their supporters and do they have those kinds of connections? We actually have those documented in Europe, less well known in Canada.
But they’ve been able to build on this. We usually associate the Palestinian terror movements with Hamas and, before that, the Fatah movement with [Yasser] Arafat, with fanatic Muslims who want to wipe Israel off the map. But this is a different organization and they were supported by the East Germans when East Germany existed, until 1990, and the West German far-left radicals who were connected to them. That’s the type of people that get attracted to this framework.
They are revolutionaries, and revolutionaries in the sense of blowing everybody up, not distinguishing between anybody, civilians, women, children, they kill everybody. And that’s the PFLP. And this [Samidoun] is one of their front organizations, maybe the most important front organization – they do the political aspect, they may also be involved in recruiting, they may also be involved in planning. We don’t know that, but that’s one of the reasons Israel banned them.
EB: It’s anarchy? And, the other day in Vancouver, on Oct. 7, I’m sure you may have seen the video now – Vancouver police are investigating – they were desecrating and ripping up a Canadian flag. It wasn’t just Israel that they were going after, and Zionists and Jews. It was also Canada. And I think that has crossed the line for people for whom going after Jews in Israel wouldn’t have crossed the line.
GS: That’s part of being this radical, Marxist organization. The term sounds so 1950s and Stalinist, but a radical Marxist, Palestinian liberation organization, that’s their name – the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The 1950s and ’60s were filled with popular fronts for the liberation of X, Y and Z, all supported by the Communist Bloc, in this case going through East Germany. Of all the organizations that the East Germans supported, one to eliminate Israel in the post-Shoah, post-Holocaust period, tells you quite a bit about that whole history.
Charlotte Kates was arrested after a Vancouver protest during which she praised the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel. Charges have not yet been laid. (screenshot facebook.com/FriendsofSimonWiesenthalCenter)
EB: Do you have any evidence that there is Russian money, Russian support going to Samidoun people anywhere else, but also in Canada?
GS: No.
EB: We’re having our own foreign influence problems right here in Canada.
GS: Yes. And it’s possible, but it’s much more likely to be the Muslim Brotherhood with Qatar and that part of the support group. Qatar supports Hamas. Qatar is, of course, Al Jazeera and all the other media platforms as well. But it’s the Muslim Brotherhood that’s so central here…. And then the PFLP is the other half of that formula. By the way, there are reports, and I’ve seen the reports, there are some connections to Iran. And then, the fact that Charlotte Kates got this award in Tehran makes one, I think, more than speculate that some of their funding may also come through, maybe a lot of it, comes through Iran.
EB: It walks like a duck, talks like a duck, must be a duck.
GS: So, here you have the strange situation, this very weird, absurd situation where you have what are essentially Christian, Marxist, radical Palestinians being allied with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Put those pieces together and explain to me how there’s any kind of logic except for the hate – hate of the West and hate of Israel. And the anarchy is very much part of that process.
EB: I want to bring it back to Canada because, earlier this month, the opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, had a press conference in Ottawa on Oct. 8 [before the government’s Oct. 15 announcement] and vowed to, if he is elected as prime minister, one of his priorities will be to ban Samidoun, [have it] designated as a terrorist organization. The Canadian government’s been asked to do that by B’nai Brith [Canada], by many organizations, [Member of Parliament] Anthony Housefather, that’s one of his big priorities as [the federal government’s special advisor] on antisemitism, Vancouver’s Jewish community, CIJA [Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]. So many people have said it’s beyond time. What is the difficulty in your experience for a government to actually do something like that? Because, if it was easy, they would have done it a long time ago. And I’m just going to put in a caveat – it took the Liberals six years to ban the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Canada. They just did so, but it took six years.
GS: I’m going to give you a generic answer. Each country has some specific aspects which make the process appropriate for its own legal and political system. But, generally, you start by having a member, usually an appointed official – it could come from a government minister, it could also come from a member of Parliament or a group of members of Parliament, particularly if it’s both parties. So, you have Anthony Housefather, then you have members of the Tories, including the leader, raising this issue and then getting somebody in the RCMP, the appropriate investigatory framework, to put together the evidence and to present it and reach a conclusion or a recommendation: this organization violates Canadian law in this way. Incitement to terror, support for terror, links to terror organizations, those are the questions that have to come up.
EB: For promotion of antisemitism is another one, Section 319 of the federal Criminal Code, right?
GS: Which is different from the United States, where there is no specific ban on antisemitism in the legal process. But that gets to the other aspect.
EB: There’s also hate symbol legislation. There’s a whole flag thing. You can’t be displaying Nazi flags or Confederate flags. They didn’t talk about these kinds of flags, but I wonder if that’s not far off. Of Hamas, which is a designated terror organization, or Hezbollah.
GS: All those questions are open questions. But there is also the issue of free speech. And that is something that is very important in the Western ideological political framework. The United States, in many ways, is slower and more reluctant to put limitations on organizations than Canada has been. I think that it’s pretty close, but the issue of free speech is very holy in the United States and that keeps coming up. Where does the line stop between allowing them to speak, hold rallies, which is part of free speech, and crossing over into support for terrorism, incitement and, in the case of Canada, antisemitism and the other aspects of the legal process? There’s always this balance.
And then there’s the question of constituencies. I would be surprised, maybe I could be naive on this, I don’t know enough about Canadian politics, but the constituency of support for Samidoun is not the same as, in terms of Canadian political support for the Liberals, is not nearly as deep and as wide as the general support for the Palestinian cause. They are a niche terror-linked organization and, politically, it should not be that difficult for a Liberal government to be able to say, “This crosses our red lines.”
You have the investigatory aspect of it, which is always done in Israel, too. I think there are at least three different levels of prosecutors and officials responsible for the process in Israel to designate an organization like Samidoun as a terror-linked organization. They all have to sign off on it and there have to be evidentiary processes. They don’t have to be made public, but there have to be people that can say, “We looked at the evidence, our job is to do that, and we are convinced.” There must be something similar in Canada. It takes somebody to start that process, to say we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it seriously, and we’re not going to take six years to do it, because, then, it’s meaningless.
EB: Lastly, what role, if any, did the PFLP play on Oct. 7 or is it playing now? Are they mostly in the West Bank and not in Gaza, or are they also in Gaza?
GS: The PFLP is strong, not in numbers, but in adherence, which means the terror agenda, both in Gaza and the West Bank. There were PFLP participants on Oct. 7. We have the details. We have names. We have the aspects. Some of them were killed. There was at least one case of an Israeli hostage that was held by people in the PFLP.
EB: Do you know the name?
GS: There was at least one case [the Bibas family] where it was acknowledged. There was at least one case where Israeli forces went in and found evidence that it was a PFLP [person] that was holding [a hostage] … and there were probably more. So, they are very much part of that broader terrorist process. We usually attribute it to Hamas, but there were others that joined on Oct. 7.
EB: And, in the West Bank, is there a constituency?
GS: They’re not a dominant organization. Again, they are a far-left non-Muslim, Christian [organization]. They do not come from the Muslim wing of the Palestinian liberation movement, but they are part of the PLO, so the terror links are also very much cemented in that framework. And I’ll just add that, when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and a lot of people celebrated the beginning of peace, they [PFLP] condemned [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat for having any kind of recognition of the Zionist entity. They did it loudly and clearly, and they sought to gain, and they probably did gain, recruits and support among Palestinians for having that position. So, they’re more radical than the Fatah movement. They are the opposition in the PLO to any kind of agreement or rapprochement or recognition of Israel.
EB: Is there anything that NGO Monitor has been doing recently to send briefs or information or papers to the Canadian government to share your information and call for changes?
GS: We share our information. We update our file on Samidoun whenever there’s something new … usually every two weeks worldwide, but specifically in Canada, including Charlotte Kates’s trip to Tehran. We put it all together in one package and we send it to a very broad list – to journalists, including the Canadian Jewish News, and also to members of Parliament, both sides … [for] anybody in Canada that’s interested, we make that information available…. Usually, [people will] have bits and pieces of it on their own, but, to see the bigger picture, all the things we just talked about, that’s part of our role.
EB: We should do another interview on all the other groups that are operating on campus.
GS: And the Toronto [District] School Board. There’s a whole bunch of NGOs doing [things]. They’re there. They’re pushing from behind, or not so from behind.
I’m going to give you one more sentence. It goes back to the basic question that Samidoun was expelled from Germany, Khaled Barakat was expelled from Germany – his visa was not renewed. Why is it that, in Canada, this process seems to be, not just taking so long, but it seems like the Canadian officialdom didn’t say, “Well, wait a minute, if the Germans are banning them, then maybe there’s something that we need to look at in more detail. Not just Israel, but the Germans as well, and other countries in Europe are also putting limitations on and opening investigations.”
EB: It wouldn’t be the first time in recent weeks that the Canadian immigration department came under fire for allowing terrorists in who claim asylum…. It’s very disturbing and disconcerting.
Lance Davis, chief executive officer of JNF Canada. (photo from JNF Canada)
The Jewish National Fund of Canada is fighting the Canada Revenue Agency over the revocation of the organization’s charitable status, accusing the federal taxation department of “blindsiding” them and treating them differently than other charities. The head of JNF Canada sees bias at play.
“Do we think the CRA is antisemitic?” asked Lance Davis, JNF Canada’s chief executive officer, in an interview with the Independent. “No. Do we think there is bias involved here? Yes. That’s actually part of our court application. We have said in writing that we believe there is bias.”
The difference, Davis explained, is that, while CRA officials may not carry prejudice toward Jewish people, their decision may have been influenced by a concerted, multi-year campaign attacking JNF – Independent Jewish Voices Canada has a website dedicated to the campaign.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, JNF Canada obtained the files used by CRA to make their determination.
“So we know what was written in the file that the CRA is using with respect to JNF Canada and it is littered with complaints in an organized and systematic way from anti-Israel groups, unions, political parties, etc.,” he said. “After you read all of this material, one can reasonably say that bias may have come to play into the decision-making process.”
Davis is emphatic that media have so far got the story wrong. The revocation is not about JNF Canada’s support for projects on Israel Defence Forces bases or on the other side of the Green Line, outside of Israel proper. CRA expressed concerns about these projects several years ago and JNF Canada immediately ended those undertakings, he said.
“Yes, we have over the last number of decades built all sorts of public amenities on IDF bases,” he said. “Those amenities include swing sets, playgrounds, parks, play areas … shaded areas, rest areas, all that kind of stuff. We disagree that that is not charitable. Helping the children who have to live on a base … we believe is charitable.”
Moreover, the money for such past projects did not flow to Israel’s military, said Davis. It went to a charity that built the projects.
“Nevertheless, when it was brought to our attention that this is a problem according to the CRA, we stopped doing it in order to be cooperative and collaborative with the CRA,” he said. “That’s not what this revocation is about. It might be an interesting subject for the media or those outside parties to conflate, but this issue that we’re dealing with the CRA is fundamentally about our founding charitable object. They’ve come to the conclusion that it is not charitable.”
The issue, Davis said, is that CRA, after 57 years, has abruptly reversed the 1967 acceptance of the organization’s charitable objective.
In 1967, said Davis, CRA’s predecessor agency accepted JNF Canada’s purpose of funding projects in which economically disadvantaged individuals in Israel, especially new immigrants as well as Palestinians, are hired to complete projects like tree-planting and digging reservoirs, with the intention of keeping them off welfare rolls and combating poverty.
The current troubles between CRA and JNF Canada started during an audit that began in 2014. When the auditor cited the original objective as incompatible, Davis said, the organization immediately set out to negotiate new charitable purposes that would satisfy CRA.
“We presented 10 of them in writing and said, please work with us, let’s pick any or all of these and we’ll get to work,” said Davis. “CRA did not negotiate with us at all about any of those charitable objects.”
Those objectives, he noted, were replicated by JNF Canada from other recognized charities that had received approvals from CRA.
The organization’s leaders say they were “blindsided” by the decision, which was released Aug. 10, via the Canada Gazette, the federal government’s avenue for publicizing legislation and government decisions.
The revocation is the culmination of a crisis that began at the end of June, when JNF was notified that CRA intended to revoke their charitable status. Within weeks, the organization’s lawyers had filed suit with the Federal Court of Appeal.
In every similar instance JNF’s lawyers reviewed, Davis said, CRA refrained from revoking the status at least until the organization had their day in court.
“There is this idea of a presumption of innocence until you’ve exhausted all your appeals,” said Davis. “Why weren’t we given a presumption of innocence? Why weren’t we given a chance to say our piece before the judge? It’s a right that every Canadian business, individual, charity is entitled to.”
For now, JNF Canada is not permitted to provide charitable receipts.
“We are still a nonprofit, we still exist, we’re still an entity,” Davis said.
If the Federal Court of Appeal sides with CRA, JNF could take the matter to the Supreme Court, Davis said. Alternatively, they could potentially restructure the way they do their work.
“We are working through thoughts and plans with our legal counsel as to how we could best continue the work of JNF in a legal, charitable manner,” he said. “But we are confident in our case and we feel that it’s vitally important for us to challenge the CRA and the facts that they’ve presented.”
JNF Canada has not yet publicly released documents relating to the matter, as they await their lawyers’ annotations to provide both the CRA’s perspective and the JNF’s replies to the government agency’s concerns.
In dealing with JNF Canada, Davis contends, CRA has behaved differently than they routinely do with other charities. The due process they should expect has not been forthcoming and the government agency has leapfrogged several steps that charities are generally provided in the progression of an issue, he said.
A screenshot of the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective’s resources page. The AOEC is a provincial specialist association of the BC Teachers’ Federation.
A group of BC teachers has filed a complaint against their union with the BC Human Rights Tribunal, alleging a culture of discrimination against Jews.
BC Teachers Against Antisemitism filed a complaint last week, after the BCTF rejected a proposal to create a provincial specialist association devoted to developing resources around antisemitism and Holocaust education.
The provincial government announced last year that Holocaust education would become mandatory in BC public schools for the first time in 2025. Provincial specialist associations within the BCTF develop and disseminate resources on areas of relevance, such as social studies, culinary arts and Aboriginal education. The proposal to create a PSA to develop the materials teachers will need when Holocaust education becomes a mandatory part of the Grade 10 social studies curriculum next year was rejected by the branch of the BCTF that vets the groups.
Paul Pulver, the lawyer representing the teachers, said this is only part of the complaint. He did not provide the text of the complaint to media, as he is adhering to the letter of the tribunal’s regulations and waiting for the quasi-judicial body to formally make the documents in the case public.
“There is a whole raft of allegations,” he said. “They involve the fact that pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel groups and members within the BCTF are able to, and encouraged to, state their position and lobby for their position and encourage change in support of their position, and those who do not agree with them are silenced and oppressed and discriminated against.”
The rejection of the PSA focused on antisemitism and Holocaust education is but one example, he said.
One PSA, called the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (AOEC), with the imprimatur of the BCTF, is publishing and distributing and disseminating materials Pulver calls “quite anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, frankly anti-Jewish.”
“It publishes false accusations about occupation and genocide,” he said.
The TeachBC website, an official BCTF platform advertised as “your go-to site for free downloadable lesson plans, posters and classroom resources,” contains no materials about the Holocaust or about antisemitism, Pulver said, but includes “some really harsh anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish materials,” including a poster that says “Zionists, f*** off.” After controversy around some of these items, the BCTF appeared to remove some of the AOEC’s materials from the website.
“As a teacher who isn’t interested in putting on a keffiyeh and lobbying for pro-Palestinian goals and objectives, or pro-Hamas goals and objectives as the case may be, you’re persona non grata, you’re a second-class citizen,” Pulver said. “And they are sick of it,” he said of his clients.
Rich Overgaard, director of BCTF’s communications and campaigns division, told the Independent, would not comment on the substance of the complaint.
“The Federation values the critical role of the Human Rights Tribunal in upholding the BC Human Rights Code and, in respect for this process, as well as any members that may be involved, will not comment before the tribunal has reviewed the matter,” he said in an email.
Pulver does not expect a speedy resolution, although the BCTF could resolve the case by entering discussions to find a solution.
“But, if that doesn’t happen, it’s just like any other human rights complaint,” he said. “It goes to the Human Rights Tribunal and information is exchanged and, ultimately, there’s a hearing and they make a decision.”
If the complaint goes to a hearing, the process could stretch late into the year or further.
“Unfortunately, the wheels of justice within a number of administrative bodies in the province grind slowly and the Human Rights Tribunal is no exception,” he said. “We are looking at months, plural.”
The teachers’ complaint is a tip of the iceberg, in one professional area, of what Jews in British Columbia and beyond are experiencing today, said Pulver.
“This is a microcosm of what’s going on in our daily life and in the daily work life of people who are Jewish or have pro-Israel or pro-Zionist views,” said the lawyer, who is a partner with Pulver Crawford Munroe LLP. “They are facing discrimination, they’re facing oppression, intimidation, they are being ostracized. In this case, they are being prevented from exercising democratic rights that, as union members, they ought to have and be able to exercise. They are in fear on a regular basis because they hold views or have origins that are not well-received in the current climate. I think anybody who cares about that sort of thing – which should be everybody – would look at this and say they deserve to be treated fairly, and they are not right now.”
Lawyer Erin Brandt founded the Antisemitism Legal Helpline to help connect people experiencing antisemitism with volunteer lawyers who could provide them with free, confidential legal advice. (photo from Erin Brandt)
After Oct. 7, Erin Brandt was angry. She decided to put that rage to constructive use. “I wanted to direct my anger towards something useful and the thing that I have that is useful is legal skills,” said Brandt, an employment lawyer and cofounder of PortaLaw. “My idea was to create a helpline that would help connect people experiencing antisemitism with volunteer lawyerswho could provide them with free, confidential legal advice.”
The Antisemitism Legal Helpline is officially housed under the auspices of Access Pro Bono Society of British Columbia, a free lawyer referral agency serving people and nonprofit organizations across the province, and is supported by the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.
“It’s been described as building the airplane as it’s taking off from the ground,” Brandt said of the helpline. Getting it up and running as soon as possible was key.
The Antisemitism Legal Helpline helps resolve the ad hoc responses that had been happening since Oct. 7, when many Jewish organizations began receiving more inquiries from members of the public who were facing antisemitism. The helpline is a single designated referral destination to help those who need legal advice find a lawyer with appropriate cultural sensitivity.
The steering committee of three includes Brandt, Cindy Switzer, an immigration lawyer, and Jessica Forman who, like Brandt, is an employment lawyer. About 20 other lawyers have formally signed onto the project, but the network is much wider, Brandt said, since any lawyer might engage with another professional they know if they think their expertise is particularly relevant for a file.
Calls so far have involved employment issues, such as inappropriate comments during workplace training events, and a lot of campus incidents affecting students, staff and professors.
“There’s been a few things relating to social media, people who are receiving harassment for things that they posted online,” said Brandt. There have also been incidents involving strata law, including at least one incident involving a mezuzah.
The volunteer lawyers provide roughly half an hour of initial summary advice. Some incidents can be resolved in that period, Brandt said. If the caller seeks to pursue matters further, the lawyer may take on the case pro bono or for a fee, or the client may be referred to another professional.
Some lawyers are on the lookout for a test case, an incident that could go to court and set a precedent – both legally and socially – that lets the public know antisemitism will not be tolerated. However, most of the people looking for advice, Brandt said, are understandably not eager to take a leading role as plaintiff.
There is no standard response in these cases. Lawyers and callers may decide to pursue things further or they may not.
“Sometimes, something is the best thing to do and, sometimes, nothing is the best thing to do,” said Brandt. The purpose of the helpline is to allow individuals to get professional advice on what their options and possible best responses might be.
“We want people in British Columbia to know that we exist and that they should call us for help,” Brandt said. “If somebody is a lawyer and is looking for ways to give back and wants to volunteer, then they can sign up as a volunteer.”
The helpline can be reached at 778-800-8917 or [email protected] and response time is one to two days.
A federal bill to address online harassment, bullying and hate has aspects to admire and others to cause concern. What happens in the committee process will determine the success of the proposed law.
That is the take of two experts – including one who had a hand in drafting the legislation. The devil, as always, is in the details of balancing free expression with the right to be free from threats and harassment.
Dr. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, who also serves on the advisory board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was joined in a recent online panel by Dr. Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law and associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary. Her recent work includes projects on online harms, misinformation and disinformation, and she co-chaired the expert group that advised the federal government on the development of the Online Harms Bill, which is known as Bill C-63. The virtual panel, on April 17, was presented by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and moderated by Richard Marceau, CIJA’s vice-president, external affairs, and general counsel. More than 850 people registered for the event, indicating what CIJA board chair Gail Adelson-Marcovitz indicated is a depth of interest, and perhaps concern, about the bill.
Geist explained that the new bill is a result of years of work, following the federal government’s withdrawal of an earlier attempt at addressing the problem of online harms.
Bill C-63 is really three separate concepts rolled into one. It would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, as well as introduce a new Online Harms Bill. Together, the components would codify currently inconsistent approaches to the problems.
The bill would redefine “hatred” in the Criminal Code and define a new crime of “offence motivated by hatred.” That offence, as well as advocating or promoting genocide, could lead to life imprisonment.
Amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act would add the “communication of hate speech” via the internet or other telecommunication technology as a discriminatory practice. Individuals would be empowered to bring a complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which could penalize offenders up to $50,000. The law, if passed, would affect public communications, like social media posts, not private messaging or emails.
Separate components of the bill would make it easier and quicker to address specific offensive content, such as “revenge porn” and posts that could harm children, encourage suicide or bullying or otherwise endanger young people.
A digital safety commissioner and ombudsperson would help guide individuals through the process of dealing with bullying or other issues related to the law.
On April 17, Dr. Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa spoke as part of a CIJA panel discussion on the Online Harms Bill. (screenshot)
Geist said many legal experts who seek to balance freedom of speech with freedom from abuse “breathed a sigh of relief” after the federal government abandoned earlier efforts and relied for the new bill on expert advice.
“It’s a pretty good starting point,” Geist said. “We know the broad brushstrokes of what that might include but there is a lot of uncertainty still, so it’s easy to like it when we don’t know the specifics.”
Geist and Laidlaw agreed on most points but had some differences around oversight. Geist said the bill appears to grant enormous powers to a new digital safety commissioner. The idea of life imprisonment for an online comment, he added, may be a sticking point. “I find that hard to justify,” he said.
Laidlaw said the new office of ombudsperson is an important step in helping individuals navigate online hate and harassment. The ombudsperson would be able to pass specific information on to the digital safety commission, whose mandate includes education and research supported by a digital safety office.
The bill would also place new obligations on corporations that run online platforms, like social media companies. At present, Laidlaw said, some companies, notably X (Twitter), are not taking the problem very seriously.
While Jewish advocacy organizations have long advocated for legal responses to hate speech, Geist warned of a double-edge sword.
“Could somebody who is supportive of Israel will be accused of promoting genocide?” he asked.
Geist upended the binary assumption of harassment and free expression, noting that the idea that limits on hate speech could chill expression ignores the existing, difficult-to-measure effects of online (as well as offline) harassment and bullying.
“There is already a chilling effect for anyone in our community and, frankly, in a number of communities, that speaks out on these issues,” he said. “The backlash that you invariably face causes, I think, many people to [reconsider] whether they want to step out and comment, and it’s not just online. There’s a chilling effect offline as well. These issues are very real and many of them will not be solved by legislation no matter what the legislation says.”
He fears a barrage of complaints, many vexatious, from all sides of many contentious issues.
While there is a needle-in-a-haystack challenge in addressing online harms, Geist said, addressing the problematic major players could have a broad impact, though no one believes online hate and bullying can be completely eradicated.
“The legislation talks about mitigating these harms, it doesn’t talk about eliminating them,” he said. Social media platforms, he believes, are looking for guidance on these issues and will be amenable to adhering to legislation. Moreover, he said, Canada’s proposals are somewhat belated responses that would put us roughly in line with the European Union, Australia, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions.
Dr. Emily Laidlaw of the University of Calgary, who joined the CIJA panel discussion on April 17. (screenshot)
The inability to erase hate and harassment is not an excuse to do nothing, Laidlaw said.
“Enforcement has always been an issue,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s a reason not to pass laws.”
Laidlaw took exception to criticism that the new bill would represent government censorship. The proposed digital safety commissioner would be an independent body comparable with the existing privacy commissioner.
“Where there is some risk is in the fact that, in the end, government appoints the individuals,” she said. Still, the appointees would need to be approved by Parliament, not just the government in office.
“And remember,” she added, the commissioner’s “oversight is of companies, not of individuals. They’re not making individual content decisions or holding individuals accountable here.”
The commission would not be subject to legal rules of evidence, making it possible to immediately take down things such as child porn, encouraging suicide or other especially egregious posts.
Geist said this significant power demands that the government spell out more clearly the limitations of the commission.
“At a minimum, it seems to me that it is incumbent on the government to flesh out in far more detail where the limits, where the guardrails, are around the commission, so that we aren’t basically adopting a ‘trust us’ approach with respect to the commission,” said Geist.
Parliament is expected to take up consideration of the bill in committee soon and Laidlaw argued that some aspects deserve speedy passage while others require far more sober consideration.
“The Online Harms Bill could be passed with minor tinkering,” she said. The Criminal Code provisions, she said, give her serious concerns and deserve major revisions or complete scrapping. She also struggles with changing the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Geist agreed on taking the bill apart.
“I would separate out the bill,” he said. Criminal Code and Human Rights Act amendments deserve much deeper consideration, he said. The online harms piece, he said, could be tidied up and passed with tweaks.
Josh Epstein stars as Leo Frank in Raincity Theatre’s production of Parade, which runs until April 13. (photo by Nicol Spinola)
Raincity Theatre’s production of the musical Parade opened March 21 at 191 Alexander St., a heritage venue in Gastown. It runs until April 13.
The story of Leo Frank, who was kidnapped from the Georgia State Penitentiary by members of the Ku Klux Klan on Aug. 17, 1915, and lynched, might not seem the stuff of musicals. However, playwright Alfred Uhry and Broadway producer Hal Prince saw the potential of reaching new audiences with this important story that had already been told in novels, plays, film and television. With a book by Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, the Prince-produced show opened on Broadway in 1998 – it won two Tony Awards. In 2023, Parade had a Broadway revival, again winning two Tonys.
Frank’s alleged crime was the rape and murder of a 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, but his real crime was being Jewish in the American South, which was, at the time, still feeling humiliation and anger over losing the Civil War.
Mary was last seen alive when she came to pick up her wages on the morning of April 26, 1913. Her body was found in the factory basement later that day. Frank was arrested and charged with the crime.
Several factors prevented a just trial, including a district attorney wanting a conviction to support his bid for governor, the antisemitism of a right-wing newspaper publisher, sloppy police work, the withholding of evidence, witness tampering, perjured testimony, and an all-white jury. This was America’s version of France’s Dreyfus Affair.
Frank’s wife, Lucille, lobbied everyone she could to intervene, and prominent newspapermen and others campaigned on Frank’s behalf. Finally, after two years in jail, Frank’s death sentence was reduced to life in prison, but the news was not welcomed by everyone. Mobs stormed the governor’s mansion and the National Guard was called out; martial law was declared. Frank was transferred into protective custody but the lynch mob – some of whom had been jurors in his trial – managed to kidnap and murder him.
“Our production will plunge our guests into the depths of human emotion, amidst the backdrop of a true historical event that still resonates today,” writes director Chris Adams in Raincity Theatre’s press material. “The passion and the tragedy of Leo and Lucille Frank’s story, enveloped in the haunting beauty of Jason Robert Brown’s score, will be simply unforgettable and I hope the undeniable resilience of the human spirit will deeply move audiences.”
Many Jewish community members are part of the show’s creative team, both on stage and off. Josh Epstein plays Frank. Warren Kimmel, Richard Newman, Stephen Aberle and Erin Aberle-Palm play various roles. Itai Erdal is the lighting designer, Michael Groberman the researcher and Kat Palmer, one of the producers. Rabbi Kylynn Cohen and Cantor Shani Cohen are consultants.
The Jewish Independent interviewed Epstein regarding his role.
JI: How did you get the part of Leo Frank?
JE: I was fortunate. I had it offered to me. I did not have to audition. I was asked to do this a year ago. I said yes immediately. Parade is my favourite piece of musical theatre. I am obsessed with it. I even went down to Seattle years ago to see it when the original Broadway cast toured it and got Jason Robert Brown’s autograph (my favourite composer) on the program, which I still have today. I remember just sitting there being gripped the entire show. The music is so gorgeous. However, it is not your typical Broadway production.
JI: The director said in an interview that you were born to play this part.
JE: I do feel like it is right for me. I have been waiting a long time to get a chance to play Frank and, when it was offered to me, I grabbed the opportunity. It was offered to me even before Oct. 7 and I knew it was an important role as, even then, there was a very antisemitic YouTube clip being circulated and, as a Jew, it was on the top of my mind with incidents happening and growing, and it is even more relevant today after Oct. 7.
JI: What research did you do to prepare for the role?
JE: I read what I could. The trial is a fascinating story that has everything in it, not just antisemitism but racism and women’s suffrage and children working in factories and people’s attitudes even 50 years after the Civil War is over. The parade was organized to honour the Confederate soldiers and then this explosion comes out of it with a resurgence of the KKK and the formation of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League. As far as the role goes, it is a deep acting role, but you also have to be able to sing. It has a lot of layers to it. I just read the script over and over to get some sense of the depth of Leo’s character.
JI: How would you classify the production?
JE: It is dark but there are moments of levity. It is the music that brings you joy. It will be an intense experience. It is such an incredible musical that you get swept away and it soaks into you. It is very visceral. People crave that. You won’t get that experience anywhere else.
JI: What can you tell us about the space and the cast?
JE: It is a gorgeous, intimate space with the audience close to the action and a really strong cast. The original production had a cast of 40. This one is pared down to 20. It is huge to have 20 people in a 70-seat space – it feels like a giant production yet there still is a sense of intimacy about it. Lucille is the real star in a way as she becomes the driving force behind Leo’s sentencing being reduced and the resurgence of their love.
JI: How has the experience of playing Frank been for you?
JE: This experience has been incredible. Sometimes, I can’t always speak about the experience but I feel it. When I am in the show, I trust it, the material is great. I don’t have to come up with any tricks or think of the next joke or push the drama, I just stay present in the scene and give my version of what Leo is going through.
JI: Why should people come and see it?
JE: People love true crime stories and it is one of the most interesting cases in history, still talked about today. The production takes everything interesting about the case and puts it to the most gorgeous music you will ever hear.
JI: What would you like to have the audience take away from the production?
JE: They don’t have to take any theatrical thing away. Just come and watch. The story is there. It is a true story. They should just come, watch and feel.
