MP Anthony Housefather was in Vancouver last week. <\/i>(photo from Government of Canada)<\/i><\/p>\n
Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP who openly considered joining the Conservatives, made an urgent plea during a presentation in Vancouver last week for Jews and pro-Israel voters to keep a foot on both sides of the political divide.<\/p>\n
Housefather, member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, was on the West Coast for a series of meet-and-greets with Jewish organizations and individuals. At Temple Sholom just before Shabbat on May 17, Housefather was open about the disappointments some Jewish Canadians \u2013 including himself \u2013 have felt with the current Liberal government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a government that has had an excellent record on Israel for the past eight years turn away from that excellent record that we all cherish so much,\u201d he said before going into examples he said show his party has been a voice for Jews and Israel.<\/p>\n
Since Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party came to power in 2015, Housefather said, Canada has had a better voting record at the United Nations than the previous Conservative government had.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe voted against 87% of the anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, comparable only to the United States, at about 90%,\u201d he said. \u201cMost European countries were between zero and 10%.\u201d<\/p>\n
On antisemitism, Housefather said it was his party that appointed a special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and antisemitism \u2013 first Irwin Cotler and now Deborah Lyons \u2013 and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism. The federal government apologized for this country slamming the doors on Jewish refugees before and during the Holocaust, initiated Jewish Heritage Month, and made antisemitism one of four pillars of the federal antiracism strategy, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been proud of the record of my party while we have been in government on these issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince Oct. 7, I think the Jewish community across the country has felt somewhat abandoned,\u201d he said. In January, the government was \u201cnot able to articulate that Israel was not committing genocide,\u201d he said. The decision to restore funding to UNRWA \u2013 the UN\u2019s Palestinian\u00a0<\/span>relief agency some of whose employees, evidence shows, were involved in the Oct. 7 terrorism \u2013 was a blow to many Jewish Canadians. The turning point for Housefather was the New Democratic Party motion that was widely seen as condemning Israel, including calling for an end to military trade with the country.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the decision was made to amend [the motion], which made the resolution better, but it was still bad,\u201d Housefather said. In the end, only he and two other Liberals voted against the motion. What really hurt, said Housefather, was when the NDP member who moved the motion was given a standing ovation, including by Liberal MPs.<\/p>\n This combination of events led Housefather to question his place in the party and to publicly acknowledge he was considering crossing the floor. He decided to stay with the Liberals, in part because the prime minister tasked him with new responsibilities to address antisemitism, but also, he said, because he realized that his voice \u2013 and those of other Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians \u2013 is needed in the governing party.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to be there to make our voices heard in the party,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you place all your eggs in one basket and you have no allies in the other party when it comes to power, then you\u2019re screwed.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Housefather has a list of actions he wants from the government and others. He is urging Criminal Code amendments to add \u201cbubble legislation,\u201d which would prevent protests within a certain distance from synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres, after protesters laid siege to a Jewish community building in Montreal and people inside were prevented from leaving for hours.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Police need to be told that they must enforce the law around harassment and hate speech, and university administrations need to act to keep students safe, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Housefather pushed for parliamentary hearings on campus antisemitism, which have now begun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He urged Jewish Canadians to develop relationships with their elected officials, and he passionately urged them to leave their hatred aside.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Housefather said he gets barraged by hate messages from antisemites and anti-Zionists \u2013 including death threats \u2013 but it\u2019s the hate from Jews that really upsets him. No matter how much some voters agree with him on issues that are important to the Jewish community, he said, they nevertheless condemn him in extreme terms \u2013 \u201ctraitor,\u201d \u201cquisling\u201d \u2013 for being part of the Liberal party.<\/p>\n \u201cIf our community wants MPs to support our community, you have to deal with them in a way that doesn\u2019t send them hate, that doesn\u2019t treat them like dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n Above all, Housefather said, Israel and Jewish issues shouldn\u2019t be a partisan issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe should all fight for them and we shouldn\u2019t be trying to create wedge issues that divide the Jewish community,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MP Anthony Housefather was in Vancouver last week. (photo from Government of Canada) Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP who openly considered joining the Conservatives, made an urgent plea during a presentation in Vancouver last week for Jews and pro-Israel voters to keep a foot on both sides of the political divide. Housefather, member of Parliament […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4877,6312,8837,22729,1678,22725,3597,228,2806],"class_list":["post-44346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-anthony-housefather","tag-governance","tag-hate","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-liberals","tag-oct-7","tag-politics","tag-united-nations","tag-unrwa"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}