governance

Patriotic belonging diminishes

(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

When I was a kid, living near Washington, DC, my dad would hang an American flag up out in front of our house on US holidays. We’d all go outside for Memorial Day or 4th of July and raise the flag together. It was a solemn ritual. It was uncomplicated and patriotic.

As my understanding of US history and geopolitical actions changed, I still remember feeling a sense of awe as we sat on a blanket under the night sky, celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and Sousa marches. I carried that mostly uncomplicated feeling with me when we moved to Canada in 2009, the feeling of pride in where I lived. I became a dual citizen, believing I could hold that feeling for two nations at once.

A few years ago, Winnipeg changed its celebrations around Canada Day. Some of the huge gatherings resulted in spikes in crime. Many events also didn’t properly acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ roles in this country. We found, with younger kids, that the crowds, loud noises and late nights required to celebrate with others became too hard.

The choice to downplay some aspects of Canada Day reflected a new understanding. Manitoba’s Indigenous population is 18.1%, larger than any other province. Winnipeg is home to the largest urban Canadian Indigenous population. Our kids attend public school in a division where the student population is approximately 30% Indigenous. Indigenous peoples have complex relationship with patriotism for many valid reasons.

I felt this nuanced understanding of patriotism and how it related to my country was only fair as a critical thinker who reads the news. Little of it had to do with my Jewish identity, I thought. Since Oct. 7, I realized that was incorrect.

On June 1, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.” This speech was, unfortunately, too little, and too late. While he did this, there were more incidents of hate, and little done to enforce the laws to stop it. Carney has created a new advisory council to combat hate, which has only one Jewish person on it. While one of their tasks is to tackle antisemitism, the council has a participant who supports Palestinian resistance via Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. Another member is a lawyer who represented Palestinian protesters in a university encampment. This doesn’t strike anyone in the Jewish community as an unbiased or safe environment to combat Canadian antisemitism.

Sorting through my feelings, I found a strange parallel in the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Chullin, which I am studying as part of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day). This tractate, about kosher slaughter, is technical but contains insights that have broader implications. On page 44, there’s a discussion of treifa and how to detect it. In this situation, treifa refers to an animal that has a physical defect and will likely die soon. This type of animal isn’t kosher.

Sometimes, this is discovered only after slaughter. For the animal’s owner, this is a financial loss, too. In Dr. Sara Ronis’ essay on My Jewish Learning on Chullin 44, she highlights Rav Hisda, “who says: Who is a Torah scholar? This is one who sees his own treifa.” This is someone who sees his animal’s status, takes the financial loss and keeps potentially non-kosher meat out of the food supply. This person thinks critically enough to recognize when something might be harmful even when it’s difficult and the outcome doesn’t benefit them.

All my thoughts about patriotism felt emotional but abstract until October 2023. Then it became personal. The following situation is one I had but illustrates multiple Jewish Canadian experiences.

Someone I knew posted on social media. I’d sat on a committee with her. I visited her farm. I supported her business. Right after Oct. 7, this person cheered “resistance.” She promoted a “walkout for Palestine” at an urban high school near me. This person lived out in the country, not in the city. Still, she had lots of followers and this reaction to the Oct. 7 attack contributed to the antisemitism in Winnipeg.

When I asked her why she did this, I heard that this non-Jewish, leftwing Canadian once dated a leftwing Israeli. She believed in “one state” for Israelis and Palestinians. She’d once raised money to visit the West Bank but hadn’t managed the trip. She then defined antisemitism for me. After this online confrontation continued, I broke off contact, but this person still follows me on Instagram. It feels like I’m being stalked by someone who wants to monitor my minority identity.

My kids now attend that public high school, and I imagine how dangerous it could be if they were there during a “walkout for Palestine.” There’s a straight line from having a leftwing non-Jew feel confident enough to define Jew-hate to me, a Jewish person, and the hate we’re dealing with now. If a walkout happens at school, do my Jewish kids stay in the building, thus getting singled out as targets? My kids’ choice to side with Israeli friends and family and the Jewish state means they could be endangered at school by such “resistance” activism.

When I moved to Canada, I reveled in how safe and public Jews felt in Winnipeg. It was a novelty after moving from Kentucky, where I’d often felt worried about my safety. When someone recognized me on a Winnipeg street and called out to me from her bicycle, yelling that she knew me from synagogue, I felt unsettled. Six months later, I too felt safe enough to put my menorah in the dining room window during Hanukkah.

Sadly, that first Hanukkah in Canada, in 2009, is when my house got egged. It felt safe to be Jewish here, but we still couldn’t be that public about who we were.

When my twins were preschoolers, they walked to synagogue with us, wearing kippahs, because they felt proud of their identity. It was also easier than getting the kippahs on just outside the shul. We’re now in a situation where everyone’s toque, sun hat or ball cap comes off and the kippah comes on – sometimes even inside the building. We’ve had to change. It wasn’t safe.

Like many in Canada and the United States, I am now significantly less trusting of government and our country’s actions. I wonder if I will know when it’s time to move, when things are too unsafe. The older me sees value in the ways of Rav Hisda. It’s a sign of wisdom and maturity when we can identify and predict a loss or risk before it happens, and even cut our losses.

Part of me wishes for that uncomplicated time when I could lay back on my blanket, watch the fireworks and feel soaring pride. I’m sad to have lost that pride and the easy feeling of belonging I had in the past. Now, I wonder if I ever really belonged then, either.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Need holistic approach

Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a much-vaunted statement on Canada’s antisemitism crisis last week. It was unlikely to satisfy everyone – partly because there is only so much a single government can do about a global social phenomenon like escalating Jew-hatred.

Even by the standards of that acknowledgement, the address, delivered in Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, seemed like a significant missed opportunity.

Some might have expected Canada to appoint a Royal Commission that would investigate the problem of antisemitism in this country, as Australia has done. That, too, likely would have been criticized as kicking the problem down the road.

Instead, Carney announced something called the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, under the stewardship of Marc Miller, the minister of Canadian identity and culture. The council’s mission seems reasonable enough: analyzing “the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism in Canada – including across our public institutions, workplaces, campuses, public services, professional bodies and online spaces”; coordinating a “whole-of-federal-government approach”; improving research and the collection of data on hate incidents; and “measure[ing] the impact of our efforts, to reinforce those investments in education, prevention, training and community safety that are delivering real results and helping to build a safer, more inclusive Canada for all.”

Lovely enough, though Carney’s speech seemed defensive on at least two fronts. First, he insisted none of this would impinge free expression, which came across as a bit of a sop to those who insist that there should be no limits to the Jew-hatred and anti-Israel bombast on Canadian streets, in classrooms and at workplaces. Further, while insisting that antisemitism is a top priority and that it would be moved to the top of the new council’s agenda, the council is, in the end, a broadly mandated body with a massive jurisdictional swath including, as its name states, amorphous “rights, equality and inclusion.” At a time when many Jews feel like their interests cannot be addressed without an addendum acknowledging the concerns of a laundry list of other equity-seeking peoples, the assignment of antisemitism to this omnibus-type council seems as much an insult as a salve.

What most people did not know during Carney’s speech were the names of the members of the new council. Among them is a lawyer behind a Charter of Rights challenge in defence of anti-Israel encampments. More galling to many is the inclusion of former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, who has been head of the Canadian Arab Federation, is an admirer of Yasser Arafat, and lobbied to keep Hamas and Hezbollah off Canada’s list of proscribed terrorist entities.

It is an understatement to say that this news undermines the confidence of Jewish (and most reasonable) Canadians that the council will be anything like a panacea for the antisemitism problem. One could hardly conjure council members more likely to raise distrust among Jewish Canadians, no matter how respected any of the other members may be.

Carney also outlined not insignificant steps the government has taken, including funding for programs against radicalization and for Jewish community security. The latter funding is, of course, deeply necessary and appreciated, but also a symptom, rather than a treatment, of the issue.

Rich on bromides and with a requisite quote from Elie Wiesel, the prime minister’s speech probably struck most Canadian Jews as bland and empty. Carney uttered not a word about Israel or antizionism. More than this, the role of Islamic extremism as a major source of antisemitism in Canada was addressed only indirectly. As many commentators have noted, if we are too afraid to even acknowledge and name a main driver of the problem, the likelihood of taking steps that will resolve it seems very remote.

At a minimum, the PM’s address gives a benchmark with which to measure success or failure in the next few years. Any progress brought about by the work of the council and the other steps Carney noted, including Bill C-9 regarding hate propaganda, hate crimes and access to religious or cultural places, will be welcomed. The government should be held to account for any shortcomings.

As important as government action is, that alone will not have the impact necessary if there is not a significant upswell in public demand for change. While Carney called for a “whole-of-federal-government approach,” we need an all-of-society approach, with civic groups, media, the corporate sector and, especially, individual Canadians, speaking up against antisemitism.

Canada’s mixed messages

In mid-May, a Winnipeg Free Press article by John Longhurst announced a new online database for research. This open access resource lists the names of German Nazi party members. The article’s target audience: the Manitoba Mennonite community.

As background: Many German Mennonites, previously pacifist, joined the Nazi party starting in the early 1930s. In the article, Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, a Toronto researcher, said the goal of researching and publicizing the records was not to condemn or shame anyone. “The point,” he said, “is to understand what made their choices feel plausible at the time, and what this means for us now in Canada and the US.” Aileen Friesen, who teaches Mennonite History at the University of Winnipeg, said it could serve “as a lesson for our current time.”

I’m concerned about this “lesson.” Nazi membership before and during the Second World War is nothing to be proud about. Still, this does make it easier to understand the views of some Mennonites in 2026.

Some Winnipeg Mennonites often offer public opinions about Israel, Gaza and the war. They’re staunchly against war, but support Palestinian resistance and are against Israelis or Jews. This stance appears in local Mennonite gallery exhibits, fundraising, petitions and protests. It’s on stickers on lampposts near a neighbourhood Mennonite school. While out walking, I peel off “Free Palestine” stickers with cartoon characters doing a Sieg Heil and QR code stickers with “Boycott Israel.”

This “pacifism” chooses a side just like German Mennonites chose the Nazi party. This stance doesn’t examine what these choices mean to the safety of others, such as Jewish Canadians who live nearby. It doesn’t reflect a morality-based Christian religious tradition or teachings from a Jewish guy named Jesus, let alone Jewish texts or culture.

Actions have consequences. This failure to understand logical outcomes echoes throughout Canadian society. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech described Canada’s goals for trade alliances and Canada’s role as a “middle power.” It’s easy to see that this dream is failing on a practical level.

Canada, a “human rights champion,” has an uneven track record. According to United Nations Watch, on April 8, Canada, as part of the 54-nation United Nations Economic and Social Council, “participated in the consensus nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran” to a committee responsible for funding women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention. The United States was the only nation who objected to this nomination.

Previously, Canada objected in similar UN processes, but, this time, Canada supported the Iranian regime. Iran’s government has enforced a nearly complete internet blackout since Feb. 28. It kills protesters. The regime uses morality police to force women to cover their hair. Female “offenders” suffer arrests, assaults, rapes, torture and murder. Iran’s regime funds terror proxies, including in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. Yet, Canada didn’t object to the UN nomination.

Canada also has problems fighting terrorism at home. In October 2024, Canada listed Samidoun, an organization supporting Palestinian terrorism, as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. Eventually, in March 2026, Canada revoked Samidoun’s nonprofit status. Based on federal anti-hate provisions, Vancouver police arrested Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, for inciting hate and released her with conditions. Apparently, those conditions allow speaking on Iranian state television, attending the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and continuing permission to live in Canada. (Kates is an American whose status in Canada is not publicly known.) The same goes for her husband, Khaled Barakat, Samidoun’s founder, who was deported from the United States in 2003.

This spring, Canada welcomed international leaders for the FIFA Congress, including Palestine Football Association head Jibril Rajoub, who was previously convicted of throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus. Israel later released Rajoub in a prisoner exchange, and he committed further offences. Once in Canada, Rajoub publicly refused to shake hands with the FIFA Arab-Israeli representative, Basim Sheikh Suliman. Meanwhile, Canada refused to let the Iranian FIFA representative into the country. These decisions were inconsistent, not the “pragmatic and principled” actions of a country committed to human rights.

If Canada wishes to be a human rights champion, it must work to stop terrorism at home. The government should protect Canadians from danger. Consistent law and immigration enforcement and UN decisions that support these rights would be a good start.

Education’s another way to be an effective middle power. Increase funding for teaching and researching social sciences, including international relations, political science, religious studies and history. These disciplines offer perspectives to better understand global issues and events. Canada must move beyond popular theories like the oppressor/oppressed model that doesn’t adequately explain conflicts beyond biased white/black racial narratives. This oppressor theory fails in Middle Eastern, African or Asian contexts where Western conceptions of colonization, race and power don’t easily apply.

With a broader social science approach, future Canadian leaders could better understand complicated global situations. Educated Canadians with these skills could better examine global economics, conflicts and the geographic strengths.

For instance, our media and government often ascribe outsized power to Israel. This is a common antisemitic conspiracy theory. Israel’s a tiny democracy of 10 million people, with sizeable minority populations. Many also demonize Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Canada, like many Israelis, may not agree with Netanyahu’s government’s policies, but no other Middle Eastern leaders were elected by functioning democracies. Further, media seldom hold any other Middle Eastern country responsible for its role in the conflict.

Canada’s resources, educated population and multicultural diversity could make it a powerhouse. Yet, its foreign policies don’t use intellectual rigour. Historically, Canada has offered up inconsistent international policies, and bias regarding many of its minorities. Past prime ministers have apologized, promising to forge a better Canada. Instead, Canada’s “oppressor” rhetoric poses as a “peaceful” bystander and blames Israel.

Canada has a tradition of simplistic politics of blame like “war is bad.” Our geographic isolation protects us. It allows Canada to watch hate happen and reproach others without getting involved. Our country must accept that consistently being a bystander isn’t good enough. Failing to condemn or shame those who committed grievous wrongs isn’t good enough. It wasn’t OK to join the Nazi party 90 years ago. It wasn’t OK to reject Jewish refugees. We know where this kind of hatemongering leads. Canada, and Canadians, can do better than this.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

The balancing of rights

Canada prides itself on being a country where free expression is a core value. We have always differed from our American cousins, though, in recognizing a balance between an “anything goes” right to speech and the contending right of individuals and groups to live free from fear and incitement.

Canadian law draws definite lines. Speech that incites violence against an identifiable group, that promotes hatred or that crosses into criminal harassment is not protected. Those limits are not theoretical – they exist precisely because history has shown what can happen when words move from expression into incitement.

Even as governments take steps towards legislation that would create “bubble zones” and strengthen hate crime laws, many Canadians Jews are concerned that limitations already set out in law, intended to protect minority communities, are not being enforced. Rhetoric like “Globalize the intifada,” which is heard as an overt call for violence against Jews by most Jews and other people who can hear clearly, is going uncontested by police and courts, for example.

The Criminal Code is clear: advocating or promoting violence against identifiable groups crosses a line. The question is no longer whether such limits exist. The question is whether they are being enforced. And, increasingly, the answer appears to be no.

What we are seeing is not simply robust debate. It is a climate in which harassment and intimidation are proliferating, often without legal consequence.

There are, of course, consequences. Jewish institutions require heightened security after so many incidents that it is hard to keep up with the grim news. Students and faculty experience actively hostile campus environments. Public demonstrations brazenly cross the line between protest, provocation and hate.

There is no provable causal chain between rhetoric and violence. Democracies are right to err on the side of speech. But, when the same language, the same slogans and the same patterns of escalation appear alongside an unprecedented rise in hate incidents and targeted attacks, the correlation becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss – and demands attention.

Canada is not alone in confronting this tension. The British authorities have begun to draw firmer lines – distinguishing between lawful protest and language and conduct that threatens public safety or targets vulnerable communities.

The approach is not without controversy. It raises legitimate concerns about overreach and the risk of suppressing dissent. But it also reflects a recognition that inaction carries its own dangers.

Canada is facing a similar showdown.

The goal must not be to silence political views, however unpopular. Or to criminalize protest or suppress debate about complex international issues. Those must remain protected. The goal must be far narrower – to enforce the laws that already exist and to ensure that calls for violence, harassment and intimidation are treated as such, regardless of political context. To make clear that free expression does not extend to threatening the safety and dignity of others.

This is a position that seems simple enough, even unquestioned, when it comes to hateful language and physical intimidation against other vulnerable populations. The situation is serious and it demands the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths.

Canada should not abandon its commitment to free expression. But we must recognize, as we always have, that free expression has limits – and that those limits exist for a reason. In this instance, the reason is the evident correlation between rampant anti-Israel, antizionist and antisemitic rhetoric and the violence against Jews and Jewish institutions we are experiencing.

The government of the United Kingdom is now experimenting in enforcing limitations on hate expression. It is a courageous step. It could also be a turning point – in either direction.

The inevitable pushback around “silencing” (itself often founded on antisemitic tropes of Jewish power) and the more legitimate concerns about free speech make this a fraught policy area. However, if the UK, which shares much of our political culture, can find a middle ground, we would be wise to pay attention.

If, on the other hand, more violent protests, adverse court decisions or – more damagingly – if the government suffers internal splits or popular disapproval over its approach to anti-Jewish harassment, it could set a precedent in which politicians in places like Canada learn that it is best not to provoke the harassers. If that happens, it will signal an open season for anti-Jewish agitation and an extraordinary abandonment of free speech’s twin core value of being able to live free from fear and incitement.

What is needed right now is political courage. Some of that exists, but it needs to exist in a sufficient number of decision-makers and in the places of power where it is most needed and can have the most effect. For better or worse, we will know if this is the case soon enough.

Nakba exhibit biased

The following is the executive summary of the study The Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Its Nakba Exhibit: Bias and Animus in Process and Outcome and the Nature and Impact of the New Antisemitism in Canada, written by Dr. Bryan Schwartz, a professor of law at the University of Manitoba, and Rhonda Spivak, LLB, editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Review. It is reprinted with permission, edited for JI style and length. The exhibit is set to open in June. For a link to the full study, go to winnipegjewishreview.com.

The proposed Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), titled Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, is not a balanced exploration of displacement. It is a partisan exercise in the demonization and delegitimization of Israel – driven from its inception by a process whose composition predetermined its outcome.

A publicly funded national museum exhibiting biased content that vilifies one national/ethnic group’s homeland constitutes a discriminatory denial of equitable human rights education.

The process and work product – to the extent it is already available – are not consistent with the CMHR’s statutory mandate under the Museums Act, the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism adopted by both Canada and Manitoba, and the ethical codes of the Canadian Museums Association (CMA) and International Council of Museums (ICOM).

The bias is structural and traceable. The CMHR assembled a Palestinian Content Advisory Network whose membership was kept opaque – referenced once in the 2022/23 annual report and then deleted. Investigation reveals that its members hold views that are hostile to Israel and not sustainable on a fair-minded analysis of history and current realities.

Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba and member of the advisory network, has publicly called Zionism a “disease that must be destroyed,” accused Israel of genocide, rationalized the Oct. 7 massacre as Palestinians “biting back,” and condoned violent intifada with language such as “intifada revolution … scorch the earth.” Other advisory network members have framed Israel as an apartheid settler-colonial state, endorsed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, advocated one-state solutions that would deny the right of the Jewish people to their own state, have accused Israel of genocide at its founding and in Gaza, and compared Israel to the Nazis. The CMHR cannot credibly claim that work product shaped by this group is free of bias and animus rather than driven by it. By including persons with such views in an official advisory committee, it has extended official recognition and an aura of respectability to them.

The process excluded and marginalized the mainstream Jewish community at every stage. There was no public consultation of the kind that accompanied the Holocaust gallery. The Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada withdrew its partnership with the CMHR over the exhibit. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) warned that the exhibit would deliver an incomplete and unbalanced narrative that would omit Jewish refugee experiences. The Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI) wrote to the CMHR, the minister of Canadian Heritage and the prime minister requesting suspension.

Jewish organizations who supported the exhibit are fringe anti-Zionist groups, such as Independent Jewish Voices (constituting at maximum 0.2% of Canadian Jews, this report places them around 0.0025% of Canadian Jews), the United Jewish People’s Order (expelled by the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1951, and whose membership has never surpassed their 1950s numbers, placing it well below half a percent of Canadian Jews; it seems that their largest attended event in recent years was around 350 people total) and the Jewish Faculty Network (less than 0.05% of Canadian Jews). IJV and UJPO were involved with the organization that organized a Nov. 2, 2025, panel at which the exhibit’s director discussed her involvement in the exhibit.

The exhibit’s content is equally one-sided. The CMHR’s potted history, as per its website, attributes Palestinian displacement primarily to Jewish and Israeli armed forces while omitting critical context: Jewish acceptance of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, repeated Arab rejection of two-state solutions, the invasion by five Arab armies to destroy the nascent Jewish state, over a century of lethal anti-Jewish violence in Mandatory and Ottoman Palestine (documented from at least 1834), the ethnic cleansing of approximately 850,000 to 900,000 Jews from Arab countries after 1948, and the documented pattern of rejectionist violence against moderate Palestinians who favoured coexistence.

The very term “Nakba” – originally coined to describe the catastrophe of Arab armies’ failure to destroy Israel – has been recast to frame Israel’s founding as an illegitimate catastrophe, implicitly justifying campaigns to eliminate it. The CMHR exhibit instead insists that “Nakba” refers only to the displacement of Palestinians and avoids acknowledgement of Arab rejection of the two-state solution, of the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish homeland, and the armed invasion of Israel by the armies of five Arab states aimed at Israel’s destruction.

The museum’s diversity policies require representation of multiple perspectives, especially on contested histories, which in this case requires presenting sources that nonviolent Palestinian villages were allowed to stay, multiple Arab sources showing calls by Palestinian leadership and Arab states for evacuation of villages to further the Arab war effort, or leave rather than give the nascent state of Israel legitimacy…. Since Israel is an open society, multiple lines of scholarship diverge. That is not the case in Arab states, which have not opened their archives. Nor is it the case in the Palestinian Authority, where President [Mahmoud] Abbas made “Nakba denial” a crime subject to jail terms.

The exhibit, as Zeid’s own statements make plain, rests on a double game. The exhibit is presented as a collection of individual personal narratives – merely “telling stories” about the effects of displacement, yet it simultaneously advances “the story” that is supposedly the single overall historical truth. The audience is expected to accept these personal narratives as historical fact, even in the context of an advisory network whose documented members variously call Zionism a “disease” or a virus that must “be destroyed” and adopt other epithets that demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state.

It is known that oral histories can contain varying degrees of fact and can be coloured by “collective memory” – political perspectives on past events that are widely shared but may not reflect fairly or fully the actual events of individual lives in earlier generations. Judging from the composition of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network, we can expect these stories to be infused with negativity towards Israel and a lack of any historical context.

In practice, we can expect that many or all narratives in this exhibit may be an occasion to vilify Israel, from its foundation until the present. For example, it may speak of checkpoints without mentioning the suicide bombings that necessitated them, of displacement without mentioning Jewish acceptance of partition and Arab rejection of it, of suffering without acknowledging that it was Arab rejectionism and aggression that created the refugee crisis in the first place.

The “personal story” framing is a shield against accountability: it permits the museum to disseminate a partisan political narrative while disclaiming responsibility for its historical claims. This exhibit will contribute directly to the rising tide of antisemitism that has made Canada an increasingly dangerous place for its Jewish citizens, as documented in … this report.

This selective framing constitutes the “Three Ds” of antisemitism identified by Natan Sharansky and popularized in Canada by former justice minister Irwin Cotler: demonization, delegitimization and double standards applied to Israel. It occurs at a time when Jews face the highest per capita hate-crime targeting of any group in Canada (Statistics Canada). Many Jewish Canadians feel unsafe in their own country, even though both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly affirmed Zionism and Israel’s right to exist and prosper. Those are the rights that the advisory network has dismissed for this exhibit.

The CMHR, in the aftermath of the genocidal attack on Israel in 2023 and the ongoing brutalization of hostages, allowed an unauthorized pro-Palestinian “die-in” inside the museum. This “die-in” was allowed while refusing a request from supporters of Israel for a counter-demonstration, a disparity that exemplifies the institutional bias at work. [CMHR vice-president of exhibitions] Matthew Cutler’s public statements at the time made it unmistakable that the museum had already promised off the books, without public consultation from the Jewish community, to include an exhibit that focuses on the contested oppression of Palestinians by Israel.

Officials of the CMHR have, on the public record, favoured anti-Israel fringe groups while showing disrespect for the groups that represent the overwhelming majority of Jewish Canadians. The museum has not been transparent with the general public or the mainstream Jewish community. This invites the question of how transparent museum bureaucrats have been with the museum’s own board of trustees, who are responsible for fulfilling the museum’s mandate and maintaining its reputation.

The exhibit in its current form must be halted. The CMHR must commission an independent historical review by balanced, credentialed experts. It must require transparent public consultation, including meaningful engagement with mainstream Jewish Canadian organizations; ensure the exhibit includes parallel refugee stories, Arab rejectionism, the full context of the conflict; and conduct a governance audit of curatorial processes to prevent future partisan capture.

Proceeding instead risks CHRA complaints, further reputational damage and continued erosion of public trust in a taxpayer-funded national institution whose mandate is to promote universal human rights, not to serve as a vehicle for the delegitimization of the Jewish state.

On war and antisemitism

Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, spoke with Canadian media on March 9. (photo from Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada)

A terror attack against Canadian Jews on par with the Bondi Beach attack in Australia last December is inevitable if leaders in this country do not address the growing antisemitism crisis, according to Israel’s deputy foreign minister.

In an interview with the Independent Monday, Sharren Haskel reacted to recent shootings at Toronto synagogues and a larger trend of antisemitic acts.

“This will end in blood if the government is not taking serious actions. This is going to end exactly like the Bondi massacre,” she said.

Haskel is attuned to the Canadian situation because she was born in this country – one of only three Canadian-born individuals in Israeli history to sit in the Knesset. Her father lives in Canada and she has other family members here, who she visits frequently.

“I was always so proud of Canada being such a safe haven for Jews,” she said, calling Canada a place where acceptance of minorities, tolerance and coexistence have been strong, defining values.

“And to know where Canada was and where it is today is absolutely devastating,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking for me, and I think that not enough people truly understand the danger the Jewish community is [facing].”

Shootings at Jewish institutions and other acts of vandalism and violence have made Canada, according to an Israeli government report last year, the “champion on antisemitism.”

“It’s insane,” said Haskel.

When a racialized or other minority community in Canada expresses discomfort with a situation, she said, significant steps are taken to alleviate the problem.

Jews do not enjoy a parallel level of empathy, she said. “[Jews] say I am violently being attacked. I’m not allowed to enter my classes. I’ve been beaten. My business was shot at,” she said. “And nothing. Nothing.”

Elected officials have allowed the situation to go too far, said Haskel.

“The government is not setting a very clear red line,” she said. “We are far beyond words. Words don’t matter anymore. This is about actions now.”

The deputy foreign minister added that Canadians, too often, demonstrate inappropriate responses to international events. Critics of Israeli military approaches to Hamas and to the Iranian regime are coming from a place of privilege.

“In Canada, you are very lucky,” she said. “This is one of the most peaceful countries, you enjoy its freedom, and many people in the younger generation have received that freedom on a silver platter. This is not the case in the Middle East. Israel has faced a six-fronted war for the last two years against six different armies – all of them sponsored, trained, armed by this vile, fanatical regime in Iran.”

The Iranian regime has also undermined Israel’s neighbours, she noted, destroying Lebanon’s politics, social fabric and culture. In Syria, Iran backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which was overthrown in 2024 after a civil war in which the government explicitly targeted and murdered its own citizens, particularly minorities, killing at least 300,000 people and possibly as many as 650,000.

“It’s very easy to speak from a very comfortable, liberated place,” said Haskel. “But our reality in the Middle East is a very difficult and harsh one, where we are still fighting for our survival, for our freedom, for our rights as minorities here in this region against very extreme, radical, fanatical terrorist organizations and terrorist regimes.”

Haskel hedged on whether Israel’s war aim in the current conflict with Iran is regime change.

“The goal is to take out the long-term existential threat over Israel,” she said. “This is how we define it, and this is the goal of the war.”

That involves taking out Iran’s nuclear program, she said, as well as its ballistic missile program, and neutralizing the experts who are developing, manufacturing and advancing tools for mass destruction. This war is aimed at conclusively ending that threat, she said.

Past Israeli military and covert actions against the Iranian nuclear program resulted in continued Iranian determination to rebuild, according to Haskel.

“They didn’t get the message of our capability, of how determined we are that they will not be able to reach that master plan of annihilation of the state of Israel,” she said. “They’ve been working tirelessly on renovating, on re-creating, on reconstructing, all of that over again. And we are at the point where we say, look, you know, we cannot go every year into an operation like that to eliminate an immediate threat like a nuclear weapon, mass destruction, disruptive weapons.”

Haskel stops short of declaring whether that requires regime change, echoing US President Donald Trump, who has urged Iranians themselves to overthrow their government.

She is hopeful that the US-Israel actions will open a path “for the Iranian people to liberate themselves and to change these fanatical tyrants who have been abusing and torturing them for so many years.”

Should the regime be replaced by a Western-oriented government, the impacts would be broader than the Middle East. For example, Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, is engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering in Latin America to help fund their operations, she noted.

Haskel believes that the world should be grateful to the United States and Israel.

“President Trump and Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu are leading right now an effort to protect humanity,” she said. “Every leader and every sensible person around the world needs to ask themselves who they want as their friends and who would come to their help when they really needed it the most.

“During our time in history, when freedom, real freedom, is in danger,” she said, “we are very fortunate to have two leaders like Trump and Netanyahu that stood up and took actions to defend humanity, to defend Western democracies.”

Haskel said that representing Israel carries a profound responsibility not only to the country itself but also to Jewish communities around the world. For her, that responsibility is deeply personal, particularly when it comes to Canada, where she has such close ties. Hearing directly from relatives and friends about rising fear and insecurity has reinforced her sense of duty.

Haskel, who has served as deputy foreign minister since 2024, was first elected to the Knesset in 2015. She was born in Toronto to an Israeli father and a Moroccan mother who met in Paris. The family lived in Canada before moving to Israel when Sharren was a year old. She was raised in Kfar Saba and studied in the United States and Australia. First elected on the Likud slate, she joined Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party in 2021.

Concerning actions

The federal government announced last week that they are eliminating the office of Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.

The announcement came in conjunction with the decision to eliminate the similar office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, and the announcement that there will be a new Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion.

It is hard to find fault with the hope expressed by the government that the new council, which will be comprised of prominent Canadians from academia as well as experts and community leaders, will foster social cohesion, rally Canadians around shared identity, combat racism and hate in all their forms, and help guide the government’s work in fighting racism. However, cutting the one position in Ottawa explicitly committed to addressing antisemitism just doesn’t seem wise.

Given the precipitous rise in antisemitism in Canada, we might assume that the office of antisemitism was not a great success. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to measure success and failure on these matters. Perhaps things would have been markedly worse without it. In any event, for what was no doubt a barely negligible cost in the bigger scheme of the federal budget, the office was at least a nod toward taking the matter seriously.

Perhaps the new office will have profound impacts that the two eradicated offices did not. The problem is that, in so many ways, antisemitism is different in form and content from other forms of racism. It needs and deserves to be recognized and treated in ways that reflect this meaningful difference.

It is a symptom of the problem of antisemitism itself that this basic recognition of difference elicits condemnations of “Jewish exceptionalism,” or worse. It is an unavoidable truth, though, and the unique challenges of antisemitism are not addressed when elected officials, commentators, academics and antiracist activists seem congenitally incapable of condemning antisemitism without couching that condemnation in a basket of other biases and bigotries that deserve their own condemnation.

It should be reason for concern that the homogenization of antisemitism is now being institutionalized in an agency that lumps biases against Jews – which Statistics Canada says account for 70% of religiously motivated hate crimes and almost one in five of all hate crimes in the country – into a catch-all council dealing with a vast range of social ills. (The fact that antisemitism is grouped with “religiously motivated hate crimes” is a problematic but common misnomer for another editorial.)

A second, seemingly unrelated story in the news last week should amplify this concern.

In a minor political coup, Doly Begum, the deputy leader of the New Democratic Party in the Ontario legislature, blindsided her leader by suddenly resigning her legislative seat and announcing she would run federally – not for their federal counterpart, the NDP, but for Mark Carney’s Liberal party.

Political commentators have had a field day poking the entrails of Ontario’s NDP and wondering what it might mean for the federal Liberal government’s left flank as some people ponder a snap election this year.

Those attuned to other nuances of the story soon found that Begum has been one of the Ontario legislature’s most vocal anti-Israel voices, with a particular inclination toward the “genocide” claim. Given that provincial governments have precisely no foreign policy responsibilities, Begum’s fixation on this issue suggests she may bring a very particular agenda should she be elected in the upcoming by-election.

There is no way that the prime minister, the Liberal party and anyone else involved in these headline-topping machinations was not aware of their new recruit’s repeated and inflammatory comments on this topic.

The welcoming of Begum into the Liberal fold seems like another message to Canadians about this government’s approach to Israel and Palestine and the inevitable fallout of that conflict on domestic harmony.

Coming on the heels of the federal government’s recognition of a “state of Palestine” last year, it is hard to imagine the latest developments as anything short of a slap in the face to Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians, and anyone who cares about combatting Jew-hatred.

האלימות בישראל מורגשת בהרבה מגזרים

בעברי כאשר גרתי בישראל לא חשבתי שהמדינה נחשבת לאלימה במיוחד אך בשנים האחרונות שיניתי את דעתי. כיום להערכתי האלימות בישראל מורגשת בהרבה מגזרים וכמעט בכל פינה. חדשות לבקרים אנו קוראים על אלימות מצד אזרחים נגד אזרחים אחרים ועקומת האלימות הולכת וגדלה. נראה שהישראלים פורקים כל עול, מצפצפים אחד על השני ומנסים לפתור את בעיותיהם באמצעות אלימות, שחלקה קשה ביותר. האם המצב יכול להשתפר בעתיד ועקומת האלימות תשנה כיוון ותקטן? לא ברור. אך ברור שהאלימות המקומית במדינה היא התנהגות מדבקת וזו תמונה שבאמת לא הולמת ומחמיאה למדינה שנלחמת על קיומה. חלק יטענו שלאור המצב הבטחוני המסובך בו נמצאת ישראל גדלה האלימות בין האזרחים. אני לא יודע אם זו הסיבה העיקרית לאלימות המשתוללת בישראל. בכל מקרה לדעתי אין שום הצדקה לנקוט באלימות בין האזרחים

הנה מספר דוגמאות לאלימות במגזרים השונים: גננות ועוזרותיהן מכות ופוגעות פיזית בילדים בגנים, שכנים רבים על מקומות חנייה והולכים מכות, בעלים מכים את נשותיהם ואף פוגעים בהן מינית, משתתפים בחתונות הולכים מכות באולמות האירועים, אורחים בבתי מלון רבים והולכים מכות בחדרי האוכל, חיילים בצבא רבים והולכים מכות בחדרי האוכל הצבאיים, יריבים פוליטיים הולכים מכות בהתכנסויות פוליטיות, וכמובן גורמים פליליים יורים על יריביהם ולא מעט מוצאים את מותם בדרך זו. התנהלות פלילית זו מאפיינת את המגזר היהודי ואת המגזר הערבי כאחד. כמובן יש גם אלימות במגרשים הכדורגל שזה לא דבר חדש, וכן בין תומכי ממשלת נתניהו למתנגדים לה. אחד מארגוני הפשע שהשתלטו על קבוצת הכדורגל של בית”ר ירושלים – לה פמיליה – הוא תומך נלהב בממשלת נתניהו ולכן הוא אחראי גם באלימות קשה בתחום הפוליטי. צריך להוסיף גם את האלימות מצד דתיים וחרדים שלא בוחלים בשום דרך לקדם את מדיניותם הקיצונית. חרדים פוגעים בגורמים המזוהים עם הרעיון שהגיע הזמן שגם הם יתגייסו לצבא. ואילו מתנחלים פוגעים קשות בפלסטינים בשטחים הכבושים, וכן בערבים ישראלים בשטחי ישראל

ישראל שהייתה בעברה מדינה סובלנית, מתקדמת וליברלית הופכת להיות יותר ויותר שמרנית, ימנית, דתית ואלימה. בעבר היה הבדל גדול ותהומי בין תושבי שראל לתושבי השכנות במדינות ערב. לצערי בשנים האחרונות הפער הולך וקטן והתנהלות הישראלים והאלימות שמורגשת בכל פינה, מזכירה יותר ויותר את השכנות שמעבר לגבול

גיבוי לדברי בנוגע לאלימות הקשה בישראל מצאתי שימוש בבינה מלאכותית של גוגל. שם נאמר כי: “אלימות בישראל בשנה שעברה אופיינה בעלייה חדה ומדאיגה במגוון מדדים, החל מפשיעה חמורה בחברה הערבית ועד לזינוק במספר מקרי הרצח של נשים”. לגבי אלימות נגד נשים מוזכר כי “שנה שעברה הוגדרה כאחת השנים המסוכנות ביותר לנשים בישראל”. ולפחות ארבעים וארבע נשים נרצחו אשתקד. ואילו “הפשיעה במגזר הערבי ממשיכה להחמיר” ואשתקד נרצחו כמאתיים וארבעים ערבים ישראלים. ובכלל: “כחמישה עשר אחוז מתושבי ישראל חוו אשתקד סוג של פגיעה (הטרדה מינית, פשעי רשת או אלימות)”

לפי הבינה המלאכותית של גוגל שלושת הגורמים העיקריים לעלייה באלימות הם: 1) המלחמה בעזה לאור השבעה באוקטובר שהיו לה השלכות פסיכולוגיות קשות שהביאו לעלייה באלימות במשפחה והחמירה את המתח החברתי. 2) עליה בתפוצת הנשק החם במיוחד במגזר הערבי ובמשפחה. 3) חוסר אכיפה ותקציבים תוך דגש על מחסור בתוכניות אסטרטגיות בין משרדי הממשלה, ומשאבים לרשויות המקומיות לטיפול בשורש האלימות. בתקופת ממשלת נתניהו נרשם זינוק חד במספר הנרצחים בישראל. מדובר בגידול של כשמונים וחמישה אחוזים

Killed for being Jewish

For Jews worldwide, the hope represented by the first candle of Hanukkah was snuffed out by the horrifying mass murder at a communal Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia. At press time, 15 were confirmed dead, ranging from a 10-year-old named Matilda to an 87-year-old survivor of the Holocaust, Alex Kleytman.

There have been many antisemitic incidents and attacks in Australia in the past two years, as there have been in many places. One of the reasons this hatred is spreading is the refusal of leaders to recognize and address it specifically as Jew-hatred.

This stubborn blindness was evidenced in the words of Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s mass murder.

“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian,” he said.

This is the sort of bromide politicians bring forth in moments like these, almost entirely devoid of meaning and, more significantly, a refusal to see the incident for what it is.

This was absolutely, decidedly, emphatically not an attack on “every Australian.” It was a targeted attack on Jewish Australians and to paint it as anything else – to universalize the very anti-Jewish particularity of the violence – is to deflect attention from the reality and true nature of the problem and ensure no resolution to Australia’s crisis of antisemitism is reached.

An Australian Jewish communal leader said antisemitic incidents in the country are “off the scale,” noting a series of recent antisemitic arsons, which pile upon recent attacks on synagogues, a daycare centre and an Israeli restaurant, as well as a tragically long list of less violent incidents.

The Australian problem is a microcosm of a larger global phenomenon. Government leaders, activists, commentators, NGOs and public figures worldwide for (at least) two years have been condemning Israel in the most malevolent terms, including outright blood libels and slanders that have become so endemic as to be treated as received truth.

The parallels between the tenor of frenzied rhetoric against Israel – including from the highest levels of government, society and media – and the unprecedented spike in antisemitic violence has seemed to spark almost no recognition of cause and effect. An alternative (and perverse) explanation seems to be that the victims of these incidents deserve it, considering their perceived complicity in Zionism.

Given the panorama of tragedy in the world and the myopic focus on the only one involving the Jewish state puts the lie to naïve assessments that there is no correlation here. Or that the Jewish victims are to blame. If overheated rhetoric toward any other identifiable group paralleled extraordinary targeted violence against members of that group (or anyone seen to be in sympathy or associated with them), almost anyone would recognize the correlation.

The Australian government, like so many others, seems to believe they can condemn Israel in the most strident, undiplomatic terms, on the one hand, and claim, on the other hand, shock and dismay – even bewilderment – when violence against Australian Jews erupts.

In the aftermath of the mass murders, Albanese committed to stronger gun laws, which are already some of the strongest in the Western world. Well, OK. But how about stronger laws and customs against antisemitic incitement? How about toning down the declarations from his own government, which some have accused of rewarding the 10/7 terror attacks by nearly instantaneously demanding and then leading a vanguard of nations to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood while terrorists are still in control there? How about listening to the voices of Jewish Australians who have been warning for more than two years that this sort of terror was becoming inevitable given the pitch of rhetoric?

It will be noted extensively that the attacks were apparently perpetrated by a father and son who are reported to be migrants from Pakistan. (The father is dead. The son is in hospital with significant injuries.) It should be noted at least as prominently that the man who disarmed one of the attackers is a Syrian Muslim. If we want to paint a broad brush of blame, we must also paint with an equally broad brush of heroism, truly incredible courage and heroic action. Let us not, though, pretend that there are not dangerous strains of cultural and theological antisemitism embedded in some communities that absolutely need to be addressed much more vigorously and vociferously than they are currently being addressed. It is also true that antisemitism knows no borders and has spread to nearly every pocket of the world over the last 2,000-plus years.

Early indications are that Australia is determined to ignore the obvious parallels between unrestrained continual damnation of Israel across society, including at the highest levels, and violence against Jews. Maybe other countries – like ours – will take heed and learn from Australia’s folly before it is too late. We hope so. Canada’s government and civil society have responded very much along the lines of Australia’s throughout these horrible two years.

What should governments do?

Left to right at the Jewish Seniors Alliance of BC Fall Symposium Nov. 23: Jeff Moss, Joyce Murray, Anthony Kupferschmidt, Dan Levitt and Isobel Mackenzie. (photo by Alex Roque Photography)

The Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia’s fall symposium featured a panel discussion on the responsibilities of governments for seniors. The panelists discussed housing, transportation and healthcare services. They explored challenges in funding, staffing and service delivery, while also touching on topics such as the potential for community involvement in shaping senior support systems.

The Nov. 23 gathering, which took place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, opened with Jeff Moss, executive director of JSABC. He said provincial advocacy is “at the heart” of what JSA does, “and bringing together politicians in this space is really important, because the conversations that we have when we meet with the provincial government, or when we’re meeting with the opposition, [are] where we are advocating strongly for universal free home support for seniors in British Columbia.”

JSA’s partners in this campaign are Council of Senior Citizens’ Organization (COSCO), the BC Health Coalition, the Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of BC, Family Caregivers of British Columbia and the BC Care Providers Association (BCCPA), whose chief executive officer, Mary Polak, addressed those gathered.

Polak shared that her father, who’s 96 years old, is in long-term care. He has some dementia issues and needs to have some specialized care, she said. “But in the time that he was at home with us and we were trying to give him the best quality of life we could in our own home, it was a real challenge to try and support that with home health services. And we were in a better place than many because at least we had some of the financial capacity to do that, and we had the family around us. But, for an increasing number of people, that’s becoming impossible, and it shouldn’t be that way.”

Ezra Shanken, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which also is a partner and supporter of JSABC, introduced Shay Keil, who sponsored the event with the BCCPA and JSA, along with Michael and Sally Geller, and the Zalkow Foundation.

“Seniors are the foundation of who we are,” said Keil. “You’ve built our families, our traditions and our values, and you deserve to be honoured, supported and celebrated. We often speak of m’dor l’dor, from generation to generation, and that idea is very close to my heart. I strongly believe in the connection between seniors and children and everyone in between. That belief is why I’m here today, and why I’m deeply committed to community through volunteering, supporting and staying actively involved in the organizations that strengthen the lives of those around us, including JSA.”

Keil introduced the emcee of the panel, Isobel Mackenzie, “who served as British Columbia’s seniors advocate from 2014 to 2024, and has spent her career championing the well-being, safety and dignity of our seniors.”

Mackenzie asked each panelist to come to the stage: Anthony Kupferschmidt, strategic lead for aging and older persons with the City of Vancouver, who has worked in similar capacities with other cities and groups, and is also a gerontologist; Joyce Murray, who has served both as a member of the Legislative Assembly and as a member of Parliament; and Dan Levitt, a gerontologist who has worked 30-plus years in seniors care, and is the current seniors advocate for the province.

Each panelist gave an overview of their opinions, starting with Kupferschmidt, who noted that much of what a municipality can do for the aging population requires financial support from other orders of government. However, a city can impact seniors in such areas as “zoning and related development charges, making sure that we have the right type of housing and the right mix of housing across the city.”

Municipalities can work with the provincial government, for example, on where care homes are located and support their development. Transportation is another key area, as are sidewalks and other “elements of an age-friendly city.” Cities have a role with respect to public libraries and the accessible services they offer, community centres, senior centres, pools, arenas, etc.

Levitt was the next to speak. “Currently, there are 5.5 million people living in our province, 1.1 million people are over 65,” he said. “Today, there’s one in five – 20% of all people are seniors. Fast forward just a decade from now and it’ll be one in four, 25%…. We have more people who are living longer and more people who are seniors, so 400,000 more seniors in the next decade.”

Levitt’s office monitors five areas: health care, transportation, housing, income and community services.

“The general trend,” he said, “is that there are more seniors and there are more investments, but there’s less available per senior.”

As an example, he said, a quarter of all seniors are living on $23,000 a year, or less than $2,000 a month. “And it’s not that hard to go find people living in the West End in affordable housing living on less than $1,000 a month, so they really need that income support from all levels of government, they need those subsidies.”

Levitt said there were 13,000 people on the waitlist for affordable housing last year. “How many of them got a space?” he asked. “Six percent, just under 800 people have got a space for affordable seniors housing in our province. We haven’t built enough, and there is a call right now to build more, but we’re not keeping pace with that demand.”

As well, he said, the province has been taking money away from long-term care homes, no longer funding overtime and agency nurses, for example, and this affects places like the Louis Brier Home and Hospital.

“It means that an already very thin margin is now almost impossible to operate without that government subsidy,” said Levitt.

“We haven’t invested enough either in seniors care,” he added. “We did a report in July, and our July report identifies that over 16,000 people are going to be short long-term care because we’re not building enough beds. There are 7,200 people on the waitlist today.” The burden of care, he said, is being transferred to families.

Murray took the conversation in a different direction.

“I was looking at the budget numbers about this when I was thinking about what I would be saying,” she said, “and the total new spending on OAS [Old Age Security] and medical care for seniors alone in the 2023 budget was $110 billion of new money…. Now, that’s going to tie into some of the demographics, for sure, but, when you break that down, that’s $4,300 per retiree 65 and older in new money in the 2023 federal budget versus $755 for younger Canadian under 45 in new money.”

She wondered about how well younger people were being supported. She also spoke of environmental concerns.

“What does it mean to be a good ancestor?” she asked. “And what do we think our society, our province, our country needs to do so that we collectively are good ancestors?”

“To govern is to choose,” said Mackenzie, noting that governments must make decisions about how “to allocate our finite resources to our infinite demands.”

The panelists talked more about that, as well as the way in which different levels of government work with one another. Murray said governments make policies they hope will attract voters, and seniors tend to vote more than younger people, so, for example, “a family with two members can earn up to $180,000 a year and still get their full OAS,” she said, asking, “Is that a good allocation of money?”

Mackenzie asked a variant of Murray’s question, considering how maximum monthly payments for public long-term care work.

“The person whose income is $200,000 a year is going to pay the same for their publicly funded long-term care plan as the person whose income is $70,000 a year,” said Mackenzie. “And so, if, on the one hand, we say, well, the people who have more should get less, which is the OAS argument, to what extent should we flip that and say, well, the people who have more should pay more when it comes to publicly subsidized long-term care? That’s, I think, missing from the discussion…. I think there are very uncomfortable conversations … that governments are going to have to have with their electorate and, as elected officials, you don’t like to have those uncomfortable conversations, for obvious reasons.”

Levitt thought the situation could be improved if governments helped people understand how much money they need to save to age well, what supports there would be for them as they age, and what people could do to support themselves.

Murray suggested, “Maybe what we need is like a citizens’ assembly, to start out by identifying what are the key things that are maybe broken or need improvement so that we can be good ancestors. And then have a citizens’ assembly that looks at what are the best solutions in other countries … and then create a proposal on that. I think we have to crowdsource the solutions here…. We need citizens to help us solve this.”

Kupferschmidt brought up Better at Home, a basket of non-medical services that seniors can access. “There has been public engagement into what those services should be…. However, there are examples of the service that is offered in one neighbourhood in the city is different than another,” he said, explaining that a “model with all the best intentions can sometimes create some disparities as well.”

Mackenzie stressed the complexities, both because everyone’s needs and everyone’s solutions are different. “And, in the end, in those environments, generally, we try to come up with solutions that meet the greatest good for the greatest number, but that certainly doesn’t meet the need for everybody all the time and that is, I think, the political challenge at all levels of government, whether they be the local, the provincial or the federal.”