Full Comment - ‘Target on my back’： Selina Robinson on the NDP’s surrender to antisemites

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00:01:04.740 Selina Robinson was a dedicated New Democrat, a woman who was elected more than a decade ago 1.00

00:01:10.020 who served under two different premiers and four different cabinet posts, and then

00:01:14.360 was summarily thrown out of the party that she had been part of for so long over comments that

00:01:21.820 shouldn't have caused any criticism or concern at all. Hello, I'm Brian Lilly, and this is the Full

00:01:28.260 Comment Podcast, and today we're going to look at the issue of anti-Semitism in the NDP, a party that

00:01:34.240 was at one time very much a home for Jewish Canadians, but at this point is somewhere that

00:01:39.920 most of them don't feel at home. Selina Robinson joins us from Coquitlam. Selina, thanks for the time

00:01:45.840 today. Thanks for having me. Let's walk through what exactly happened with you. End of January,

00:01:53.980 you're doing a panel discussion, and you make a comment. What did you say that became the launch

00:02:02.480 pad for an all-out assault on you? Well, I was trying to represent the West and trying to represent

00:02:09.860 a female voice and trying to represent a New Democrat voice on a panel that was all-male,

00:02:15.280 all-East coast, as we say here on the West Coast, and there was certainly no New Democrat on the

00:02:22.740 panel, and we were talking about anti-Semitism. And who was hosting the panel? It was B'nai B'rith.

00:02:27.240 B'nai B'rith was hosting the panel, and we were talking about anti-Semitism and the rise of anti-Semitism

00:02:32.820 since October 7th. And in my little bit that I had, I was the last speaker and so really had to

00:02:40.300 rush through my comments, reflecting on the data that's been coming out that 18 to 34-year-olds

00:02:48.200 here in Canada are not familiar with the Holocaust, are not familiar with the creation of the state of

00:02:54.140 Israel in 1948. They don't have, you know, solid understanding of how things transpire. They don't 0.98

00:02:59.760 have the history knowledge. And I was talking about that people don't understand that, and they

00:03:07.620 didn't understand that the land of Israel, and I was speaking directly about the land, and I said, 0.94

00:03:14.340 and it became a meme, is that it was a crappy piece of land. And really focusing on, yes, there

00:03:20.140 were several hundred thousand people living there, but there were no, and really, there were no minerals,

00:03:24.080 there's no gas, there's no, no oil, no water. You know, it was really strong agriculture at the time.

00:03:31.820 No strong agriculture. There was subsistence farming for sure. There was some farming. I'm not saying that

00:03:36.120 there was nothing, but really it wasn't, it didn't have a strong economy on those lands itself. And

00:03:44.740 frankly, my reading and my understanding of history is that the Ottomans were poor land stewards, and there

00:03:51.720 was a lot of swampland and a lot of desert. And that recording was grabbed by folks who are frankly

00:04:01.260 anti-Israel, and used that and promoted that as somehow me suggesting that Muslims, and Palestinian

00:04:12.060 Muslims in particular who were living there, were somehow bad people in some way, or that there was

00:04:18.120 nobody living there, that that was the other, the other focus that people had. And it was, and that's not 0.94

00:04:23.300 at all what I intended. I recognized that people were hurt by my comments. It wasn't my, I intended.

00:04:28.820 And it was the Ottomans that were-

00:04:30.440 But at their core, at their core, there is nothing inaccurate about your comment. If, if you know

00:04:36.660 the mildest bit of history of the region, you know that to be true. And I was in Israel a couple of months

00:04:44.860 years ago, down in areas around, in the Gaza envelope, as they call it, visiting some of the

00:04:51.520 kibbutzes that were attacked. And there's wonderful farming now, and then you look across the, past the

00:04:59.920 fence, and there's no farming, there's no agriculture, and the land is, is not as prosperous. There is

00:05:05.940 something to what happened when Israel went in and said, we need to make this land productive.

00:05:11.280 And they did. It's the same parcel of land. It's, it's the same area. They just did something

00:05:18.640 different. And, and people have talked about that for generations. I learned about it in school. So

00:05:23.660 there's, was nothing fundamentally incorrect about your comment. And you apologized for it, what, twice?

00:05:30.860 Twice. I, you know, and, and, and, and heartfelt. Like I, my intent, Ryan, wasn't to, to hurt anybody. And if

00:05:37.140 people were hurt by my comments, I want to understand their hurt. I want to fix it. I want to make sure

00:05:41.820 that I have full understanding. I'm not a historian. It's not my background. And so, you know, if they

00:05:47.640 want to talk with me to help to correct the record, so to speak, I'm, I'm, I'm all ears. But what happened

00:05:54.480 was what I would suggest is mob mentality. And of course, we're seeing it right across Canada. We're

00:06:01.240 seeing it across the states and certainly Western Europe as well, where the anti-Israel

00:06:07.540 sentiment has taken up in, in, and I'll say a lot of progressive circles. And, and it's, and it's vicious.

00:06:19.060 And the attacks on me were vicious. And it resulted in my colleagues and the premier saying to me that

00:06:29.240 they couldn't see a path forward other than my resignation as a cabinet minister.

00:06:36.020 And this is the part that bothers me because I can understand

00:06:39.460 the mob trying to do what they did. And you've been around politics a while. So if I have not been an elected

00:06:49.000 official, but I, I observe you people. I watch what parties do to each other. I watch what movements do to

00:06:56.280 each other. And, and a movement or a party will latch onto absolutely anything to try and gain

00:07:04.560 advantage for a party leader, especially someone in a position of premier, the way David Eby was to

00:07:13.200 fall for that mob mentality is extremely disappointing to me. You wrote your open letter about the hurt

00:07:22.100 within the party, but can you talk to me for a minute about what it was like when you spoke to

00:07:29.320 the premier, when you tried to make him understand, or, and he was trying to tell you that there's no

00:07:36.140 way forward. Did, did you get the sense that he believed that you had done something wrong or that he

00:07:41.920 was just resigned to handing over the direction of the British Columbia, New Democratic Party to an angry mob?

00:07:50.460 Um, well, you know, in the, in the early, in the early days, like right after, um, the, the clip

00:07:58.180 was sort of had gone viral, um, you know, I'd had conversations with the premier, with his staff.

00:08:04.400 Um, and it was like, okay, what, you know, there, there was certainly, I'll say, um, angst and panic,

00:08:10.440 almost panic, not quite panic about like, okay, let's just, let's do an apology. This is what we're

00:08:15.540 going to do this. I mean, and I let them frame it, um, because I wanted to get it right. Um, and I

00:08:20.500 wanted things to settle down. We all did. Um, this is not, you know, I didn't sign up to, um, you know,

00:08:27.540 to defend, um, um, you know, a conflict in the Middle East. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a provincial

00:08:33.480 politician. I'm interested in healthcare. I'm interested in housing. I'm interested in affordability.

00:08:37.020 Um, I'm interested in building community and strengthening community, but this was not what I

00:08:41.820 signed up for. And so it was eager to just get like, what, what do these people need to hear

00:08:47.880 from me so that they can understand that my intent was not to hurt anybody or insult anybody. Um, and

00:08:53.520 so we went, we went through that. Um, but it was really a couple of days later when there was still

00:08:59.220 a call. Um, there were about six imams that were threatening the, the, the, um, the new Democrats 1.00

00:09:06.680 saying that, you know, there's an election, you won't be allowed to come into our mosques, which I

00:09:11.040 thought was, um, again, very disappointing from leaders who are wanting peace. This is not how

00:09:16.520 you, how you move in that direction. Um, and the, the premier basically, you know, said, you know,

00:09:23.540 he talked with my colleagues, um, at a, at a caucus meeting, I wasn't there and he just came back

00:09:29.740 saying, Selena, I just, I, I, I can't see a path forward without a resignation. Cause I said,

00:09:35.940 you know, if you want my resignation, I won't fight you on it, but you have to ask me for it.

00:09:42.020 Um, and he, he just said, I can't see a path forward without that.

00:09:47.120 And so I said, well, if that's what you're asking, and if that's what the caucus wants,

00:09:51.520 then I guess I will have to provide you with my resignation. Uh, we had a little bit of a

00:09:56.700 battle. I would, well, not really a battle. We had a little bit of a discussion around,

00:10:00.540 um, cause I said, then you, you need to announce that you've asked my resignation and I gave it.

00:10:05.140 And that wasn't sufficient for the premier or his office. Um, and so we agreed that it would be a

00:10:12.520 joint decision, but really it was the joint decision was, they said, you need to, you need

00:10:19.460 to resign in order to settle this down. Uh, what, what was really hurtful, Brian, it was a, a clip

00:10:25.600 in the days following when the premier, you know, sort of carried on about deep work that I needed to

00:10:31.660 do. Um, which I thought was really disrespectful of me as a person. Um, he knows me, um, and that he carried

00:10:40.460 on in a very dramatic way, I think was disingenuous.

00:10:44.780 This is someone that you've sat in caucus with for years.

00:10:48.140 Yeah, we got elected at the same time, 2013.

00:10:51.400 And so a colleague of, of more than a decade stabbing you in the front.

00:10:58.340 Well, he didn't stab you in the back, he stabbed you in the front.

00:11:04.020 Well, that's part of what broke my heart, right? When I, you know, that's why, I mean, I, I hung

00:11:09.100 around caucus for the next month, uh, two weeks in, um, in Victoria, because we were back in session.

00:11:16.300 I sat through, um, listening to, um, the anti-Israel crowd at, during throne speech at the front of the

00:11:26.100 building, chanting for, you know, chanting river to the sea. Um, I, um, met with two Jewish women who,

00:11:33.520 who are lobbyists who were coming to throne speech, um, who talked about how fearful they were to come

00:11:39.440 into the house of the people, um, to get through the mob. One of them actually asked for an escort

00:11:45.020 into the building from security. Um, I was horrified having to listen to that all day, uh, from my office,

00:11:52.280 because I could hear it. Um, and nobody said anything. Nobody said, Selina, are you okay?

00:11:57.540 Nobody said, this is outrageous. They're literally calling for the destruction of, of the 11 million

00:12:05.180 people who call Israel home. Um, and, um, nobody thought that that would be hard.

00:12:11.880 I, I, I have to say that, uh, you know, uh, having covered politics so long, I, I, I, it's not that I

00:12:25.180 don't have a high opinion of me. I don't want to give that impression. People are very cynical about

00:12:29.740 politicians. I, I, most people of all stripes go into politics for the right reason and, and are

00:12:36.940 trying to do honorable work, but I'm trying to figure out how to describe how David Eby treated you

00:12:43.340 that doesn't use words like dishonorable, cowardice, um, shameful.

00:12:50.520 From, when I wrote my letter in to caucus two weeks after we'd been back in the house,

00:12:58.140 because I thought, okay, let's, let me see if I can, um, find a path forward that allows me to do

00:13:06.140 the things that are important to me. The reasons why I became a politician was to make things better

00:13:10.800 for people. And as you said, you're a provincial politician. Yeah. David Eby's not there to find

00:13:17.920 peace in the Middle East. Um, none of you are at the provincial legislature. It's not a provincial

00:13:23.260 issue. Exactly. Exactly. And so for me, it was like, okay, I still have a platform. I'm still a new

00:13:29.340 Democrat. I still am an MLA. I want to be useful. I am very well connected to the Jewish community here

00:13:36.000 in British Columbia. I think I can engage enough of the Jewish community. And if I can find a way 1.00

00:13:41.040 to engage enough of the Arab Muslim community here, can we find a way to have conversation, 0.97

00:13:46.340 to break bread together, to listen to each other's pain so that we can influence here in British

00:13:51.340 Columbia, the relationships between people. And really it was when the chief, when the premier's

00:13:56.620 chief of staff said, no, it's too political that I knew that I couldn't stay. I couldn't stay

00:14:02.760 because we'd lost our way, um, to why we're here. We're here to make things better for the people

00:14:08.440 here in British Columbia. And we're not doing that when we give into these hordes, um, who are

00:14:13.800 demanding something that's thousands of miles away from this government. Um, and when, when it's not

00:14:19.660 our bailiwick and... And you had been asked and tasked by both David Eby and his predecessor,

00:14:28.380 Premier John Horgan, to do outreach in these communities, correct? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean,

00:14:33.640 I, I mean, I'm, I'm very well saturated in the Jewish community. Um, you know, I've, I've worked in the

00:14:39.180 Jewish community, Jewish family services, and I've, you know, I know, I know a lot of those, a lot of

00:14:43.760 those folks, it's a small community here in British Columbia, about 40,000, um, Jews here, um, somewhat

00:14:49.460 spread out, but, you know, there's certainly a core group that, you know, all of the, the, the

00:14:53.940 organizations, I know all the rabbis, so really have, have good relationship and have been navigating

00:15:00.860 challenging issues that have arisen over, um, the years, uh, over the, the 11 years that I've,

00:15:07.120 I've been elected, whether it's making sure that Premier Horgan, um, knew what to say at a

00:15:12.860 Kristallnacht, you know, ceremony, or that, you know, lighting the Hanukkah menorah, making sure 0.81

00:15:18.980 that we had representation, um, that people, um, you know, understood the needs of the Jewish

00:15:24.500 community. There certainly have been ongoing security issues over the years, completely

00:15:28.980 heightened now. And in the early days of the, of the fall, after the, the massacre, October 7th,

00:15:35.120 um, you know, connecting with the Premier, making sure he's, you know, talking with the right

00:15:41.340 people hearing the story from the principal of our local Talmud Torah and her, in that first week

00:15:46.580 after October 7th, her wearing running shoes to school, um, and the teachers all doing that just 0.75

00:15:52.220 in case they needed to run. Um, and that impacted David as a, as a human being, he, he retold that

00:15:58.460 story. Um, and so that was, you know, the work that I had been tasked to do on behalf of government

00:16:04.320 is to make sure that the right people were in the room to, um, to get the ear of government.

00:16:09.000 And so I had been doing that work, um, since October 7th as well. And it was heightened,

00:16:15.680 right? It was heightened. There was a, there was a mix up on Holocaust Remembrance Day. I don't know

00:16:21.280 if it made national news. It did. It did. Well, you know, that was me working all weekend,

00:16:27.160 trying to reaching out to the Premier's office and saying, what the heck happened? And this is who

00:16:32.200 you need to talk to. And this is how you need to present it. And, you know, and try and helping

00:16:37.040 them get the language right so that the community would say, okay, we understand the mix up. You're

00:16:42.580 forgiven. Don't do it again. Um, and that seemed, and that was enough. It was expected to be enough

00:16:49.260 for the Jewish community. And there have been other instances among my caucus colleagues who have said

00:16:55.220 things in ways that were hurtful to the Jewish community. Um, and there's a pattern. There's a,

00:17:00.840 there's been, I would say, you know, eight or 10 instances over a number of years. Um, and each

00:17:06.560 time, you know, people, pretty much each time people ask forgiveness, um, and it was given,

00:17:12.680 it was granted, um, or the expectation was, uh, an apology would be sufficient. Not all of my

00:17:19.060 colleagues have apologized for the words that they have spoken, but many of them have.

00:17:24.080 And I'd forgotten that the, the premier had put out that tweet and I understand premiers rarely

00:17:32.960 writing their own posts or experts, but on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he said that, you know,

00:17:42.700 concerned, I forget the exact wording. We can find it online. I'm sure made a comment about the rise of

00:17:48.240 Islamophobia. And these were his words on Holocaust Remembrance Day. He was forgiven and you were not.

00:17:55.280 Yes. You wrote in a piece that was carried at National Post that your caucus colleagues broke your

00:18:05.080 heart. Yeah. But it wasn't over this incident. What was it? Well, I mean, it was coming for some time.

00:18:14.580 Um, I think, um, the, the, over the, over the, certainly over the years, there had been, um, um,

00:18:27.360 you know, comments made, anti-Israel comments made for sure. Um, um, the minimization of

00:18:34.220 anti-Semitism and the way it's playing out that, that, you know, um, anti-Zionism is in many ways,

00:18:40.800 the new anti-Semitism. That's certainly, you know, what we're seeing. Um, but it was their silence,

00:18:46.080 right? So, um, and I, and it wasn't, I don't think it was intentional, but I, you know, I, I just

00:18:53.440 provided the example of me sitting in my office alone while people were chanting from the river to

00:18:59.900 the sea, right outside my office. There was no space for me to not, to not hear that because I,

00:19:05.740 that's where I was doing my work and nobody said anything to me. Um, the fact that, um, I, you know,

00:19:13.760 I put out, people were sending me heart emojis, right? I mean, I, I believe my caucus colleagues,

00:19:18.680 my ex-caucus colleagues really liked me and cared for me. I don't doubt that. But when they would send

00:19:24.360 me these heart emojis, cause I knew that I was struggling and I'd say, I don't need your heart

00:19:27.980 emojis. I need you to stand up to anti-Semitism where you see it. And I got a response back from

00:19:36.420 one of my colleagues that says, of course we always do. And I thought, no, you don't. You have been

00:19:43.400 absolutely silent on this, silent on this. And that to me, and so it's not, it's, it's not like

00:19:55.160 they're saying anti-Semitic things to anybody. And I don't believe they dislike Jews, but their

00:20:01.180 silence is dangerous. It's dangerous. And that's the part that worries me. And that breaks my heart

00:20:07.180 because these people I believe are more courageous than that. What would you like them to have said,

00:20:15.640 said something publicly or said something to you? Both. I think, I think, I think what I would have

00:20:23.800 appreciated was them standing up for me and not asking for me to resign. Cause I think that would

00:20:29.200 have been a statement. That would have been a statement that said, Selina's been an excellent 0.87

00:20:36.400 colleague. She's been a good cabinet minister. We appreciate that people are upset. Her apology is

00:20:43.020 sufficient. And no, we're not, we're going to, we're going to have her back. We're going to have her back.

00:20:49.040 But they didn't. They didn't. We have to take a quick break now, but when we come back, I do want

00:20:54.900 to ask you about the NDP used to be a party where when I was younger, I remember Jewish leaders of

00:21:05.300 new democratic parties across the country. And now it seems to be anti-Semitism is a real problem in

00:21:12.220 the party. I want to explore that with you. More of that when we come back. When I was a kid,

00:21:17.580 I would not have expected the idea of anti-Semitism being rampant in the NDP because

00:21:23.180 the NDP was the party that had Jewish leaders. Now I can't imagine there being a Jewish leader of

00:21:29.640 an NDP, a new Democrat party, whether it's federal or provincial. Selina, you think back,

00:21:37.320 the federal party at the time I was born was David Lewis. Stephen Lewis ended up being a provincial

00:21:44.720 leader, but you've got Dave Barrett out in British Columbia, leader of the British Columbia NDP.

00:21:51.040 A strong connection between the Jewish community and the NDP. And overall, I would say the progressive

00:22:00.020 politicians, left-wing politicians, however you want to phrase it. And over the last several years,

00:22:07.760 I've had to cover rampant anti-Semitism in the Ontario NDP where I'm based, less so at the federal,

00:22:16.080 thankfully. But I've talked to many members who have been activists within the party who have just

00:22:22.660 said, I'm done. I'm leaving. My politics remains the same, but my party is different. Did you grow up

00:22:32.200 a new Democrat? Were you always involved in progressive politics? Have things changed for

00:22:38.700 you as a Jewish Canadian and a progressive? So I was, I mean, I think I've always been

00:22:45.420 progressive, but I've never been partisan until about 2012. So really a late, a latecomer in many

00:22:54.140 ways to partisan politics. And I will say, and, you know, I don't think, I don't feel like I've left

00:23:02.860 my party. I think my party left me. And I've, and, and certainly I've always believed that, you know,

00:23:10.660 and I've been saying this for many years, that Jewish values are new Democrat values. I, you know, 0.65

00:23:14.640 I see this, I see similarities in terms of the values that I've taken on as a Jewish person,

00:23:19.260 but I've also seen growing antisemitism and in, within progressive circles. And I have connected

00:23:30.380 with federal new Democrat, Jewish new Democrats across the country over the last number of years,

00:23:36.460 you know, trying to work within the party to, to address the antisemitism that we were seeing.

00:23:42.560 Um, but they've all abandoned it. It's just been too hard and too painful. Um, and so it's, it's at the

00:23:50.400 point now where, uh, progressive Jews feel like myself, a lot of us feel very homeless, um, because it is

00:23:58.280 our, um, our, our, our, our party of, I'll say a party of choice because there's no perfect party. Brian does

00:24:05.680 no perfect party. There's only a best party of best fit. Um, but it doesn't fit. And I, and I think

00:24:11.520 that for, um, a lot of folks and a lot of new Democrats, they see Jews as oppressors. And I,

00:24:19.800 and I'm trying to understand what that means, right? Oppressor is bad, um, in, in that way, but I, I,

00:24:27.920 you know, where they see Jews as white. Uh, and it's interesting. I was talking to my son not too long

00:24:32.000 ago where we're talking about, you know, the right wing extremism says, you know, Jews aren't white 0.98

00:24:37.200 enough and left wing extreme extremism says Jews are too white. Um, and this is, you know, this is 0.97

00:24:45.320 the identity politics challenge that I think we're faced with and, and the extreme places that those

00:24:51.960 positions are coming from. Um, and it's all, and, and in some ways it feels like it's all, why is it

00:24:56.340 always the Jews? The, it's funny that the definition of white has changed over the years and you're 0.66

00:25:05.940 right at one point, um, uh, Italians weren't considered white, Greeks weren't, uh, the Irish weren't

00:25:12.660 considered white and Jews definitely weren't white. And these were all groups that, uh, the, the extremists 0.95

00:25:18.300 would go after and target. And, and now because Israel is seen as being successful in this oppressor,

00:25:27.580 oppressed mentality, uh, Jews are therefore the oppressor and it, it is an odd mentality, uh, that,

00:25:37.660 that has taken over. And as far as Jews being white, you know, these people really should go to Israel 1.00

00:25:44.700 and they should, they should go to a synagogue in Canada and look around. It is a bizarre take,

00:25:51.500 but you're right. It's something that it's almost as if, um, being anti-Israel and by extension,

00:26:01.160 extension anti-Semitic, because I do think they go hand in hand. You can absolutely criticize Israel. 0.99

00:26:06.980 And, and I heard lots of people do that in Israel, criticizing the government, et cetera. But it seems like

00:26:14.200 it is a shibboleth to be able to, uh, you know, wink, wink that you're one of us if you're anti-Israel

00:26:21.160 and against the Zionist oppressor. Exactly. And, and really, you know, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism

00:26:28.080 have become, you know, linked hand in hand. It's sort of the, the delegitimization of Israel, 0.73

00:26:33.440 is what is being, um, asked for by, um, you know, a lot of this left wing, uh, you know,

00:26:44.140 extremist position. Um, and I keep saying like, so why, like, like I, I, you know, and I, and I look

00:26:51.200 at, I look at other conflicts that are happening in the world, Brian, and it's like, where are your

00:26:56.320 voices as progressives? They're predicting that 30 million people are going to die in Sudan over the

00:27:02.400 next few years because of a conflict there. And I have not seen a single progressive person, um,

00:27:10.000 bring that forward to the house of commons about where is our government on that conflict or the

00:27:16.340 Uyghurs. I just read in today's paper, um, you know, the fact that slave labor is happening in China

00:27:22.080 and I don't see a BDS movement, um, to stop doing business with China, uh, because they are using 0.97

00:27:28.680 slave labor of Uyghurs, Muslim Uyghurs. And I don't see an uprising for those people who are being 1.00

00:27:36.040 oppressed by governments. Um, and, uh, but somehow we are all obsessed, um, with what's happening in

00:27:46.180 Israel. Well, I think people of, of good faith across the political spectrum are concerned about

00:27:52.060 the issues that you raised, but you're right. There, there, there are not demands for a ceasefire

00:27:57.320 now in Sudan. There are not demands for the BDS movement, um, uh, the slave labor in China. Um,

00:28:05.040 the prime minister's, uh, top advisor for the longest time and then ambassador to China, David Barton,

00:28:11.420 ran a company that advised on, you know, and held a, a company retreat right near where, where the,

00:28:19.860 the Uyghur slave camps were, um, that gets passing mention in the media now and again.

00:28:25.740 It does not, uh, result in outright protests and motions and denunciations and the streets being

00:28:33.620 flooded. This is what we call the double standard. Like this is a double standard. So some, so,

00:28:40.280 and I'm not, and trust me, I am so, um, frustrated and angry with the Israeli government and the choices

00:28:47.180 that the current government continues to make. I think it is a terrible government. I think

00:28:52.920 Netanyahu, she belongs in jail. Um, so, uh, and so I am eager to criticize their policies. Um, but

00:29:02.080 somehow Israel is taking, it has to abide by a different standard than other, than other governments.

00:29:09.480 And that to me is, so what's that about? And I think that's what we get to be curious about.

00:29:15.560 The other thing, Brian, that I think is important to, to, to note, um, and if you take a look at,

00:29:21.260 um, the federal party's new Democrat, um, resolutions that they've had over the years, um, at their

00:29:28.260 conventions, if you take a look at the, the, the top, uh, resolutions that, you know, cause they all go

00:29:33.600 in order. I have been blown away at the number of anti-Israel resolutions that will be in the top

00:29:40.240 30, uh, something like 50, 60% of them. Um, and nothing is mentioned about China, about Iran,

00:29:49.660 about any other nation, but there's like this obsession, this anti-Israel obsession. And,

00:29:54.960 and I've called them, I've called the chair of the resolution committee saying, what is going on?

00:29:59.560 Yes. Have one or two, but really like 16 of your top 30 are, are about Israel. Um, and they,

00:30:07.360 and the response is, it has been ever thus. And that's a quote. And I thought, you don't even care

00:30:12.800 to question what is going on here. That's really sad. You know, when, when we look at what has happened

00:30:22.240 on university campuses, where a lot of this has spread, I think back to just over 20 years ago,

00:30:28.220 covering the student union at Concordia university in Montreal, and they had gone full on intifada.

00:30:39.140 In fact, they published a student handbook called the intifada. They would march into their student

00:30:44.300 union meetings with a snare drum and a Palestinian flag leading them in. Um, that school was the outlier 1.00

00:30:54.580 at the time though, with how radical it was on this issue. And you wouldn't have seen that in the same

00:31:01.700 way at university of Toronto, at UBC, at UVic, at university Calgary, that radicalism though, has

00:31:10.820 definitely spread across the country. Our institutes of higher education have been used by people with an 0.97

00:31:18.100 agenda to spread these, um, this hatred. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I was the minister for post-secondary

00:31:27.460 education. So I was in the thick of it. Um, and, uh, working across the nation, um, I want to give

00:31:33.940 props to Steven Lecce, who is the chair of the, um, ministers of education right across the nation. And,

00:31:40.140 um, and he and I were working collaboratively and inviting other ministers of post-secondary education

00:31:46.460 across the nation to come up with some strategies to how to support presidents, um, to do the right

00:31:52.140 thing. And some were doing better than others. Um, and, um, I think it's a, it's a, it's a,

00:31:58.140 it's a significant challenge, but yet again, I have to say, Brian, this is, you know, if I can just

00:32:02.900 bring it back to British Columbia again, and the lack of response from government, um, when, uh,

00:32:08.420 a prominent physician, uh, Ted, Dr. Ted Rosenberg, uh, made a very public leaving of, uh, leaving

00:32:14.780 UBC medical school and saying, um, it's a toxic work environment. Um, there's 288 Jewish physicians 1.00

00:32:23.140 signed the letter basically saying, we can't train these UBC medical students who are coming and

00:32:29.080 bringing their hate to the healthcare system. Um, and I, we heard nothing from government. There was

00:32:34.460 no response. There was no response to like, what are we going to do? We have to train more doctors.

00:32:39.440 I was tasked with opening up another medical school here in British Columbia.

00:32:43.720 And if we didn't have doctors to take on these residents, what were we going to do?

00:32:50.560 Do you believe that your push when you were minister of education, um, to have mandatory Holocaust 0.91

00:32:58.360 education in the school system was part of why you were targeted?

00:33:03.420 Um, I think it's more than that. Actually, I, I, I think, I think it's probably beyond that. I mean,

00:33:09.300 we were, uh, I want to give props to my colleague, Rob Fleming, who was minister of education in 2017.

00:33:13.800 He started that work and COVID took it off the table for a bit. And I, I was the one actually who

00:33:19.160 went back and, and, and did pick it up. Um, I was minister of post-secondary education. So really

00:33:24.100 had to talk to the minister of education. Uh, I really did it through the premier's office. Um,

00:33:28.660 it's the right, it's the right move. But that night that we announced it, uh, I believe it was October

00:33:34.260 30th. Um, I was interviewed by a local, um, by TV station here. Um, and I was, um, asked to comment

00:33:44.280 on, uh, a Langara, um, instructor who had made outrageous comments right after the October 7th

00:33:51.920 massacre.

00:33:52.460 I recall those comments. They were horrendous.

00:33:55.160 They are horrendous and despicable. And I reiterated that that night. And of course it

00:34:02.000 was on, uh, it was broadcast and, um, there is some suspicion of some who've been doing a

00:34:09.640 little bit of research, um, have noted that in fact, that's when, um, the protests accelerated

00:34:17.560 against me. Um, personally, I was named, I was starting to be named.

00:34:22.460 Um, and a petition was starting to circulate to get me removed from cabinet. So my hunch

00:34:30.140 and the hunch of others is that there was a target on my back, uh, at that night that

00:34:36.060 started, um, and it culminated and the opportunity arose at the B'nai B'rith, um, um, panel that

00:34:43.160 I was on. Um, and that was the opportunity to take, you know, full frontal action to, to

00:34:49.200 do a push to have me removed. And unfortunately my colleagues in the premier, um, fell for it.

00:34:56.880 For people that don't recall the, the Langara college instructor, um, who made the comments

00:35:04.260 described the October 7th attacks as an amazing, brilliant offensive just after the attacks when

00:35:12.880 not just so close to the attacks that we didn't know what had happened. Hamas had clearly broadcast

00:35:20.120 their own atrocities. We all knew what had happened, but Natalie Knight still called this a, an amazing,

00:35:26.840 brilliant offensive. Um, she was let go by Langara college after that, which I big supporter of free

00:35:36.920 speech, but there's also, uh, organizations have to practice good political hygiene. Um, it, it, 1.00

00:35:44.120 I always used the term political hygiene, meaning removing yourself from people or organizations

00:35:49.800 that will leave you with a bad smell in. Did, did premier EB fall for a mob that is linked up with

00:36:01.560 people like Natalie Knight, the, the radicals. I mean, is, is he tying the NDP's wagon to a,

00:36:10.120 a group of people that are so radical that the, the average British Columbian who would vote NDP

00:36:17.000 or, uh, United, uh, United BC, I forget what they, um, who, you know, look, you win elections on swing

00:36:27.720 voters. Uh, I don't think the average swing voter is going to look at what this woman said and look 0.63

00:36:35.320 at the mob that she's with and say, yeah, that's, that's who I want to be with. And I,

00:36:39.880 I, and I want them to have influence with my government. Well, you know, I'm going to leave

00:36:44.920 that up to the voters to decide. Um, but what I can tell you, Brian is that, you know, I, um,

00:36:50.920 I live in some, in suburban community. I represent a suburban community. And in the six weeks that since

00:36:58.120 I have been, you know, asked to, to provide a resignation and then did a very public leaving

00:37:05.240 of the party that frankly left me, um, my community has wrapped its arms around me. They are supportive

00:37:12.040 of me. They are proud of me. They appreciate the work that I've done. They appreciate the sacrifices

00:37:17.560 I've made to represent them. They have felt very well represented. Um, and that to me, those are the

00:37:24.280 people that matter most to me, frankly, um, the people that I represent and it will be up to them to

00:37:29.800 decide, um, where they want to hitch their wagon to, um, in October. Do you plan to run as an

00:37:37.800 independent in October? No, I, I, I, although people have been urging me to, um, which is very,

00:37:43.800 very sweet and thoughtful, but I'd already decided to not run. Um, so I had, it was 50, 50 in the summer

00:37:49.320 and I had let the premier know, uh, back in, um, in December that I wasn't going to run again. He was,

00:37:55.480 he expressed surprise at that. Um, and I, um, uh, yeah, I, yeah, I, I've given 16 years to public

00:38:05.160 service. Um, and I think it's time to do something else. Well, uh, best of luck in future endeavors.

00:38:13.080 Uh, politics is a tough business on anyone and, um, uh, you've definitely experienced the work parts

00:38:21.240 of it over the past few months. So thanks for the time today, Selena, and all the best in the future.

00:38:26.120 Thank you. It was really great to, um, to chat with you.

00:38:29.240 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name is Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced by

00:38:34.680 Andre Pru. Theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full

00:38:41.160 Comment wherever you get your podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the new YouTube

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00:38:56.120 Thanks for listening until next time. I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - April 01, 2024

‘Target on my back’： Selina Robinson on the NDP’s surrender to antisemites

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