Battling the rise in anti-semitism in Canada
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
177.48878
Summary
In light of recent anti-Semitism on Canadian campuses, we take a look at the Prime Minister's response to the recent firebombing of a Jewish school in Canada, and whether or not he is doing enough to combat racism and Islamophobia in Canada.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
cases of Jewish students getting a Heil Hitler sign or being told they're not allowed to look
00:00:05.960
at certain students in the eye because they're dogs or whatever it is. So those kinds of anecdotes.
00:00:11.460
But then when it does come to the conflict, there is right and wrong. You know, Hamas is a terrorist
00:00:16.420
organization. It's a listed terrorist organization in Canada. The atrocities that they committed,
00:00:23.220
you know, were some of the most brutal, you know, outrageous acts of violence that we have seen
00:00:31.080
in our lifetime. And since the Holocaust, as is often said, and it's okay, I think, to take a
00:00:37.920
position on that, to be against that. And so, you know, that gets us into these campus situations.
00:00:45.260
And, you know, it's all speech equal. And no, a speech that is promoting and glorifying,
00:00:51.860
you know, terrorist acts by Hamas is in a category of speech that I think should be
00:00:59.660
condemned. And it's okay to condemn certain types of speech.
00:01:03.700
Well, that's it. I mean, inciting violence, whether it's racially based or anything else,
00:01:08.100
is against the law in Canada. There's just no justifying doing that. That's not what we're
00:01:13.280
about. But I mean, getting up to the higher level and where the examples are being set, we have a
00:01:17.680
prime minister who is reticent. He always has to coach it when he will condemn. You know, we've had
00:01:22.560
Jewish schools, multiply shot, bullets fired into the doors. There's been fire bombings. I mean,
00:01:28.560
this is stuff we never imagined before. And the prime minister will condemn it. Good. I appreciate
00:01:33.280
that. But he will always coach it with, as well, we have to combat Islamophobia. Well,
00:01:38.760
fair enough, but I'm not seeing any Islamophobia. Why do you have to put that ad on every time? If we'd
00:01:43.900
been seeing mosques attacked, then absolutely. But they're not like what? Why can't you just
00:01:48.220
unconditionally condemn this? And I think it sets an example all the way down that this is exceptional,
00:01:54.000
and perhaps a little more understandable than prejudices that are shown against other groups.
00:01:58.980
Yes, precisely. I mean, we all understood during the Black Lives Matter protests, that why black people
00:02:08.160
found it obnoxious when people countered that with what all lives matter, because you weren't,
00:02:12.920
when you said that, you weren't acknowledging the very specific type of, you know, struggles that the
00:02:20.560
black, particularly the American black community has faced. So you were minimizing it when you said
00:02:26.500
all lives matter. But to your point, the same is true. There aren't any other schools in Canada that
00:02:33.020
are being firebombed. There's only one cultural group who's having their schools firebombed, and that's
00:02:39.340
the Jewish community. And if you can't just say that and admit it, then you can't fix the problem if
00:02:45.160
you if you are hiding the problem. And yes, our prime minister is unwilling to look, as you say, he's
00:02:52.820
always prepared to say the right thing in the moment or acknowledge that the firebombing happened. But you
00:02:56.740
know, it could have happened to other people too. So we're against all firebombing to all people. He
00:03:01.100
always does that. But, you know, he is the prime minister, he is the leader of our country. And just
00:03:07.640
him tweeting out how upsetting it is that there's firebombings going on in his country. But it's just,
00:03:14.500
it's not very satisfying as a response. We need to see much more action, we need to see, you know,
00:03:19.700
the laws beefed up, we need to see him expressing a desire to see the perpetrators of those acts, you know,
00:03:26.160
caught and prosecuted. He doesn't talk like that or say that he could be offering to provide more
00:03:31.200
security to Jewish institutions that clearly need it. He could be doing all kinds of things that he's