00:15:58.820So, I mean, as you kind of heard me in opening
00:16:00.800and I've been watching you covering it on X
00:16:02.400and I know you wrote a whole lot of that
00:16:04.220on your Committee to Combat Antisemitism.
00:16:07.320uh i think you know people always realized it was still always there it's just something that
00:16:12.460doesn't seem to go away but it just really shocked everybody how it's blossomed i mean
00:16:16.900it was obviously an underlying feeling that's been sitting for a lot of people and the events
00:16:21.560in israel and gaza just opened up this this wave of of hate and and it's just uh staggering
00:16:29.580it truly is and yes i have been chairing the uj of toronto's uh combating antisemitism and
00:16:37.180Hate Committee. And when we started this initiative two years ago, we thought things were
00:16:43.520difficult. But in the last few weeks, just as you say, the level of vitriol, the manifestations
00:16:51.280of violence have really taken the Canadian Jewish community by shock. And we're all very
00:16:58.720distressed about it. And I really appreciate you having me on the show because I don't think this
00:17:04.800is just a Jewish problem. This is a Canadian problem. This is about what kind of society we
00:17:10.740want to have. And the way that Jewish people are treated in a society is a reflection of the health
00:17:17.180of that society. And for my entire lifetime, I'm not ashamed to say I'm 60 years old, I always
00:17:25.440thought that I lived in, I still think I live in the greatest country in the world, but I thought
00:17:29.360I lived in a very safe country, a place where it was safe to be Jewish. And I know that it's not0.98
00:17:35.240just me, it's all of my, it's my, my, my members of my community who are feeling much more nervous
00:17:41.480and frightened today. Well, and there's a number of areas where it's been really rising up, but
00:17:46.640one of the biggest ones has been in post-secondary institutions. It's hard to say which one's been
00:17:52.020the worst. Lately, York though, has been one that's been standing out. And just to give people
00:17:56.060some background, some people vandalized Indigo outlet and painted windows and intimidated staff
00:18:03.080there and customers for the sole reason that it was owned by a Jewish person. That's really the
00:18:07.480only reason. They keep cloaking it saying, oh, it's Zionism. No, you targeted a Jewish-owned0.53
00:18:10.980business and attacked it. And it turned out these were faculty and staff at York who did this, not
00:18:16.300run-of-the-mill kids or idiots. These were established people at a university. And when
00:18:21.220they got suspended as they should students were walking out in support of these faculty members
00:18:27.100now how must that feel if you're a jewish student in that university when your co-students and
00:18:31.660faculty feel that it's all right to attack jewish people yeah right on that's exactly it i think
00:18:37.640just there's a culture now of fear and intimidation that's being experienced but i will say that the
00:18:44.500good news on that horrible story is that the uh the faculty members and the staff were suspended
00:18:50.460And I hope they will eventually be terminated because they they committed.
00:18:55.300I mean, it's I think hate charges are part of what's being contemplated here, rightly so, because they were inciting hatred and violence towards Heather Reisman, the owner of the store.
00:19:07.380I mean, I think that that the message of the posters and the blood on the door was was very clear.0.98
00:19:12.960So, as I say, what is satisfying is that we still have norms in place where if you commit a crime and a hate crime, you will be suspended.
00:19:26.220And as I say, I think I hope eventually terminated. So we are enforcing those standards.
00:19:31.540And I think that the challenge right now for Canadians is that we really need to stand up in defense of our values, our standards and our laws.
00:19:41.160And so long as we do that, I mean, then we have a way to protect ourselves from this wave of hatred that is crossing our country.
00:19:51.440Yeah. So, I mean, I guess to try and look at a silver lining, I mean, this has been something that's been festering.
00:19:56.260It's been there a while. We just didn't realize the scope of it and the problems.
00:20:00.160And now that it's been exposed, though, we can look at solutions.
00:20:04.400I mean, we should have legal sanction against people committing hate crimes and, you know, vandalizing businesses, intimidating people.
00:20:10.400But still, just criminal sanctions aren't what gets rid of the hate. In fact, it'll often entrench it further with some of the people. How do you work to whittle away at that underlying hate that's there that causes this in the first place?
00:20:22.740Yeah, you're right. It actually, the laws are important and essential to have, but you have to try and get at the root of it. And I mean, you mentioned just the chilling atmosphere right now on campus for Jewish students, but it's also true in our high schools and it's true in our primary schools.
00:20:44.940I mean, there's just been also this bubbling up of events.
00:20:51.020There was a letter signed by 2,000 Jewish parents last week sent to the Ontario Minister of Education
00:20:58.240because 2,000 parents are saying that their children are experiencing in junior and middle school
00:21:04.020routine acts of anti-Jewish expression.
00:21:09.300So you have to start at the beginning.
00:21:13.040And, you know, what's happening, I think, is that for a lot of teachers in the classroom, they are looking at this through the lens of an Israel-Palestinian conflict, and they don't want to get in the middle of it, and they don't want to take sides, and they don't know anything about it, and they don't want to get involved.
00:21:27.860but if you have a student who's being bullied or harassed because of their religious or cultural
00:21:36.100identity like that's you don't need to know anything about their religious or cultural
00:21:40.500identity you you have to know that that's unacceptable and inappropriate and has to be
00:21:44.740stopped and the perpetrator even if they're 10 or 11 years old has to be sanctioned and and we do
00:21:50.980seem to understand that when it comes to anything else i mean if students were purposely picking on
00:21:57.060on a black student or a first nation student or whatever. I mean, the school is going to,
00:22:00.960or at least should, who knows, I'm sure there might be some terrible schools otherwise out
00:22:04.800there, but typically they're going to jump right in there and intervene and start to correct this
00:22:08.780behavior because that's not what we're all about. But we see a different standard when it comes to
00:22:13.140this. And I understand there's complexities with the conflict and people have some very,
00:22:18.380you know, I have my biases in watching that and taking sides in a sense, but to have people cloak
00:22:24.420it and say it's all about the conflict, but when you're actually targeting Jewish businesses,
00:22:28.540Jewish individuals, when you have no idea where their stance is on that issue, that's problematic
00:22:32.940and that's not anything to do with the conflict itself. Yeah, exactly. And then even, you know,
00:22:39.880within, so at that, at the junior school level, the high school level, you know, it's, it tends
00:22:45.360to be very personal. I mean, there's been a lot of reported cases of Jewish students getting a
00:22:49.740Hitler sign or being told they're not allowed to look at certain students in the eye because
00:22:55.260they're dogs or whatever it is. So those kinds of anecdotes. But then when it does come to the
00:23:00.480conflict, there is right and wrong. You know, Hamas is a terrorist organization. It's a listed
00:23:05.520terrorist organization in Canada. The atrocities that they committed, you know, were some of the
00:23:12.900most brutal you know outrageous acts of violence that we have seen in our lifetime and since the
00:23:21.760Holocaust as is often said and it's okay I think to take a position on that to be against that and
00:23:29.140so that you know that gets us into these these campus situations and you know it's all speech
00:23:35.340equal and no a speech that is promoting and glorifying you know terrorist acts by Hamas
00:23:42.200is in a category of speech that I think should be condemned.
00:23:48.280And it's okay to condemn certain types of speech.
00:24:34.500Like, why can't you just unconditionally condemn this?
00:24:38.720And I think it sets an example all the way down that this is exceptional and perhaps a little more understandable than prejudices that are shown against other groups.
00:24:46.480Yes, precisely. I mean, we all understood during the Black Lives Matter protests that why Black people found it obnoxious when people countered that with, well, all lives matter.
00:24:59.180because you weren't uh when you said that you weren't acknowledging the very specific type of
00:25:05.260um you know struggles that the black particularly the american black community has faced so you
00:25:11.980were minimizing it when you said all lives matter but but to your point uh the same is true there
00:25:18.700aren't any other schools in canada that are being firebombed there's only one uh cultural group
00:25:24.940who's having their schools firebombed and that's the Jewish community and if you can't just say
00:25:29.820that and admit it then you can't fix the problem if you if you are hiding the problem and yes our0.97
00:25:35.660prime minister is unwilling to look as you say he's always prepared to say the right thing in
00:25:41.820the moment or acknowledge that the firebombing happened but you know it could have happened to
00:25:45.180other people too so we're against all firebombing to all people he always does that but you know he
00:25:51.420is the prime minister he is the leader of our country and just him tweeting out how upsetting
00:25:57.740it is that there's fire bombings going on in his country but it's just it's not very satisfying as
00:26:03.820a response uh we need to see much more action we need to see you know the laws beefed up we need
00:26:08.460to see him expressing a desire to see the perpetrators of those acts you know caught
00:26:14.140and prosecuted he doesn't talk like that or say that he could be offering to provide more security
00:26:19.500to Jewish institutions that clearly need it. He could be doing all kinds of things that he's not
00:26:25.400prepared to do. Yeah. And so to look at other issues that have come up too, I mean, I was just,
00:26:31.920again, I'm a cynical guy. I expect the least out of a whole lot of political activists and
00:26:36.400politicians and people, but I was still floored when I saw that letter that came out that was
00:26:42.380basically denying that sexual assault had happened to hostages and people taken in this terrorist act
00:26:48.680by Hamas, but not just that some lunatic would write something like that. That doesn't surprise
00:26:53.460me. But the amount of people that signed on and still to this point will not back off and are
00:26:58.460denying this happened. Supposed people who were opposed to sexual assault and the abuse of women.
00:27:05.140Where does this come from? Yeah, I have to say I find that especially painful because it comes
00:27:13.000from, I hate to even have to articulate it, it comes from the fact that the people who will sign
00:27:19.180a letter like that denying them, you know, the use of rape as a weapon in this attack on Jews,
00:27:25.380they hate Jews so much that that emotion is privileged and prioritized over any other
00:27:33.960rationality or even, you know, even if they're people who are generally against violence towards
00:27:38.860women or claim to be you know you know feminists or members of you know other groups marginalized0.76
00:27:46.300groups but uh you know when it comes to hating jews that's their number one priority and so
00:27:51.640denying the atrocities committed against jews because what what that's about is is an unwillingness
00:27:56.900to ever acknowledge that jews can be victims because that is that undermines the whole narrative
00:28:01.500of hating jews because jews are only oppressors and they can't be victims so they have to lie
00:28:06.180when in fact, you know, 1200 people were savagely murdered. You still have people right now being
00:28:14.420held in cages in Gaza, children and women and men, you know, it's not like it's okay to put a man in
00:28:21.600a cage, an innocent person. So the Jew hatred trumps every other reasonable emotion.
00:28:29.780Well, that's it. The worst atrocities that humans have committed, and unfortunately,0.99
00:28:33.500we're very good at committing atrocities, but it seems one of the things the extreme have to do is
00:28:38.060you have to dehumanize your victims in your own mind. You have to say they're less than human,
00:28:44.420whether, again, that was in World War II or in Rwanda or wherever else. I mean, with the acts
00:28:51.640that the members of Hamas did when they crossed the border in Israel, these were people who have
00:28:56.760convinced themselves that these aren't people that they're attacking. And again, that's a
00:29:02.320thing that has to be corrected very early with somebody when you see this you're talking about
00:29:06.680Hamas himself and I agree but how does that explain all the intellectuals populating our
00:29:12.280universities our campuses our parliaments who are also uh you know so yeah that view of I must
00:29:19.420dehumanize my enemy and that's where I'm seeing the seeds of it that are getting sown that would
00:29:23.660promote and expand to more and more of this sort of hatred more and more of the the acts against
00:29:29.480people and and the justification of such things like this is where we have to try and nip it in
00:29:34.480the bud like a paradoxe one of the commenters has said repeatedly we don't need more more hate
00:29:38.620speech laws i kind of agree we've got enough laws on the book if we utilize we don't need more
00:29:42.640but there's a lot of areas where we aren't intervening when some of this hate is being
00:29:46.820spread and that's where we have to find this and nip it off in the bud yes totally and i would say
00:29:52.580i do want to say so it's not to this not to be a total downer for anyone listening is that i do
00:29:58.260continue to believe in, you know, the tolerance and goodness of the vast majority of Canadians.
00:30:05.300I do believe that Canadians dislike it when they see hatred and discrimination and bullying and
00:30:12.820intimidation and certainly in violence. Canadians don't like that. And that is outside of our,
00:30:18.580you know, national values. So you're right. I agree. I mean, I think there could be more laws,
00:30:24.980better you know improvements in our laws but i think our laws as they exist are sufficient to1.00
00:30:31.560capture all the things that are going on but what we do need is for people who are not in um either
00:30:36.460in law enforcement or legislators you know employers or colleagues at work or fellow parents
00:30:42.480at schools to speak up when they see something wrong to confront it and to challenge it on just
00:30:47.840on a person-to-person basis that will make the world better that will make canada better
00:30:52.540No, absolutely. I mean, it is just levels and levels. I mean, we could talk much longer,
00:30:57.400but our segment has gone so fast. I guess just to close off, where can we find more information
00:31:03.780on your work and what's going on out there so that we can help, you know, at least try to
00:31:09.340counter these things and give resources to people to try and, you know, battle this hatred that's
00:31:13.860going around? Yes. So people can go on the website of CJA, which is the Canada-Israel Jewish Affairs
00:31:23.180or UJA Federation of Toronto, or you and I are both still on X or hold us. People are welcome
00:31:32.400to follow me there, you know, at Linda Frum. And, you know, and B'nai B'rith is another great
00:31:40.700resource. Simon Wiesenthal is another great resource. There are groups, lots of groups in
00:31:45.900Canada who are working to stand up to Jew hatred. And, you know, we are all doing what we can.
00:31:52.940Well, I appreciate the work you're doing and you're coming on. I think the way that we're
00:31:56.460going to get to it too is more reasoned discussions, more reasoned intervention in the
00:32:00.780institutions where this is being spread rather than the screaming and the conflict that just
00:32:06.280sort of, you know, adds to it, though we've had a crackdown on those people who were crossing the
00:32:10.540line and quit soft selling it. So I appreciate the work you're doing and we'll keep at it until
00:32:16.000we get this sorted out. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, thanks again. And I hope we get
00:32:21.420to talk again soon. Indeed. Nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you. So yes, that was former
00:32:26.780Senator Linda Fromm. And she has been, yeah, if you look on X, if you follow on there, very
00:32:31.980outspoken and covering a lot of the issues. And again, I mean, we get pretty angry on there at
00:32:36.860times, but mostly still responding or trying to respond with reason. There's one of the, I'm a
00:32:42.500person who's in your face. I fight back. I push back. I do, but I do, I have to temper myself.
00:32:48.460I have to try and look. We want to deal with the immediate people as paradoxically saying,
00:32:53.360we've got the laws, let's intervene. And to a degree we are. I mean, these idiots from York
00:32:57.140University have been charged and they've been suspended. And I would hope if it leads to a
00:33:02.880conviction because they have committed a crime, they will be permanently fired from there, give
00:33:07.440the consequences to the immediate ones. But I also want to look deeper. I want us to somehow learn
00:33:12.760from this because as I said, this hate was bubbling under the surface of Canadians so much
00:33:17.380and we didn't even know it, didn't realize it. We always knew it was there to a degree. You would
00:33:21.480see the odd things you'd hear about it. A Jewish cemetery would be vandalized or some idiot would
00:33:26.520spray paint a swastika on the door of a synagogue, but to have it just explode like this, we've got
00:33:32.200to get to the root. This is a problem we want to look at in the longer term. We want to find out
00:33:37.800where it's coming from and cut that off. And as, as was mentioned by Linda, you know, what about
00:33:42.720the kids who are learning it? Are they learning it at home? Or if they're learning it at school
00:33:46.100or parents saying, you know what, there's something as parents, we shouldn't be afraid to
00:33:49.420say, you know what, your teacher is wrong. Sometimes they're wrong. You don't want your
00:33:53.900kid always in the face of the teacher but if they come home and say yeah I heard this from there
00:33:57.440well then follow up and find out what's going on what is that instructor telling your child and tell
00:34:03.160the child that this is not the way to go and that child could be yeah getting up to the point of
00:34:07.600post-secondary as well they're still looking to us as parents to learn what's appropriate and what's
00:34:12.680really happening out there but I've just been as I said shocked I mean it's anti-semitism is nothing
00:34:18.260new but we thought Canada was the country that really had the least of it right and and clearly
00:34:22.740we we don't uh you know some of the simple rules there we are you know somebody puts a little more
00:34:27.960lightly angry canadian a commenter saying george carlin's had two laws we should have don't kill0.53
00:34:32.180anyone and then the brackets unless they deserve it and don't be a dick well okay those are simple
00:34:37.440ones to follow they're good ones in life but that's kind of yeah what i'm talking about when
00:34:40.640you're crossing the lines of getting violent intimidating people uh you're going beyond the
00:34:45.580pale and try not to be the dick try to find solutions it's so easy to get mad right now
00:34:51.640because, boy, I tell you, they're giving us a whole lot of stuff to be mad about.
00:34:55.460But we just, we're not going to get anywhere by getting in each other's faces.
00:35:01.280I've been watching, I've been tempted to go out here in Calgary, for example.
00:35:05.800They've had some of the protests where they're lining each side of the street.
00:35:08.360I'm not sure, I might go out one of these Sundays, but I've been busy.
00:42:38.500It didn't get through. So sorry, you guys are going to have to continue to buy your own birth control pills. Just bear that in mind before you when you practice to conceive, right? What else we got going on here? Yes, the economy still holding up the sovereignty act. I kind of want to wrap up with that. That's but there's been a lot of discussion on that whole thing. So Premier Smith has invoked it. She's pushing back. The bottom line of the conflict is Gilbo wants this
00:43:08.480net zero thing to happen by 2035. It has to happen by 2035, no matter what. And he will not
00:43:15.880band, he will not back down. He won't even say 2036, 2037. Smith is saying it could happen by
00:43:21.1202050. And as I said, I know there's debates on whether we should even be sequestering carbon or
00:43:25.240whatever, but there's efforts being made in Alberta, but we won't get credit for it because
00:43:28.900again, they do not like us and they want to shut down oil and gas altogether, no matter what.
00:43:33.260so uh gilbeau uh you know is pushing best so smith saying fine we're going to invoke the
00:43:40.440sovereignty act but what is it what is it you know speaking of virtue signaling to a degree
00:43:45.520and i'm supportive of smith i'm supportive of refighting gilbeau as much as possible on this
00:43:49.300but the as a reporter sort of got on smith's case the other day for it at a conference saying well
00:43:55.520what is it that you're doing that can't be done you know without the sovereignty act the actions
00:44:01.300taking things to court, opposing the federal government on this, you know, these are things
00:44:08.940you can do without this Sovereignty Act. And I have to agree, I guess some of the framework of
00:44:13.720the Sovereignty Act gives her a tool to be able to put it together into one package, where you can
00:44:19.200kind of push a larger opposition to a particular thing together when you feel for sure you haven't
00:44:24.680had the Constitution infringed upon in Alberta, things like that, something to take to court.
00:44:28.760but most of it we could do without the other thing that made me a little nervous. And I know
00:44:32.720some people got upset with me on X about that when I talked about it, but I'll see, we'll see it
00:44:36.360unfold. And I understand why she's going there, but Smith's talked about possibly forming a crown
00:44:42.860corporation. Uh, you know, a government owned natural gas, electricity, electricity generating
00:44:49.220company. This is a step back. Okay. I mean, I, I, I know she envies almost, uh, Scott Moe in
00:44:56.900Saskatchewan, who has at least told Gilboa, go to hell. We won't collect your carbon tax. The
00:45:00.220government owns all the utility companies. So we'll just tell them not to collect. You can't
00:45:05.060do that with private companies. You can't tell a private CEO, hey, go out there, break the law,
00:45:09.580put your neck on the line and refuse to collect that tax. It won't work that way. I understand
00:45:14.780that. And I also understand that some of the fear is that Gilboa and Trudeau will drive out
00:45:20.240investment confidence so badly. They'll do what, of course, you know, Yedlin and the other fools
00:45:24.840are accusing Smith of, but that they'll drive it down so much that there won't be enough
00:45:28.700electrical capacity built by private interests. Thus, the government must do so. But I still get
00:45:34.860nervous with that, guys. When the government gets into business, it rarely ends well. Alberta spent
00:45:39.660a lot of time and work getting out of private business. I don't miss government-owned liquor0.99
00:45:44.560stores. I don't miss government-owned registries. And I sure don't miss AGT, you know, the government
00:45:51.540telephone company, and you look at other companies the government formed, whether PetroCanada
00:45:56.060federally or in Alberta, we did a terrible job. We suck when the government runs businesses. Our
00:46:01.980private citizens can do it, but not the government. Look up Novotel. Look up MagCan. Look up the
00:46:06.840Swan Hills Waste Disposal Plant. Oh, all of these things in the late 80s, early 90s, the government
00:46:11.500got into, they flushed away billions of tax dollars, and all of those businesses went broke.
00:46:15.940So pardon me, but I do not feel comfortable when Premier Smith starts talking that route. As Karen
00:46:21.440Mitchell, the commenter, says she did say it's a last resort. I sure hope so. I don't even want
00:46:26.160to consider it, look at it as a consideration. Hopefully we can do it without even going there
00:46:30.300one way or another. All right. That's all the time I've got today, guys. Thank you very much
00:46:36.900for joining me. I appreciate it. The pipeline will be on a little later with more stuff and
00:46:42.380news and items to cover with the panel. And of course, I will be back again at this time next
00:46:47.860week. So make sure to tune in, share it with other people. Let's build this audience, guys. Let's get
00:46:52.040out there and hold this government to account. Thanks again and see you next week.
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