Inside Policy
July 10, 2024
From the editors
It’s a scene that evokes the nightmares of past persecution – a vile strain of antisemitism that attacks Jewish Canadians while shaking the core of our tolerant liberal-democratic Canadian society.
In Surrey, BC, masked activists draped in keffiyehs angrily wield placards libelling Israel as a “genocidal state” equivalent to the Nazis. Are they protesting at the Israeli embassy? No – their bile is aimed at a group of Israeli seven-year-olds playing softball against Canadian children.
As mobs swarm streets and occupy campuses shouting, “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the Intifada,” Canadians are left to wonder why more isn’t done to curb the hatred on display. Surely, these thinly veiled calls to ethnically cleanse Jews from Israel can’t be legal?
In “Free Speech or Hate Crimes?” Andrew Roman confirms that Canada’s Constitution offers no protection for the antisemitism on display at pro-Palestinian rallies and illegal campus occupations. What’s more, Roman argues that new laws are needed to better police occupations that illegally disrupt the rights of other Canadians.
Elsewhere in this issue, Indigenous Affairs Director Ken Coates offers an inspirational picture of the Indigenous business renaissance that is blooming in Canada’s North.
Next, we have a trio of articles on aspects of Canadian healthcare: J. Edward Les writes of the need to urgently halt so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors; John Keown warns that Canada is “sliding down a slippery slope” by extending euthanasia to mentally ill patients; and Nigel Rawson and John Adams explain why the Liberal government’s national pharmacare plan isn’t the cure for what ails us.
Fans of consumer choice will get a charge out of Jerome Gessaroli’s article on the irrational government obsession with electric vehicle mandates. Rather than force motorists to buy EVs, Gessaroli urges a more nuanced approach that gives the automotive industry time to adapt to stringent emissions standards.
Meanwhile, legal expert and senior fellow Stéphane Sérafin alerts us to the looming threat of weaponized human rights tribunals thanks to changes proposed in Bill C-63.
In Toronto, Yonge-Dundas Square is soon to be renamed “Sankofa Square.” Lynn McDonald, a retired academic and former MP, explains why the plan to erase abolitionist Henry Dundas’s legacy is sheer folly.
And finally, international affairs expert Sergey Sukhankin writes of a growing threat to Canada’s agriculture industry – a new scheme by authoritarian allies Russia and China to dominate the international grains market.
