Anti-Semitism endures in Canada: Mulroney

National Post ^ | Februari 10 2003 | Michael Friscolanti

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TORONTO - Anti-Semitism is an intractable evil that all Canadians, especially elected leaders, ''must stand up'' and confront, Brian Mulroney said last night.

He denounced the pro-Hitler stance of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the prime minister of the time, as contributing to the deaths of "countless Jews."

In a speech that launched a two-day conference probing the scope of anti-Semitism, Mr. Mulroney said that hatred toward Jews -- a philosophy ''born in ignorance and nurtured in envy'' -- continues to be a scourge in Canada.

Addressing an audience at the University of Toronto, Mr. Mulroney also accused anti-Semites of broadening their hatred to include not only individual Jews, but the right of Israel to exist as an independent state.

''Contemporary anti-Semitism, without changing its stripes, has added the State of Israel to its list of targets,'' he said, adding later: ''Israel has, in effect, become the new Jew.''

Mr. Mulroney stressed that Israel should not be immune to criticism, saying that anyone who disagrees with the policies of the Israeli government should not be automatically branded an anti-Semite. He said anyone who advocates Israel's right to exist can also desire a Palestinian state in which all citizens come to know the benefits of health care, education and prosperity.

''This should be the objective of all who believe in justice,'' said Mr. Mulroney, the former Conservative leader who served as prime minister between 1984 and 1993. ''And I am certain that one day relatively soon we shall see the initiation of a process that will produce precisely this result.''

But while Mr. Mulroney did briefly discuss the current crisis in the Middle East, his speech focused on how to combat anti-Semitism at home.

He said recent attacks on Jewish institutions and ''the pathetic but startling ravings'' of David Ahenakew, the Saskatchewan native leader who said Hitler was right when he ''fried'' six million Jews, all ''testify to the intractability of the problem and the constant need for vigilance, consistency and strength in dealing with the entire sweep of anti-Semitism.

''In fact,'' he continued, ''ambivalence on an issue of such importance is for the cowardly, which is why each of us must stand up and be counted, and why our elected leaders -- provincial, municipal, education -- cannot duck or dodge. Prime ministers are not exempt from this rule.''

Mr. Mulroney, who said it is ultimately ''the prime minister's responsibility to lead on the great moral issues of the day,'' recounted what he did to curb anti-Semitism during his nine years in office, including appointing three successive Jews as his chief of staff, cracking down on war criminals hiding in Canada, and hosting the first-ever state visit by an Israeli president.

However, Mr. Mulroney said that while Canadians speak proudly of their tolerance and fair-mindedness, history has proven ''we have little to be smug about.''

In 1933, for example, Toronto endured the Christie Pits riots, when local anti-Semites attacked a Jewish baseball team in a street battle that continued through the night. A year later, all of the interns at Montreal's Hospital Nôtre-Dame went on strike to protest the hiring of a Jew as their colleague.

But most disturbing, Mr. Mulroney said, was the stance of Mr. Mackenzie King, the former prime minister who described Hitler as ''one who truly loves his fellow man.''

''Is it any wonder then that Canada was slammed shut to Jewish immigrants before and during the war?'' Mr. Mulroney asked. ''To this day, I cannot watch footage of the faces of Jewish mothers, fathers and children consigned to the gas chambers in German concentration camps without, as a Canadian, feeling a great sense of sorrow, loss and guilt.''

That guilt, Mr. Mulroney said, was rooted in the inaction of Mr. Mackenzie King.

''Prime ministers are not chosen to seek popularity,'' said Mr. Mulroney, now a senior partner with the Montreal law firm Ogilvy Renault. ''They are elected to provide leadership. Prime ministers are supposed to tell Canadians not what they want to hear but what they have to know. Because of Ottawa's abdication of moral leadership, countless Jews perished in Hitler's death camps and we as a country were deprived of them, their children and the glory of their lives.''

After the war, Mr. Mulroney said, anti-Semitism appeared to be on the decline, as evident through the founding of Israel in 1948. That, however, turned out to be only a brief interruption in a ''historical continuum'' that he said began shortly after the birth of Christ. ''Instead of declaring, 'Never again,' we find ourselves painfully asking where did it all come from, what makes it so resistant to suppression and will it ever end?'' Mr. Mulroney said.

Mr. Mulroney's invitation-only address to a dinner attended by about 150 people preceded an academic conference, Anti-Semitism: The Politicization of Prejudice in the Contemporary World, organized by the university's Munk Centre for International Studies.

Speakers at the conference, which began this morning and ends tomorrow, include internationally known scholars from the U of T, in addition to Professors Steven Zipperstein of Stanford University, Todd Endelman of the University of Michigan and Chief Justice Roy McMurtry of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

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