Responding to the Senate Report on Antisemitism – Part 3: Missing Recommendations and Systemic Concerns
- Mark Sandler
- Jun 3
- 5 min read
In Part 1 of this series, I examined significant flaws and omissions in the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights’ report on antisemitism. In Part 2, I evaluated the Committee’s key recommendations. Here, I explain what additional recommendations are needed and the broader systemic issues that have not been dealt with.
In my presentation to the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, I addressed the staggering, unprecedented overt antisemitism that too frequently poisons the Canadian landscape and provided 10 reasons why this hatred is so pervasive across Canada, particularly during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In my view, the Committee failed to tackle “head-on” the sources and causes of antisemitism in Canada in any comprehensive or systemic way.
1.The active involvement of extremists and extremist organizations in Canada, some student-based, who operate largely with impunity in Canada. They recruit both the malevolent and the ignorant to their cause.
2.Foreign money infused into Canada, and the use of Canada as a hub for extremist financing and money laundering worldwide.
3.The misuse of social media by circulating misinformation, antisemitic tropes and historical distortions. This misuse is also orchestrated by extremists and foreign governments.
4. Radicalized faculty members who seek to indoctrinate students to uncritically accept the demonization of Zionism and Zionists and to reject the legitimacy of the very existence of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. This results in the marginalization of Jewish students who do not renounce their Zionism and normalizes antisemitic behaviour on and off campuses.
5.Related to the above, the absence, in many classrooms, of a culture that promotes respectful dialogue on controversial issues and that encourages critical thinking and “active listening.”
6.The confusion, and often deliberate obfuscation, of the distinction between protected speech and hate speech, so as to immunize those who engage in hate speech or hate activities from accountability.
7. The underuse and inconsistent use by law enforcement and prosecution services of existing criminal law tools to address hate. This underuse emboldens hatemongers and their followers. Frequently, there appears to be a lack of common understanding among and between officers and prosecutors as to the applicability of these criminal tools, compounded by an imperfect understanding of antisemitism and the significance of certain activities, language or symbols.
8. The failure by many school administrations to enforce their own codes of conduct to protect students from harm. They also fail to utilize non-criminal legal tools to address those people or activities that create a poisoned environment for students, faculty, and staff.
9.The use of slogans that incite violence, promote hatred, and mirror unequivocal jihadist language and activities.
10.Mainstream media stories that (a) minimize or ignore pro-Israel perspectives; (b) subject Hamas’s assertions to a lower level of scrutiny than Israeli assertions; (c) treat unsupported assertions as fact; (d) repeatedly fail to correct or give appropriate attention to the disproof or undermining of inflammatory assertions about Israel; or create false moral equivalences to further demonize Israel.
10 Measures the Federal Government Should Advance
I also listed 10 measures that could be directly taken by the federal government or that the federal government could otherwise promote or support. I have highlighted and elaborated upon measures not addressed or inadequately addressed in the Senate Committee’s report:
(1) Promote respectful dialogue initiatives within governments, on campuses and in professions. Promote the placement of conditions on educational funding to incentivize the development of respectful dialogue strategies and support the withdrawal of funding for institutions that fail to create safe spaces for all students and faculties.
(2) Develop, through a national law enforcement task force, consistent, informed policies and frameworks respecting the use of the criminal law to combat hate. With one exception, law enforcement agencies have the criminal tools necessary, to be supplemented with Bill C-9’s passage to address most activities. Those tools are underutilized in some jurisdictions. The exception is the need to create an offence of wilful promotion of terrorist groups and their terrorist activities.
(3) Develop a robust coordinated strategy (involving multiple ministries and agencies) to urgently address the presence of extremists and extremist organizations in Canada and the use of Canada as a hub for extremist funding/money laundering. Do not overlook the Federal Investment Review Board’s jurisdiction to evaluate whether foreign investment undermines national security.
(4) Create “bubble legislation” (modelled on existing legislation to protect hospital sites) to address the safety of targeted communities. Such legislation may be created at all levels of government.
(5) Ensure that organizations designated by the Federal Government as terrorist groups under the Criminal Code are appropriately shut down, their principals appropriately investigated, and the sources and recipients of their funds fully investigated.
(6) Utilize, at all levels of government, the IHRA working definition of antisemitism as a guide to the development of policies, education and training, and anti-racism strategies. Police services, human rights commissions, educational institutions and analogous entities should make similar commitments. This includes education and training of prosecutors and police officers on the distinction between protected and hate speech.
(7) Ensure that diversity, equity and inclusion programs under federal jurisdiction not exclude Jews, and encourage programs under other jurisdictions to follow the same model.
(8) Ensure or promote the prosecution of allegations of hate crimes in major cities by designated teams of prosecutors, with appropriate training on antisemitism and other forms of hatred. It is insufficient to have dedicated, trained police units unless they are working with equally qualified, trained prosecutors.
(9) Reinforce that educational institutions are entitled to codify the appropriate “time and place” for protests, consistent with constitutional values, and with the obligation to create and maintain a safe space for all students. Also reinforce the right of educational institutions to terminate or otherwise sanction a faculty member for creating a poisoned environment for students in or outside the classroom and the obligation to remove signage on campus that may endanger students.
(10) Reject BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) initiatives, such as the capitulation to protester/occupiers at the University of Windsor that now prevents partnerships with Israeli educational institutions. These initiatives undermine academic freedom, institutional neutrality and research integrity. Moreover, they are counterproductive when Israeli educational institutions are at the forefront of peaceful co-existence, with student bodies consisting of Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins studying and working together.
The Ministry of Public Safety has committed to reporting publicly on the extent to which the federal government has implemented its own commitments to combat antisemitism. I identified significant flaws in the Ministry’s initial report. The Ministry undertook to do better. It is critically important that the Government of Canada, in consultation with mainstream community organizations, accurately report on how it has fulfilled its pre-existing commitments and on how it is addressing the recommendations of both the House and Senate Committees.
About the Author
Mark Sandler, LL.B., LL.D. (honoris causa), ALCCA’s Chair, is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading criminal lawyers and pro bono advocates. He has been involved in combatting antisemitism for over 40 years. He has lectured extensively on legal remedies to combat hate and has promoted respectful Muslim-Jewish, Sikh-Jewish and Black-Jewish dialogues. He has appeared before Parliamentary committees and in the Supreme Court of Canada on multiple occasions on issues relating to antisemitism and hate activities. He is a former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a three-time elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, and recipient of the criminal profession’s highest honour, the G. Arthur Martin Medal, for his contributions to the administration of criminal justice.