Last month’s Public Safety progress report on the National Commitments to Combat Antisemitism notably included statements recognizing that antisemitism includes anti-Zionism. The National Council of Canadian Muslims wrote to the department to object and is now circulating a reply from Minister Gary Anandasangaree that former Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia Amira Elghawaby touted as showing that the “Government of Canada Clarifies Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism.” The reality, however, is that the response did no such thing: it does not retract or amend the report, states twice that the government’s position has not changed, and links anti-Zionism to the denial of Jewish self-determination.
The progress report’s references to anti-Zionism rightly attracted attention since it expressly identified anti-Zionism as a contemporary manifestation of antisemitism, which no prior federal document had done. The report referred to “contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism, as outlined in the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism” and stated that “antisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism, is not always obvious.” Nothing in the Anandasangaree reply backtracks from these statements. Indeed, it assures the NCCM that “Canada’s position has not changed” and ends by reiterating that “our Government’s position remains unchanged.”
So what is that position? The reply notes that the report’s reference to anti-Zionism “reflects the understanding contained within the IHRA Definition and the Canadian Handbook, including recognition that denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination may, depending on the context, be considered a manifestation of antisemitism.” In fact, the Handbook, a government publication, includes an example stating that “to selectively deny the Jewish people the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland is antisemitic,” and its preamble, like the IHRA definition it adopts, asks that examples be assessed “taking into account the overall context.” In other words, the Minister simply repeated what is already found in Canadian Heritage’s IHRA Handbook. If the NCCM and Elghawaby are endorsing the reply, they are effectively expressing support for the government’s IHRA implementation.
The letter does state that the report was not intended to suggest that “all criticism of Zionism, Israeli government policies, or the State of Israel is antisemitic,” and that it was not intended to limit lawful political expression or public debate. Notwithstanding frequent misleading claims about IHRA, that too repeats the IHRA standard, which states that criticism of Israel like that levelled against any other country is not antisemitic. The remainder of the letter reiterates the conditions long associated with Canada’s adoption of the IHRA definition, including that it is non-binding, does not create criminal offences, and does not restrict Charter-protected expression.
Context always matters, but the lived experience of Canadian Jews over the past three years is that too often anti-Zionism functions as thinly veiled antisemitism. The government’s position, featured in a published report and now confirmed in ministerial correspondence, rightly affirms that antisemitism includes anti-Zionism. With this further confirmation in hand, the government must now apply its own IHRA Handbook to its funding decisions, anti-discrimination policies, and training programs.
