Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to the two Comment articles on Israeli Apartheid Week featured in the Feb. 25^th issue of the Varsity.  As President of the University of Toronto Liberals, I want to commend Asher Greenberg for his condemnation of IAW as dogmatic advocacy, rather than as an event to promote understanding and dialogue.  As a student who is involved in the political process, I understand the importance of debate on a university campus.  That must be our goal as an educational institution.  However, Israeli Apartheid Week does not promote dialogue.  It is not a debate.  It is a week of intimidation.  Anyone who attempts to debate issues at IAW events is shouted down and called hateful names.  Anyone who attempts to point out that IAW is an unfair singling-out of the Middle East’s only liberal democracy for dishonest criticism is silenced and made to feel threatened.

Israeli Apartheid Week is worthy of our condemnation.  I am proud of the Ontario Legislature’s unanimous motion to condemn IAW on February 25^th.  I am also proud of the work being done by the multi-partisan Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism.  A number of local Liberal MPs are active participants in the Coalition, including UofT’s own MP, Bob Rae, the MP for our neighbouring riding of Davenport, Mario Silva (who serves as the Coalition’s Vice-Chair), and Vancouver MP Hedy Fry who came to speak to the UofT Liberals on the issue of inclusivity and human rights earlier this year.  Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has been clear and unequivocal in his condemnation of IAW, noting that the malicious use of the term “apartheid” is a clear attempt to single out the Jewish state as criminal and illegitimate.

As President of the UofT Liberals, I am proud to speak out against Israeli Apartheid Week, and to stand with UofT students and their elected representatives against discrimination on campus.

Gabe De Roche, President of the UofT Liberals

And the following is the statement from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff condemning Israeli Apartheid Week:

OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement today:

“On university campuses across the country this week, Israeli Apartheid Week will once again attempt to demonize and undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state. It is part of a global campaign of calls for divestment, boycotts and proclamations, and it should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely.

Apartheid is defined, in international law, as a crime against humanity. Israeli Apartheid Week is a deliberate attempt to portray the Jewish state as criminal.

The activities planned for the week will single out Jewish and Israeli students. They will be made to feel ostracized and even physically threatened in the very place where freedom should be paramount — on a university campus.

Let us be clear: criticism of Israeli government policy is legitimate. Wholesale condemnation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people is not legitimate. Not now, not ever.

The very premise of Israeli Apartheid Week runs counter to our shared values of mutual respect and tolerance, regardless of nationality, race or creed. It is an attempt to heighten the tensions in our communities around the tragic conflict in the Middle East.

On behalf of the Liberal party of Canada and the Parliamentary caucus, I urge all Canadians to join with us in condemning Israeli Apartheid Week, and to reject, in principle, all forms of anti-Semitism, racism and intolerance, both within this country and around the world.”

The Toronto Star ran the story (17 October 2009, pg. A12) about the UofT Liberals’ protest over Stephen Harper’s Conservative Cheques, along with the revelation that Harper’s Conservatives are planning to spend millions more of taxpayer dollars on partisan billboards.

From the article:

Papering Canada with billboards is the latest tactic in an unprecedented promotional campaign by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his team of Conservative MPs to put their stamp on the government’s taxpayer-funded economic bailout program.

From prop cheques emblazoned with their names to announcements made daily and a $34 million television and radio ad campaign, Conservatives have wasted no opportunity to align themselves with the federal spending spree.

That publicity offensive has sparked an uproar among opposition MPs that promises to continue when Parliament resumes Monday after the Thanksgiving week break.

“This is the most comprehensive, deliberate propaganda campaign at the federal level in Canadian history,” said Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South).

Taxpayer dollars are not Stephen Harper’s personal pork barrel.  As Conservative MPs gallivant across the country handing out comically-oversized cheques bearing the Conservative Party logo, Canadians are tired of having their tax dollars used for partisan gain.

That money doesn’t belong to you, Mr. Harper.  It belongs to taxpayers.

Madam Speaker, a long time ago, in fact, as members opposite will know, a great many years ago, when I was a small boy, I read the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Members will recall that the point of that story was that by simply drinking a glass of a particular potion, what seemed like a perfectly responsible and reputable person would suddenly become some kind of a monster.

I must confess that I was listening to the debate unfold this morning and this afternoon, and in particular I say this of the speech of the government House leader, who looked so good, and I know on television he looked even better. The hon. member spoke about how the mayors were, surprise, surprise, expressing gratitude for the fact that they were getting some money to build a school rink or whatever it happened to be across the country and all the projects that are taking place and all the positive things saying that the last thing this House needs is any infusion of politics or the last thing the country needs is any infusion of an election.

I can remember the Prime Minister saying earlier on that the country does not need any political gains.

Well, that is Dr. Jekyll speaking, and that is the respectable side that we have seen in this debate. I am sure many of us in this House have received various kinds of counselling and advice with respect to how to talk to the media and how to talk to the camera, that we should not raise our voice and that we should talk in a calm voice. I am sure there are many members who do it very well and many members who do not do it so well. Some members avoid responding to idiotic heckling coming from the other side. It is not a good idea to respond to the comments because the people who are watching on television cannot hear the inane comments that are being made.

However, there is another side of the Conservative Party and there is another side of the Conservative government, and that is the side that we see every night when we go home and turn on our television sets. We have been doing this, not for a few weeks, not for a few months, but for a very long time.

First, the Conservatives started out by attacking my colleague, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, who was our previous leader and who is a very fine and distinguished individual.

[Translation]

I want to say that I have never met a more moral, direct or honest man in politics than our previous leader, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. But the Conservatives decided to attack his personality, not his politics, his career or his courage. There was no election. We were not in the midst of an election campaign, yet they decided, night after night, to make personal attacks against a member who was doing his job.

[English]

After we chose a new leader in the House of Commons, the very first thing we saw was an attack on the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, not because of what he believes in or his politics, but because of his past and the fact that he was out of the country. It was a personal, vicious, constant, never-ending, corrosive attack on the personality of a person.

For those of us who have been in this business for a while, it is like water off a duck’s back. One expects it to happen. However, what we have seen here is that there is another side. When the political party opposite says that it does not want political games or an election, who does it think it is kidding? The party opposite is campaigning for an election each and every day of the year, day after day, night after night. It never stops and it never ends.

Not a single intervention is made and not a step is taken that is not controlled by the Prime Minister’s Office. Not a declaration is made that is not part of a systematic political election campaign. When I hear the party opposite talking with piety and rectitude about its interest in building hockey rinks and making parks better for Canadians, all I can say is that is not the Conservative Party that I see every night on television.

The Conservative Party that I know and that I have learned to see every night on television is a party that has nothing better to do than to drag the reputation of every other politician in the country through the mud. That is what it knows how to do and that is all it knows how to do. That is its specialty. That is what it does for a living, which is why the corrosiveness of the House and of politics is something for which they bear an enormously heavy responsibility.

That is the Mr. Hyde side of the Conservative Party and that is the side we know. It comes out at night. It avoids us. It hits us on the television screens. Just as we are trying to fall asleep, we suddenly get hit with these vicious ads and a viciousness that is the real side of the Conservative Party.

I have another issue. My friend for Papineau has referred to it and I want to refer to it as well. I think of the issues that are facing the country. I think of the fact that we have a rapidly aging population that is going through a democratic revolution. I think of the fact that 50% of the people on reserves in northern Canada are under the age of 25. I look at the number of those young people who are coming into our cities, are living in poverty and have no jobs and no prospects. I look at climate change, which is affecting us as much as it is any other country and affecting northerners more than anyone else. When I think of those things, I do not see leadership from the government. I do not see leadership on health care, on climate change or on the real issues that are affecting the people of the country.

As the member for Papineau said so well, there are literally tens of thousands of young people who are leaving high school, college and university without the prospect of a job. When I look at the cynicism opposite and I see that all the Conservatives are offering is a two year construction program that will do something for some people but will not deal with the fundamentals, then I say that we have less than we are worthy of as a country.

I think that is why so many of us have lost confidence in the government and have no intention of voting for it again, nor of voting for its half-baked measures and the corrosive cynicism that it has brought to the politics of this country, for which it should be deeply ashamed.

[Translation]

I am proud to serve a leader and an intelligent man who is compassionate and values human dignity and who talks about the importance of human integrity in his political discourse. That is something we sadly do not see in the politics of the Conservative Party, and it is something I regret very much.

But there is one thing I do not regret at all, and that is the decision we made as a party to say that enough is enough and that we will no longer support this government. We cannot support a government that does not support the Canadian people.

The comment piece, titled “Hit the Road, Jack!” was written in response to Jack, Olivia, and the New Democrats’ selling-out to the Harper Conservatives.

On Friday 18 September 2009, Jack and the NDP stood up in support of the Harper government, reversing their usual commitment to voting against the Reformatories.

Why? Because he was going to lose seats if an election were held.  The NDP has raised just over a million dollars (compared to over 20x that by the Liberals and Conservatives).  They’ve only nominated 10 percent of their candidates nationwide.  And many of their caucus members are new MPs who haven’t been able to establish themselves in their ridings, and are thus electorally vulnerable.

As usual, it’s politics before principles for Jack and the New Democrats — just like in 2005 when they walked away from national childcare, a national housing strategy, a solid commitment to climate change, and the Kelowna Accord for aboriginal Canadians.  Then, as now, they stood with Harper Conservatives.  They betrayed their principles, and they betrayed progressive Canadians on campus and across this country.