Yesterday, during a visit to the Ottawa suburb of Nepean (where Prime Minister Mark Carney is running) Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre vowed to deport anti-Israel protesters:
Poilievre stated, "Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out law-breaking will be deported from this country."
Now there is no question that Canada has experienced increased anti-Semitic violence whether its synagogues in Montreal being firebombed, pro-Hamas agitators clashing with police also in Montreal, pro-Hamas slogan on Jewish schools in Calgary, along with gunshots fired at a Jewish girls' school in Toronto on multiple occasions.
Yet in adopting this rhetoric, Poilievre is channeling President Trump after weeks of trying to distance himself from him. If Canadians believe that Poilievre is serious about doing this then Canadians are going to think people are going to be kidnapped by goons in unmarked vehicles as was done a few short miles from where I am in Somerville. If that is the case, then Poilievre will only succeed in driving Canadian voters into the arms of Mark Carney and the Liberals.
I'm not saying that people in Canada on a tourist visa who engage in violence with police, vandalize Jewish schools or shoot bullets at synagogues shouldn't be deported. However, Poilievre is framing anti-Semitism in Canada exclusively as a problem by foreign-born non-citizens.
There are plenty of people born in Canada who harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. But if those anti-Semitic people support causes with which Poilievre agrees (i.e. the 2022 trucker convoy) then he looks the other way and pretends there isn't a problem.
As I argued yesterday, while I am concerned with whether Carney deems Israel's military operations in Gaza as genocide, I also think Poilievre claims that he is champion of the Jews rings hollow.
If Poilievre is sincere about combating anti-Semitism, then the strategy has to combat anti-Semitism regardless of its source (foreign or domestic, left or right). At this point, like Trump, he seems more concerned with deporting people than actually addressing anti-Semitism.
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