From the Liveblog of
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Jewish Canadian lawmaker accuses own party of refusing to deal with antisemitism
A Jewish Canadian politician is calling out members of her progressive party for refusing to stand up against antisemitism, announcing her departure from the ruling New Democratic Party caucus in the British Columbian Legislative Assembly.
“As a government we have not been standing up to antisemitism,” assembly member Selina Robinson writes in a lengthy missive announcing her decision to go independent. “If you believe that then it would appear to me that you haven’t been paying attention or you don’t know what antisemitism is or what Jew hatred looks like.”
Robinson, who was removed as a minister in BC after making remarks deemed anti-Palestinian, accuses several fellow party members of outright antsemitism and of refusing to apologize or make real amends for anti-Jewish remarks, including the party’s antiracism czar Mable Elmore; another lawmaker, Niki Sharma, who was appointed to deal with the Jewish community due to Mable’s past comments, has failed to even reach out to community leaders, she charges. A request to engage with the Jewish and Muslim communities to foster dialogue was rejected by a party adviser as “too political,” adds Robinson, who received a death threat in the wake of her January 30 remark.
She also says most members of the party, which is allied with Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the House of Commons in Ottawa, ignored her request to show solidarity with the Jewish community in the wake of the October 7 massacre.
“How eager you all are to join the few remaining Holocaust survivors as Nicholas plays Kol Nidre on the cello and we bow our heads, light candles in honour of those murdered – yet when the hordes gather and chant “from the river to the sea” – a Hamas mantra referring to their desire to destroy Israel and the Jews, you are no where to be found,” she writes.
Robinson, 60, represents the suburban Vancouver district of Coquitlam-Maillardville in the British Columbia legislature. She had already announced she would not seek re-election after over a decade in office.
In a statement, three local and national Jewish groups say they are “profoundly saddened,” by her decision to leave the party, and call on Premier David Eby to “demonstrate leadership and address antisemitism within his caucus, his government, and in British Columbia as a whole.”
