It matters who’s in power

Avrum Rosensweig

Now that the federal election is upon us, debates within our community about political leadership will begin to heat up. People just seem to care more nowadays about who’s in power. Here are some of the things to watch for.

While we hear little from those community members who support left-of-centre parties in Parliament, they are out there – the “quiet minority.” One question we have to ask ourselves is why do they feel a need to keep their voices low, and moreover, why are their opinions muted by the louder majority who support the Conservative party? This question speaks to the general minimization of the expression of divergent schools of thoughts. Inevitably we have to consider, too, that if the NDP wins, as some pollsters are predicting, will the left do its best to squelch views on the right? 

Another question we are faced with is whether it’s enough that the Harper government is supportive of Israel, in his particular way, to garner our votes? Or is it true, as some political pundits say, that the lurch to the right within the Jewish community is not only predicated on the prime minister’s ostensible love of Israel, but because, like they’ve always said, we’ve gotten older and more conservative in nature? 

If indeed the mainstream Jewish community will vote Conservative (and there is no reason to think otherwise), how then does this block of community members come to grips with Harper’s immigration and refugee policy, which has effectively closed our doors to the “stranger”? How does that group, many of whom remember the war years and the establishment of the State of Israel, justify laws on our books criminalizing the exodus of a group of people from their “dangerous” home and the docking of their boats on our shores? What do Jewish Harper supporters do with legislation forbidding most medical care for refugee claimants, including asthma puffers for children and pregnancy care for woman in trouble?

On the flip side, how will Liberal, NDP and Green party supporters deal with our doors swinging open to individuals from stridently anti-Semitic environments who show their hateful colours at anti-Israel rallies? We only have to go back one year to Operation Protective Edge to remember the hordes of fundamentalist Muslims and their supporters in downtown Toronto carrying placards with slogans such as, “Jewish children to the ovens.” Unfortunately this was not a slight deviation from traditional Canadian and Jewish values of love and caring. How will the left handle an influx of hateful individuals that comes with a more generous refugee and immigration policy?

The Harper government has successfully changed the complexion of Canada and how this election will play out. 

Whereas we used to be peacekeepers, we are now soldiers. 

Whereas we used to accept the judiciary as a crucial way of ensuring democracy, that is now in question. 

Whereas we used to extend a particular brand of Canadian compassion to the vulnerable, including those imprisoned in our jails, we are now stricter, more punitive. 

Whereas debate in Parliament was held high in its importance, like a bride and groom at a wedding, it is now limited. 

This election and the time leading up to it is different than in previous years. Its temperature represents the new Canada. It is a passionate time, one rooted in ideology and issues. The Jewish community, like the rest of Canada, will take sides, and never again will we say, “It just doesn’t matter who’s in power.”