Controversial Moments at Politics and the Pen Fundraiser

I attended a Politics and the Pen event at the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa on September 24. It was mostly a fine evening, but near the end it took a nasty turn.

Organized by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the occasion raised money to support writers and writing projects. The evening finale was the awarding of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. It  was won this year by Raymond Blake, a history professor at the University of Regina, for a book called, Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity.

Shaughnessy Cohen, MP

The prize is named after Shaughnessy Cohen, an MP from Windsor, who died in 1998 at age 50 while speaking in the House of Commons. Born Shaughnessy Murray, into a family of Irish origin, she married into a Jewish family in 1971.

Full house at the Chateau

The ballroom at the Chateau Laurier was overflowing with people from politics, journalism, the civil service, business, and the cultural sector. I was seated at a good table, enjoying conversation and the food.

Co-hosts for the evening were two Members of Parliament from Nova Scotia, Chris d’Entremont, a Conservative, and Sean Fraser, a Liberal. Their repartee was meant to be racy and entertaining. Some of their lines were funny, others less so.    

Nasty quip

Near the end of the evening, d’Entremont quipped from the stage that candidates vying for the NDP leadership might propose removing the name “Cohen” from the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize.

There was continual buzz of table talk in the room, so I was not sure that I had heard d’Entremont accurately. The next morning, I found reportage in the digital publication Politico.

In a section called Canada Playbook, there was a headline entitled “Edgy for Ottawa.” The brief story said that “a  couple of zingers elicited afterparty whispers at Zoe’s bar down the hall from the hotel ballroom.”

One of them was d’Entremont’s “Cohen” comment, which Politico’s writers described  as “a not-so-subtle jab at the party’s pro-Palestinian leanings.”

That description is too kind to d’Entremont. Behind a thin veil of humour, his inference was that the NDP is antisemitic.

Avi Lewis and the NDP

That would come as news to Avi Lewis, who had recently announced his candidacy for the NDP leadership. He is the scion of a Jewish family which has deep roots in the CCF, and later the NDP. His father Stephen Lewis led the NDP, as leader of the Opposition in Ontario, before becoming Canada’s ambassador the United Nations. Avi’s grandfather David Lewis was the underpaid and long-suffering secretary of the CCF and later a leading architect in creating the NDP in 1961. He later served as party’s leader from 1971 until 1975.

Breaking the silence

Avi Lewis wrote on Facebook that, “He [Stephen] has always been the one in our family with the deepest atavistic fear of antisemitism. He was sympathetic to the idea of Israel as a refuge longer than the rest of us. He now regards Israel as a rogue state, committing genocide and other crimes against humankind, which ought to be opposed by every tool and tactic in Canada’s diplomatic arsenal.”

Avi Lewis’s mother, Michele Landsberg, is an author and a journalist familiar to many as columnist for the Toronto Star. Writing in that publication in June, she talked about being steeped in Zionism in her youth, but that has changed recently. “I consider myself a post-Zionist now. That adolescent dream of a country committed to justice and equality has died.”

Erwin Cotler criticizes Israeli government

Criticism of Israel’s government for its atrocities in Gaza, and its continuing oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank is not limited to current or former members of the NDP. Erwin Cotler was a Justice Minister in Liberal governments, and for many decades he has been one of Israel’s staunchest advocates. He spends part of each year in the country and has family there. Even he has been compelled to speak out.

He and others wrote a letter in June calling on Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war and starvation he is imposing on Gaza. “We do not deny the despicable role of Hamas in stealing aid and preventing its distribution,” the letter said, “ but nor can we reject the evidence of our eyes and ears as to the extent of the human suffering and the role of your government’s policies in it.”

I do not believe that it is accurate to claim that Hamas is preventing the distribution of aid in Gaza, but it is significant that Cotler has such harsh words for a government that he has always supported and protected.

Silent vigil for Gaza’s dead children

Israel’s offensive on Gaza has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of them children, one every hour since the attack on Gaza began 24 months ago. When MPs returned for a fall sitting on September 15, hundreds of us participated in a silent vigil on the street in front of Parliament Hill.

We stood shoulder- to-shoulder supporting a long banner which extended over an entire city block and named each of the dead children. At the same time, volunteers on Parliament Hill read each name aloud. It took readers from Monday to Friday to do it.

Alexandre Boulderice, an NDP MP, walked slowly along the long line of silent demonstrators on that day offering quiet support. I don’t recall seeing d’Entremont.

Unapologetic supporters of Israel  

The Conservative Party, under both Stephen Harper and Pierre Poilievre, has been an unapologetic supporter of the Israeli government, no matter what level of violence and atrocity it commits.

But offering that cover is becoming more difficult to do, morally and politically. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of crimes against humanity. The UN’s highest court is weighing South Africa’s allegation that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Numerous international organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, describe the situation as a genocide, and say that an ever-increasing number of people are starving.

Canada has joined 150 other countries in promising recognition of a Palestinian state. That is something which Netanyahu throughout his long career has said that he will not countenance. When he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly recently, he reacted angrily, accusing his critics of antisemitism, as he always does.

That, too, is becoming more difficult to do with any credibility. It is something that d’Entremont and his party would be wise to recognize.

Full disclosure

I worked on for the NDP on Parliament Hill in the late 1990s, and served as an ND MP in the 36th Parliament.