Mr. Chair, I am pleased to add my voice, as raw as it is right now, to this debate, because it is an important one.

It is an important debate on many levels. Today we are living in tumultuous times. If we look back on history, whenever we live in tumultuous times certain things are guaranteed to happen. When we are going through bad economic times, it seems, historically, that the finger gets pointed at immigrants, that “the immigrants are here; they are stealing our jobs; they are taking away our opportunities.” When we live in tumultuous political times, it seems, historically, we see a rise in anti-Semitism.

A couple of statements were made, one by my hon. colleague from Mount Royal and one by my colleague on the subcommittee for human rights, that the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism itself can be considered a canary in the coal mine in many ways.

When we see a rise in anti-Semitism, we also see a rise in other forms of hatred. Anti-Semitism is hatred, nothing more, nothing less. It is hatred. It is hatred that is geared to and pointed at a particular group of people for a particular reason that is manufactured by another particular group for their own particular reasons.

We very much need to understand that process. Our understanding of that process needs to go back further. I will submit this to my colleagues that it needs to go back further than the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened for a reason, and that reason goes back centuries.

The Holocaust happened because of a longstanding hatred of the Jewish people. It was not something that just came out of an insane man's mind. It is something that has been manifested over centuries upon centuries, as all hatred is.

It is something that has been state-sanctioned. If we were celebrating the work of the Stratford Festival, we can look back at Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. I believe it was written in 1623. That was a commentary. It is viewed by many as an anti-Semitic play. I submit that it is actually a commentary on the hypocrisy of European life back in the 1600s, and even prior to that.

We can look at the ancient rite of Passover practised by our Jewish brothers and sisters, which is so important to Jewish culture. It is a remembrance of the wrongs that have been done to Jewish people. It is a remembrance of the deliverance out of Egypt. It is a remembrance of the Holocaust. It is a remembrance of all the significant acts of anti-Semitism that have been practised throughout history.

We have been discussing and agree entirely about the importance of recognizing the evil of anti-Semitism, but we would be remiss if we did not take every opportunity that we have to learn about where this kind of hatred comes from and what we can do to abate it.

Hatred is a learned process, which to me implies that it can be unlearned. The education that we need to pass on to our children is: what does it mean to be Jewish and why is it different from who we are? It is the understanding that this difference is not a threat to who we are, which is the basis of all hatred. It is the basis of the hatred towards my ancestors that we still endure today. We still find ourselves in positions where we have to stand up and fight.

The saying “Lest we forget” is very important, and why debates like this are so important. We have to remind ourselves of what we are capable of.

My colleague who spoke previously talked about his surprise as to what we as human beings can do to each other. Unfortunately, I grew up in a world that was not surprised at what we can do to each other. However, that helped me understand what my job and work was in moving forward. I continue this with the youth in my community by speaking to them and encouraging them to stand tall and stand strong.

Education is key to delivering ourselves from the hatred that is anti-Semitism, xenophobia, misogyny, and all forms of hatred of another people for a particular reason. It is up to us as leaders to make sure that we practice that education. We must take the time to learn and not hide behind dogma and rhetoric. We must take the time to learn where this comes from so that we can make sure that it does not happen again.

I thank each and every person who has contributed to this discussion this evening for thoughts and contributions. As late as the evening is, it is also heartening to see that we agree that our voices have to be unified to fight both the rise of anti-Semitism and what the rise of anti-Semitism brings in terms of other horrific acts of racial and religious intolerance that are happening around the world.

My colleagues and I hear these stories on a regular basis in the human rights subcommittee. It is disheartening at times. However, it is up to us as leaders, as people, to make sure that we do not let these voices fall silent, that we do not forget what we have done, what we are capable of doing, and also to remember what we are capable of doing in bringing an end to this type of behaviour, such as what happened where I used to live in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. It is up to us to make sure that we do not let these acts go unanswered, and that we do not let the history of these acts be forgotten.

Tyrone Benskin

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