Events like Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) have led to a rise in anti-Semitism on Canadian university campuses, according to a July 7 report from The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA). The report devotes an entire section to addressing anti-Semitism in universities.

Specifically mentioning IAW, it calls on university administrators and professors to fulfill their responsibilities as academics by condemning events which are “[similarly] untrue, harmful, or not in the interest of academic discourse.”

It also recommends that students be able to opt out of fees which are provided to partisan campus groups.

Experts and some of the mainstream media have spoken out against the report.

According to the National Post, the report is an attack on freedom of speech and is based on biased evidence. The Post notes that the report ignores the participation of Jews in IAW, and confuses criticism of Israeli policy with hatred for Jewish people.

Al-Jazeera reported that Dr. Frederick H. Lowy, medical professor and president of Concordia University, specifically told the CPCCA that “Canadian campuses are safe and are not hotbeds of anti-Semitism of any kind.”

The claims made by the CPCCA hasn’t seemed to faze Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), the campus group behind Carleton’s annual Israeli Apartheid Week. SAIA member Aidan MacDonald offered an explanation for the claims.

“The CPCCA and its report are tools that are being used by Israel apologists to intimidate and silence those working for human rights in Palestine,” he said. “I think it shows the strength of the solidarity movement in Canada. People are starting to question the situation and beginning to understand the apartheid analysis.”


MacDonald said he doesn’t expect the report to impact SAIA moving forward.

“I think the report shows that the apologists are running out of arguments, and are trying to bully the Palestinian solidarity movement in Canada. I don’t think it’s going to work.”

MacDonald said the report is non-binding and doesn’t envision that the recommendations condemning IAW and the option for students to opt out of certain club fees as having any impact on SAIA’s work.

The group has no plans to formally address the report, he said.

“We are going to focus on the work we are going to do, regardless of the repression that is happening,” he said.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR