Recently, Heather McPherson, the longtime Member of Parliament (MP) for Edmonton-Strathcona, and one of the current leadership candidates for the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, sponsored an openly antisemitic petition that seeks to investigate and summarily charge any Canadians who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).Unfortunately, McPherson is not at all alone in her crusade against the Jewish people.Rather, over the course of the past decade, antisemitism has become a hallmark of the NDP at all levels of government in Canada..KAPLAN: Carney government’s net zero emission policy could cost Canadians $2.1 trillion .Firstly, various NDP politicians have become embroiled in explicit antisemitic scandals and controversy.For example, shortly after Hamas’ brutal attacks against the state of Israel on October 7, Sarah Jama, the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Hamilton Centre, eagerly invoked various antisemitic conspiracies and tropes in a malicious attempt to indict the state of Israel and foment hatred against Canada’s Jewish community. In fact, Jama’s claims were so unequivocally depraved that the Premier of Ontario himself, Doug Ford, actually demanded Jama’s resignation and attempted to censure her in Ontario’s Legislative Assembly.Furthermore, in 2022, Joel Harden, a prominent member of the Ontario NDP, was forced to issue a public apology after he enthusiastically regurgitated a wide variety of grotesque antisemitic stereotypes during a disquieting interview with Canada Talks Israel/Palestine and explicitly condemned the Jewish nation as “the single greatest threat…and the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East.” .Moreover, the NDP has repeatedly endorsed political policies that are explicitly antisemitic.For instance, in 2021, the NDP ratified an internal motion wherein the New Democratic Party itself officially adopted various aspects of the avowedly antisemitic ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)’ platform, such as a trade boycott on Israeli settlements and an arms embargo on the state of Israel.In addition, in 2024, various MPs from the NDP, including Heather McPherson herself, tabled a blatantly antisemitic motion in Canada’s House of Commons that not only utterly dismissed the Jewish people’s historic, indigenous connection to the Land of Israel and trivialized Israel’s ‘right to exist’, but also baselessly indicted the state of Israel for genocide, apartheid, and the sum total of all Palestinian suffering. .MACLEOD: The morning after — Alberta’s post-referendum 365-day playbook.Finally, over the past decade, the NDP’s leadership itself has openly espoused antisemitic ideology and baselessly attacked the nation of Israel.For example, in 2022, the longtime leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, explicitly declared that “…Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is at the centre of the challenges facing the Palestinian and Israeli people” and that “There will be no long-term solution to the protracted conflict until the 55-year occupation ends.” In addition, Singh even claimed that “…by failing to call out Israel for breaching international law and violating the human rights of the Palestinian people, Canada is contributing to the problem.”.In fact, despite years of heartfelt service and a distinguished career, Selina Robinson, British Columbia (BC)’s former Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, was recently forced to resign from the NDP altogether, specifically because antisemitism and Jew-hatred have been allowed to run rampant throughout the New Democratic Party and “…there is a double standard within the NDP over how different minority groups are treated.”Unfortunately, it is evident that Heather McPherson is not at all the only artefact of Jew-hatred within the NDP..PINDER: The limits and bias of Canada’s institutions.Rather, it is clear that, over the course of the past decade, antisemitism has become a hallmark of the NDP at all levels of government in Canada.More importantly, it is readily apparent that, until the NDP undergoes a fundamental transformation and excises its current antisemitic blight, Canadian society must continue to emphatically refuse the NDP and consign it to the outskirts of Canadian politics alongside other extremist parties.William Barclay is an award-winning political theorist and policy expert, as well as one of Canada’s foremost young conservative voices. Follow him on Twitter/X @WillBarclayPCBG.
