B’Nai Brith, a human rights organization dedicated to advocacy for the Jewish people, recently hosted a tribute in Montreal for former prime minister Stephen Harper to recognize his stalwart leadership and work in combatting antisemitism, both during his time in office and afterwards. Linda Frum, a Conservative member of the Senate from 2009 until 2021, delivered the following remarks during the event. 

Good evening and thank you for inviting me here tonight to be part of this important fundraiser for B’nai Brith’s legal defence fund, and for allowing me the great honour of paying tribute to tonight’s honouree, Canada’s 22nd (and greatest living) prime minister: Stephen J. Harper.

Prime Minister Harper, over your term in office, there were so many triumphs and successes. Yet there was one day which for me will be remembered as a day of tears: and that was the day, shortly after the election in October of 2015 when you telephoned me, as a member of your caucus, to say a personal goodbye. You were leaving politics after 19 years in elected office, and nine years as our prime minister.

That phone call took place almost exactly nine years ago. Nine years is a short time in the life of a nation, even a nation as young as Canada. It’s a very short time in the existence of a people as ancient as the Jewish people. Yet in those nine years, how much has changed.

Every day, in the Canada that we know now, comes some new act of intimidation or violence designed to send a message to Canada’s Jews that we are no longer welcome or safe here. Bomb threats against synagogues and community centres. Bullets fired at schools. Vandalism of storefronts. Mobs blockading coffee shops. Beatings of children on playing fields. [Antisemitic] encampments permitted to exist on campus. Deputy mayors of great cities speaking alongside the flags of prohibited terrorist organizations.

The further and wider antisemitism spreads in Canada, the more nervously our leaders retreat before it. Sometimes it seems we are losing even the language to describe what is happening. Jews are uniquely targeted—but we can never be specifically mentioned. There is always an asterisk after each outrage, an “and” or a “but.”

Our leaders cannot condemn antisemitism and only antisemitism. It has to be antisemitism plus something else. When a rock breaks a window, they ponder long and hard whether the rock is unacceptably antisemitic or acceptably anti-Zionist. Afraid to speak clearly, authorities are unable to act effectively.

And so we see:

• Senior leaders of the Iranian regime settle in Canada with their pillaged wealth;
• ISIS terrorists granted Canadian citizenship;
• A person with a lengthy published record of Jew-hatred is appointed to enforce our human rights code while another prolific Jew-hater is given lavish government sums to teach anti-racism to journalists.

Yes, mistakes will happen in any large organization, we all understand that. But the same mistake? Again and again and again? With seemingly no accountability, no consequences, and no plan to prevent yet another repeat?

During your tenure, Prime Minister Harper, Canada’s Jews knew there was a courageous and moral leader at the helm. We knew we had a friend. What we failed to appreciate, however, was how quickly—and how dangerously—things would change after your time in office.

I applaud the organizers of tonight’s fundraiser for their efforts in ensuring our community has the legal resources it needs to protect those targeted by discrimination, harassment, and violence. We still feel trust in the Canadian justice system to uphold the safety and dignity of our community.

But justice is not self-executing.

When an individual police officer decides it’s more prudent to stay out of the way of the mobs chanting threats against Jews; when a university president allows antisemites to seize public property and use it as their own; when our country’s representatives at the United Nations cannot distinguish between those who launch a war of terrorist atrocity and those who are defending against terrorist atrocity—the courts cannot intervene to correct them all. That’s not their job.

Canada needs more leaders who are unafraid to defend our country’s most fundamental values and our highest aspirations. Leaders who speak the same truth to all audiences.

Who can speak out against wrongs against any and all Canadians? And without a private reservation that Jews belong to some different and inferior category whose victimization can be explained by the actions of the victims themselves?

Thankfully such leaders do exist. Perhaps there are not as many as we would like, but there are fearless and outspoken individuals in our society who take their mission to guard our community very seriously. These men and women deserve our praise and recognition. Indeed, I see many of you in this room tonight. And to you I say: bravo and thank you.

But as grateful as we are to such stalwart leaders, there is one Canadian leader who stands out above all the rest. The most eloquent, robust and indefatigable of them all. And it is him whom we salute tonight.

In 2014, I was a member of the delegation that accompanied Stephen and Laureen Harper to Israel to receive the accolades that were their due.

The impetus for the visit was the ribbon cutting for the grand opening of the JNF project built in tribute to Prime Minister Harper. I am referring, as you may know, to the Stephen J. Harper Visitor’s Centre at the Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary.

As you may also know, the Hula Valley is located between the Golan Heights, the Naftali Mountains, and the Bekaa Valley, places very much in the news today. The Hula Nature Reserve is a wetland ecosystem that has been extensively restored and preserved by the JNF. It is a vital stopover point for millions of migrating birds during their seasonal journeys between Europe and Africa.

The sanctuary symbolizes the Middle East that could be: a peaceful crossroads of faiths, cultures, and peoples. It also, sadly, reminds us of the Middle East that is.

When you enter the Stephen J. Harper Visitor’s Centre in the Hula Valley Sanctuary, you are only 20 kilometres away from the Lebanon border. You are 40 kilometres away from Majdal Shams, where 12 Israeli Druze children were recently blown to bits by Hezbollah. You are 17 kilometres away from Kiryat Shmona, one of the many northern Israeli towns evacuated after October 7, which remains a ghost town up to this moment. Its inhabitants are among the 100,000 internally displaced people of Israel’s north.

During that visit to Israel in 2014, Prime Minister Harper addressed the Knesset. I quote from his memorable speech: “Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so. This is a very Canadian trait, to do something for no reason other than it is right, even when no immediate reward for, or threat to, ourselves is evident.”

Prime Minister Harper, there is your political philosophy in your own words. Do what is right, without regard to rewards or threats.

This philosophy is why you are so admired and respected. It is why you are missed by Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It is why Canadian Jewry venerates you. It is why we gather in your name tonight. It is why I cried when you left. And it is why you will always be recognized and cherished by us all as a noble, honourable, and eternal friend.

NDP incompetence has allowed Canada’s Liberals to govern as though they hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons since 2015. To be fair, for four of those years, they did. But since 2019, the Liberals have been reduced to a mere plurality, even as their standing in the polls has dipped far below that, a circumstance that should have forced them to compromise with other parties to pass legislation and make change.

History should dictate that as an ostensibly centrist party, the Liberals would team up with Conservatives as frequently as they would negotiate with New Democrats, and even partner with the separatist Bloc Quebecois on matters of occasional alignment.

But Trudeau’s Liberals have been different from their partisan forebearers in two key ways: 1) they learned that moving Left and making overt political propositions to progressive voters, thus winning over potential NDP supporters, was a faster path to more votes than trying to win over Conservatives; and 2) their own core ideology has been growing far more ideologically left-wing, not just on the economy but on crime, drugs, and foreign policy.

Trudeau’s Liberals realized early on that they didn’t need a technical majority, and they didn’t need to compromise. All they needed was to occasionally help the NDP pretend to negotiate for support, and in exchange, the Liberals would both achieve their legislative agenda unopposed and marginalize the NDP electorally.

This can make the political status quo confusing. No rational political party operating in a Westminster system would behave this way. But the federal NDP (unlike some of their more savvy provincial counterparts) are not rational, and they either don’t know or don’t care, that Canada’s electoral system doesn’t grant them the political rewards a European coalition-friendly system would.

In 2022, the Liberals, not believing their luck and looking to go all-in, decided to formalize their incredibly convenient arrangement by signing a supply and confidence agreement with the NDP. Surely the NDP took that opportunity to drive a harder bargain? Evidently not. The announcement allowed the Liberals to make clear to Canadians that they weren’t terribly concerned with or humbled by their weak mandate (power’s power, right?) and allowed the NDP to try to fool their remaining supporters into thinking they still had any political ambition. In other words, nothing changed, and the Liberals took great comfort in their good fortune.

But in the meantime, Canada broke.