Letters: Albanese can’t blame Iran for Australia’s antisemitism problem

Re: Australian PM Accuses Iran of Organizing Antisemitic Attacks, Aug. 27. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been dressed down by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, which goes to show that you simply can’t make everyone happy. Albanese is still going strong in his mission to recognize a Palestinian state and at the same time treating Iran as the sponsor and cause of all of Australia’s antisemitic problems. Guess again, Albanese.

Antisemitism in systemic — if allowed, it finds its way in through government complacency, apathy and ignorance, which provides activists a license to act in lawless ways. This is not something that happened overnight. It is a direct result of Australia’s choice to be on the wrong side of moral history when it comes to Israel’s just war against Hamas.

Unfortunately, Australia is not the only western country that has turned away from the only true democracy in the Middle East. Canada has done an equally disastrous job at protecting its Jews and thwarting the tidal wave of antisemitism following October 7. The left’s partnership with death-cult jihadists in the common cause of Jew hate has become a scourge on our society. When it comes to the Jews, truth and justice take a back seat. October 7 provided the perfect storm to lay the foundation and I shake my head as I witness the undoing of western civilization and the lengths to which antisemites will go — giving up on law and order, along with our hard-fought freedoms — just to see Jerusalem burn.Israel Ellis, Toronto.

Re: Abolish the Ont. College of Teachers, Barbara Kay, Aug. 23; Ontario to Ban Research Testing on Dogs, Cats, Aug. 26. When he chooses, Ontario Premier Doug Ford can move quickly to stop something he finds unacceptable. On the issue of dog testing, he declared: “Simple as that. We just don’t do that, it’s cruel and it’s unacceptable.” It was a quick win, requiring little political courage and carrying no risk of offending any major demographic.

But where is that same moral clarity when it comes to antisemitism? Since Oct. 7, 2023, Ontario has witnessed an unprecedented surge in hatred against Jews. While the ground in southern Israel was still wet with Jewish blood, pro-Hamas demonstrators were already marching in our streets. This was before Israel had even begun to respond militarily.

Instead of being restrained by clear government and police leadership, these protests were emboldened by inaction. What followed has been months of harassment, intimidation and open antisemitism — at levels not seen here in more than 80 years. Yet in all this time, Ford has not taken meaningful action to confront what he would surely call “cruel and unacceptable” if it targeted any other group.

Ontario once showed more courage. In the 1940s, Jewish-Canadians faced blatant discrimination: signs at beaches and resorts openly read “No Dogs or Jews Allowed.” In 1944, Ontario passed the Racial Discrimination Act to make such practices illegal.

Why can’t Ford do the same today? If protecting dogs from cruelty is worthy of swift action, surely protecting Jewish Ontarians from hatred, intimidation and violence deserves nothing less.

The safety and dignity of Ontario’s Jewish community is not optional. It demands the same urgency, courage and action that Ford so easily mustered for the dogs.Marc Friedman, Thornhill, Ont.

Re: The ‘Journalists’ of Gaza, Carson Jerema, Aug. 27. Kudos to columnist Carson Jerema for describing the Gaza ”journalists,” including Anas al-Sharif, who reported for Al-Jazeera, as propagandists.

Journalists are people who work for respected publications, such as the National Post, Financial Times and The Economist. These Gaza rabble-rousers, most of whom likely have never been to journalism school or had previous reporting experience, all of a sudden call themselves “journalists.”

It has been reported that more than 1,000 journalists are currently working in Gaza. I have never heard of so many news journalists working in such a small and impoverished place. Most them must have picked up a pen, notebook and microphone and started calling themselves ”journalists.”

Al-Jazeera does some fine Third World coverage, but its main and obsessive aim is to demonize Israel, whether in its reports, opinion pieces or on TV TV talk shows.Jacob Mendlovic, Toronto.

Re: Americans Rake in Profits From Canadian Natural Gas, Aug. 28. There is little doubt that Justin Trudeau will go down in history as Canada’s worst ever prime minister. It is interesting to note that our new prime minister, Mark Carney, takes no ownership of Trudeau’s failed legacy, even though he advised Trudeau. Carney instead throws Trudeau under the bus for his assertion that there was no business case for exporting Canadian natural gas. Canadians will be paying the price for Trudeau’s many fiscal failures for decades.Bob Erwin, Ottawa.

Re: Embattled Ukraine No Closer to Peace, Kelly McParland, Aug. 21; Addicted to Handouts, Kelly McParland, Aug. 27. Columnist Kelly McParland argues that it’s too early to criticize Prime Minister Mark Carney for not achieving his big-ticket agenda items, and that we shouldn’t expect him to do it all for us.

While McParland acknowledges that Ottawa’s fiscal profligacy got us into this mess, we also got here through Ottawa’s restrictions on private-sector activity in the name of climate stewardship, as well as its anti-business attitude.

Other than buying Canadian products, what can ordinary Canadians do for Canada? Repealing laws that hamper productivity is something only parliamentarians can do. If the politicians broke it, they should fix it. This goes farther than just allowing cabinet to override the list of legislation in Bill C-5. Industry needs more certainty than that.

Prime Minister Mark Carney remains an enigma. I’m not convinced he sees the actions of the previous government as misguided. He seems to want to do big things, but can’t fully commit to getting out of the way of the private sector. Does he want the government to build all the new homes we need, or does he want the private sector to do it? Will he only approve energy corridors for green electricity and decarbonized oil and gas?

Maybe he only wants to do big things that the government can control and fund. It doesn’t feel like he wants to unleash the private sector to build Canada. However, this is the one option that doesn’t require boatloads of new borrowing. Private industry must play a leading role if we want to give ourselves far more than U.S. President Donald Trump can ever take away.Rob Pankratz, Oakville, Ont.

In last week’s column, Kelly McParland lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump, calling him everything short of one of history’s worst tyrannical monsters. This week, he labours on about the hurdles facing our country — all the regulations, treaties and bureaucracy preventing this country from doing what it needs to do. Obviously, in order to move forward, Canada requires a leader who is bent on chopping government bureaucracy, cutting red tape, expanding industry, keeping our cities safe and supporting the development of fossil fuels — the exact kind of politician McParland and most of this country despises and would never elect.Bernie Dobrucki, Burlington, Ont.

Re: Poilievre Revives ‘Carbon Tax’ Fight, Aug. 28. With extreme weather, wildfires and evacuations now costing Canadians large sums of money, it’s sad that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s only message is to keep axing our climate legislation. He talks as if affordability is unrelated to changing climate, but we now see that climate change creates an immense cost to taxpayers.

Civic infrastructure across the country is failing due to heat stress. Insurance premiums are going up, and in places like “Hailstorm Alley” in Alberta, homes have effectively become uninsurable against extreme weather. Food prices, like olive oil, have risen due to international climate-related crop failures. Whole towns like Jasper, Alta., need to be rebuilt.

If Poilievre truly cares about the cost of living of Canadians, he must stop eroding public trust in climate policies with catchy slogans. Instead, he should drop his allegiance to big oil, educate himself and start working on climate-informed solutions to make life more affordable.Leon Everly, Calgary.

Poilievre seems a bit desperate for someone to say that he was right about the carbon tax, perhaps to vindicate his insistence on axing more policies in the future. But if grocery prices are still sky high and our cost-of-living crisis has only grown worse, then it seems safe to say that axing the carbon tax wasn’t the solution that Poilievre claimed it would be. In fact, given that my family and I don’t get a rebate anymore, it seems to have made things worse.

Rather than focusing so much on the tired spectre of his so-called “carbon tax 2.0,” maybe he should consider focusing on “Poilievre 2.0” in the upcoming session of Parliament. Who knows, maybe this time around he could try to address the things that actually matter.Mark Taylor, Calgary.