Canada Poised To Pass Anti-BDS Bill — Backed by 2 Main Parties
Image by Getty Images
Canada stands poised to reject the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign against Israel.
The Liberals, who comprise the majority of seats in the House of Commons, said the party will support an opposition motion introduced Thursday calling on the House to formally reject the goals of the BDS movement.
The motion was introduced by two Conservative lawmakers in parliament. Both the New Democratic Party and Green Party have indicated that they will oppose the motion.
“This is not a partisan issue,” said Tony Clement, the Conservative foreign affairs critic, in leading off the debate. He called BDS a form of discrimination, “just like boycotts that have targeted Jews throughout history.”
Rejecting the BDS movement specifically, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said “the world will win nothing for boycotting Israel but depriving itself of the talents of its inventiveness,” adding: “We must fight anti-Semitism in all its forms.”
The motion states that “given Canada and Israel share a long history of friendship as well as economic and diplomatic relations, the House reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and call upon the government to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”
The Canadian bill comes amid with numerous initiatives condemning and banning attempts to boycott Israel in the United States — where state legislatures in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Indiana passed anti-BDS resolutions – and in Europe.
Earlier this week, Britain’s government announced its plan to outlaw BDS. If passed, the measures will make Britain the second major European country with laws against boycotting Israel.
France passed such laws in 2003, and they have served as the basis for multiple convictions of BDS activists who were sentenced for incitement to discrimination or hate due to their actions on Israel.
On Tuesday, the City Council of Paris passed two declarative motions expressing the city’s rejection of attempts to boycott Israel.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
