A cultural Marxist worldview permeates Canada’s major academic, cultural and corporate institutions, spreading a false historical narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on ignorance and global trends, a former Canadian political leader visiting Israel said on Thursday.
Stockwell Day spoke as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has emerged as one of the biggest critics among Western leaders of Israel’s three-month-old war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and amid a spike in antisemitic attacks and anti-Israel protests in Canada.
“Most Canadians believe that Hamas just wants a two-state solution and that everybody should live in peace,” Day said in an interview with JNS during a weeklong visit to Israel. “They do not know that Hamas wants to vaporize Israel and kill Jews here and everywhere.”
From Never Again to Again
Day, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada and a former minister and leader of the opposition with a long record of support for the Jewish state, said that historical ignorance and highly critical reporting in the mainstream media coupled with a pervasive universalist cultural worldview were turning even the traditionally supportive Evangelical community against Israel.
“Antisemitism among the academic community is very strong,” he said.
Day cited McGill University’s decidedly antisemitic past with its quota system against Jews in the 1930s, similar to that of the Ivy League universities in the US, coming full circle nearly a century later. “’Never Again’ has been diluted to ‘Again.’”
In an effort to stem the tide, he is filming a documentary with eyewitness testimony from his trip to Israel, which was organized by Secure Canada, a nonpartisan institute founded by Canadian families of 9/11 victims, to be used as an educational tool against ignorance.
Raw politics
Day said that Trudeau’s harsh criticism of Israel in the war against Hamas was spurred by raw politics combined with historical ignorance.
“It is a brutal political calculus of which position will gain the most votes,” he said. “There are more people of Islamic persuasion than Jews.”
At the same time, he said continued protests that disturb day-to-day life could backfire.
Canadian general elections are set for next year, although they could be held sooner. Most opinion polls show Trudeau, who has been in power for nine years, significantly trailing his newest rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, with economic issues front and center in the race.
Christian support dropping
Day said that even private Christian colleges were increasingly accepting the false historical narrative now pervasive throughout Canadian society deconstructing shared Judeo-Christian biblical values.
This comes as opinion polls have shown a decrease in support for Israel among young evangelical Christians.
“It is reflective of the tone that is being set by the world,” Day said. “The pillars of democratic civilization are being eroded when we don’t speak up.”