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Or sign-in if you have an account.Omar Alghabra, second from right, at an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People event on Parliament Hill. Photo by TwitterFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorA new federal committee tasked with addressing Canada’s surging anti-Jewish hatred will include an Edmonton lawyer who filed a Charter challenge in defence of anti-Israel encampments, and an MP who once lobbied for Hezbollah to be removed from Canada’s list of terrorist entities.The seven-person committee will have just one Jewish representative; Marc Gold, a former Liberal-appointed Senator.This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again“Our government is building a country in which Jewish Canadians can be visibly, fully, and joyfully Jewish in public life,” wrote the prime minister’s office in a Monday statement announcing the new body, dubbed the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion.Arguably the most controversial member of the new council is Omar Alghabra, former Liberal MP for the riding of Mississauga Centre.Within hours of his appointment, critics pointed to his time as president with the Canadian Arab Federation, which included lobbying campaigns to have groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas removed from Canada’s list of official terror entities.“I remember Mr. Alghabra lobbying me, before he was in politics, to keep Hezbollah legal. So I’m not sure that he’s the right guy to combat antisemitism,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told a reporter for Western Standard on Tuesday.A profile of Alghabra published Tuesday in the Jerusalem Post pointed to a 2004 letter in which he condemned the Canadian media for using the moniker “terrorists” to refer to groups such as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.The example cited was a National Post story containing the line “the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.”At the time, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had been on the list of official Canadian terror entities since the year prior, with an official description calling it an Iran-backed militia founded during the Second Intifada.But in a September 2004 letter for the Canadian Arab Federation, Alghabra called the story evidence that the National Post’s parent company at them time, CanWest, was “failing its responsibility towards all Canadians, not just Arabs and Muslims.”That same year, Alghabra would offer public praise for Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian terror leader turned president of the Palestinian National Authority.Upon Arafat’s death in November 2004, Alghabra was quoted in The Canadian Press as saying “he has played a tremendous role in highlighting the Palestinian struggle for independence and making it visible in the international arena.”In 2006, after Alghabra became a Liberal candidate, he gave an interview to the Canadian Jewish Tribune in which he rejected the notion that Hamas “wants the elimination of Israel.”While he said he has “always spoken out against extremism and violence against civilians,” he reportedly refused to denounce the practice of suicide bombings and claimed he was being “trapped.”“I am against the occupation of civilians…. I believe in the Palestinian right of self-determination. I believe in a two-state solution,” he was quoted as telling the Tribune, reportedly in response to a question about whether he would specifically condemn suicide bombers.In parliamentary debate in 2016, however, Alghabra would explicitly refer to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.”“Our government put Hamas on a terrorist list,” Alghabra told the House of Commons in February 2016. “We believe Hamas is a terrorist organization until it gives up terrorist activities and joins us in our call for peaceful dialogue and consultations to reach a peaceful resolution to the two-state outcome that we would like to achieve.”Joining Alghabra on the new committee is Avnish Nanda, an Edmonton lawyer who filed a Charter challenge in April in defence of an anti-Israel encampment established on the campus of the University of Alberta in 2024.It was one of a series of encampments organized on North American university campuses throughout the spring and summer of 2024.Two years after the University of Alberta ordered the Edmonton Police to evict the encampment, dubbed by organizers as the People’s University for Palestine, they were hit with a Charter challenge from two former students and a professor that was filed by Nanda.Carney’s speech to Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple would seem to make brief mention of anti-Israel campaigns on Canadian university campuses, saying that “antisemites in Canada … drove Jewish students from the common spaces on our university campuses.”The committee also includes a former speed skater, Catriona Le May Doan, the former chief equity officer for the City of Vancouver, Aftab Erfan, Métis rights advocate Gary LaPlante and Martine Roy, an LGBTQ activist whose appointment to the Order of Canada in 2023 cited her advocacy for “diversity, inclusion and equity.” This somewhat pixelated screenshot was posted on Tuesday morning to the X account of Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, leading to another round of headlines that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had not abandoned its annexationist fantasies about Canada. Strangely, Hoekstra posted it just as he was about to tour Prevost Coach, a Quebec bus manufacturer famed for making Ground Force One, the official coach bus of the U.S. president.With Albertans now scheduled to vote on the issue of secession (specifically, to vote on whether to hold a secession referendum), the issue is causing major conservative figures to officially declare their side.Former prime minister Stephen Harper pledged this week to campaign for Alberta remaining within Canada. It’s something he’s mentioned before. At an event earlier this year with fellow ex-prime minister Jean Chrétien, Harper said he “didn’t sign” the petition calling for a referendum, and had been “told” that this was true of Alberta’s Conservative caucus.And now Preston Manning, godfather of the modern Conservative Party, has told the National Post he’ll vote against a secession referendum. But he added that there needs to be an anti-secession counterpoint that is more convincing than the status quo.“This is another symptom that federalism is not working the way it should, and that federalism needs to be reformed,” he said.Manning, notably, was one of the few national figures at the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum who accepted the idea that a successful vote should be grounds for separation. The Chrétien government of the time had followed the theory that even a successful vote would only be grounds for a renegotiation of Quebec’s place within confederation, not full-fledged secession.First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Get the latest from Tristin Hopper straight to your inbox Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. 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