IHRA, a shield for Israel, sneaks into one more Canada province

Once again, the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition is being “slipped” through without debate or due process.

The IHRA is designed to silence criticism of Israel and of Zionism by equating this criticism with antisemitism. Using the backdoor route of including IHRA into a broader anti-racism policy is backhanded, but also means it is not law, and so can be contested.

In the province of Ontario, similar to what happened with the Government of Canada and in other jurisdictions, IHRA is about to also be slipped in through an omnibus policy declaration. This plan was only discovered through a response from the Ontario Information and Privacy Commission (IPC). Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) (IJV) has noted that “in many jurisdictions where [IHRA] has been adopted in Canada, it has been done so through undemocratic, unilateral methods, with little public consultation.” IJV said that “meanwhile in jurisdictions where it has come up for robust public debate it has been defeated.”

In 2020, the Ontario government had a private members’ bill to implement under debate which could have led to legislating IHRA. But, members of the justice committee on October 27, cancelled the public hearings scheduled to start the next day, saying they had not anticipated the interest the bill would cause. Meanwhile, on October 26, Ontario had behind closed doors endorsed IHRA through royal prerogative via an executive order, Order in Council 1450/2020. An order-in-council is a declaration signed by the premier which usually provides administrative direction to already existing legislation. However, this case was atypical as there was no reference to any existing legislation. The pro-Israel lobby announced this as a victory, and the private members bill died on the order paper with the 2022 provincial election. Thus, the province did not legislate IHRA but appeased the pro-Israel lobby by saying that IHRA had been implemented through an administrative procedure.

Deputy Attorney General David Corbett clarified in a letter on November 13, 2020 to Just Peace Advocates that the order-in-council “reflects the decision of the government of Ontario to adopt that definition for matters within the discretion of a Ministry of the Crown.” The deputy attorney general continued, “It does not otherwise alter any legal definition of antisemitism that may be set out in existing or future laws of Ontario, nor does it direct or require that entities that operate independent of the government adopt that same definition.”

This left more questions than answers, regarding the actual implementation of IHRA in Ontario. Initial access requests to several ministries including Cabinet Office were denied. Thus, in July 2022, a new freedom of access request was filed to attempt to again determine if Ontario had implemented IHRA, and if so the extent of that implementation. After delays, limited records were released in December 2022, but did not provide information to confirm or deny IHRA implementation. They did show that there had been some meetings with pro-Israel lobby groups for education purposes of Ontario government officials.

It took several attempts to even get confirmation if records had been withheld, but in the end were told over 300 pages were being withheld due to exceptions in the Act. Thus, an appeal was filed with the IPC in January 2023 to attempt to gain access to the withheld records.

It was through the IPC mediation process, that the Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism confirmed in early July 2023, they “will be revising the definition of antisemitism to the IHRA definition in the next Anti-Racism Strategy to align with the Order in Council the government approved and ordered on October 26, 2020.” The Ministry indicated “the Strategy is scheduled to be released in summer 2023.” Thus, it was only by accident that it was learned about this planned end run to implement IHRA in the Ontario anti-racism strategy.

The Ministry would not confirm details about who was invited or participated in the decision to include IHRA in the upcoming strategy update However, we know that the consultation did not include Independent Jewish Voices, the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association who released a report on anti-Palestinian racism, nor many other groups who would have been able to speak to the anti-Palestinian racism that is being implemented into the anti-racism strategy by including IHRA.

On July 12, 2023, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) research centre announced that 78 additional entities have accepted the IHRA definition in the first half of 2023, bringing the total of 1,192 entities adopting or endorsing the definition worldwide. While at first glance it might seem impressive, as Lara Frieman, president for Middle East Peace has pointed out, that when you consider the many years and millions of dollars invested, it is about 20 percent of countries, and less than 1 percent of NGOs and universities. Beyond this, most of these entities have slipped the definitions in without robust debate, and outside formal decision making as is happening in Ontario.

The good news is that IHRA, despite all the pro-Israel self-congratulation, has not been legislated in Ontario. However, an anti-racism strategy that endorses anti-Palestinian racism is an oxymoron at best, and so people currently are telling Ontario to not include IHRA in its soon to be updated anti-racism strategy.