Back when Chinese discrimination was institutional in Canada, as it increasingly feels like Jewish hate is today, Jews stood in solidarity with the Chinese. One of those leaders was Jewish lawyer Irving Himel, who worked with Canada’s first lawyer of Chinese heritage, Kew Dock Yip, to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1947, which was official government policy banning immigration to Canada by anyone of Chinese heritage.
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Where are the Irving Himels and Kew Dock Yips of today? Surely every decent Canadian understands that targeting people because of their faith or ethnicity is wrong–never mind shooting at them with a firearm, replica or not.
As our friends in Australia learned from the Bondi Beach massacre , hatred that is tolerated, minimized, or excused does not remain rhetorical forever– it escalates.
Canadians must draw a line in the sand against antisemitism now, while there is still time to prevent today’s intimidation from becoming tomorrow’s tragedies–before the only lines left to draw are the chalk outlines of those we failed to protect.
–Kevin Vuong is the former Member of Parliament for Spadina-Fort York. The son of refugees, he continues his public service as a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and as a naval reserve officer.
