Senator Yuen Pau Woo

Honorable Colleagues, I arrived in Canada in 1979 to attend an international school named after Lester Pearson.  One of my roommates was Karim from Egypt.  He taught me the only Arabic words I know — Ya Habibi — which means “my love”.  He used it as an affectionate term for his roomies, and girlfriends.  I also met Anees and Nasir, two of the first Palestinian Arab refugees who received scholarships to study in Canada. Their families had been displaced by the Nakba, or “Catastrophe” of 1948.  I vividly remember having passionate discussions with them, and with fellow students from Israel, on the question of Palestinian statehood.  It seemed to me at the time that the establishment of a Palestinian state was both just and inevitable, and very likely something I would see in my lifetime.

Forty-four years on, we not only do not have a Palestinian state, but we are witnessing before our very eyes the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the forced relocation of civilians from their places of residence, presumably to make way for Israeli settlements. In effect, a continuation of Nakba.  You may already know the official figures – more than 43,000 killed, including upwards of 17,000 children. What you perhaps don’t know is that a July 2024 paper in The Lancet estimates that 186,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza alone since October 7th, either from direct military action or from starvation, malnutrition, disease, exposure, and lack of access to medical facilities. This much larger number of casualties is on account of Israel’s policy of restricting humanitarian aid such that essential medicines and food are not getting to civilians in Gaza.  For the record, the Government of Canada’s position, as articulated by its representative in the Senate and cheered on by the Conservatives, is that civilian casualties in war are unfortunate, humanitarian aid to Gaza is not being impeded, and it is all the fault of Hamas anyway. 

The government launched in December 2023 a Temporary Residence Visa Program for Gazans with Canadian Family Ties but it is unclear whether the program has facilitated the exit of any Palestinians from Gaza. The Canadian government has the capacity and ability to expedite approvals for the immediate exits of Palestinians from Gaza, as they did with Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. But the Government instead is choosing to abandon Palestinians in Gaza, including Canadians who have Palestinian families.

Here is what over 40 civil society groups have said about the program: “Anti-Arab, and specifically anti-Palestinian racism, saturates every aspect of the Special Measures program”.

The world is looking with horror at the situation in Gaza, and we have had multiple UN General Assembly resolutions in support of Palestine.  Canada has been on the wrong side of most of these votes, but I would note that on November 20, Canada supported a resolution to condemn illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. That we would vote to condemn illegal settlements should be a no-brainer, but we have failed to do so on the same motion for 13 years.  For all our rhetorical commitment to a two-state solution, our actions suggest that we are offering just lip service and often working at cross purposes.

Last month, the Canadian government refused to meet with Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Humans Rights in Palestine, when she was in Ottawa.  The official excuse is that she is anti-Semitic, a claim that has been rejected by many Jewish leaders and antisemitism experts. I suspect the real reason is that our political leaders cannot bear to listen to the fact of war crimes in Gaza that expose their hypocrisy and duplicity, and dare I say the complicity of Canadian foreign policy in violations of international humanitarian law.

It is not just that Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon are suffering at the hands of the Israelis.  Arab Canadians, especially Palestinian Canadians, are also being shunned and silenced for expressing their views on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.   And the weapon of choice increasingly is the charge of antisemitism.  I do not dispute that there has been a rise in antisemitic acts across Canada and I reject all forms of hatred towards Jews, as individuals, groups or as a collective. 

But it is not antisemitic to argue that Germans and Italians should be at the forefront of the opposition to the assault on Gaza. Or that our collective obliviousness to what led, 100 years ago, to the Third Reich's genocide of people not in conformity with a pure race is leading to the commission of yet another genocide. I am paraphrasing Special Rapporteur Albanese’s remarks, but these are the ideas that our government has labeled as antisemitic, and used as the reason for not meeting with Dr Albanese when she was in Ottawa.

The so-called “working definition” of antisemitism that has been endorsed by the government means Palestinians, and indeed all Canadians – including Jewish Canadians – who make deep criticisms of Zionism and Israel, can be accused of antisemitism.  For example, calling for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions directed at Israel or at supporters of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the West Bank, could be labeled antisemitic.  This weaponization of language represents an assault on free speech, legitimate political debate, and political activism. It suppresses the views and rights of a minority – especially Palestinian Arabs – who have a particular stake in that debate.  It is the antithesis of celebrating Arab heritage.

Take the recent uproar over the singing of an Arabic song during a Remembrance Day ceremony at an Ontario high school.  Provincial and Federal politicians, including MPs who voted in support of this bill, expressed outrage over the use of Arabic during the ceremony.  Imagine that – the use of Arabic in a Canadian school!  Well, honourable colleagues, if we truly respect and celebrate Arab heritage, we can surely welcome an Arabic song at a ceremony to remember Canadian veterans, whose ranks of course include Arab Canadians. 

After all, we have welcomed expressions of Ukrainian culture at recent Remembrance Day ceremonies. And in my hometown of Vancouver, there is always a special Remembrance Day ceremony in Chinatown for Chinese Canadian veterans.   For the record, the song Haza Salam is a lament for peace.  If there was any potential harm to students from this incident, it is in the graffiti that appeared outside the school labeling it “Hamas High”.  Where is the outrage against the threat to Canadian students of Palestinian and Arab ancestry?

And here we are, colleagues, on the cusp of passing a bill to mark April as the month to celebrate Arab Heritage Month, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the single biggest threat to Arab heritage is the callousness with which we regard Arab lives in the Israeli war on Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the suppression of Palestinian views on Gaza right here in Canada.  Are we seriously thinking of passing a bill to celebrate Arab heritage without any reflection on how Canadian policy is aiding and abetting the slaughter of Arabs in the Middle East?  Doing so would make April, in the words of T.S. Eliot, “the cruelest month”.  

In the aftermath of World War One, Eliot cast April not in its usual role as a harbinger of better times, but as a moment of bitterness and painful memories. The title of his poem is “The Waste Land”, which pretty much sums up the way Israel has rendered Gaza since its response to the reprehensible Hamas attack of Oct 7.

To be clear, I take no issue with the examples of Arab Canadian accomplishment in Canada that have been highlighted by colleagues in this chamber and in the Other Place.  There is much to celebrate about the Arab presence in Canada which dates to the late 19^th century. The first Lebanese migrants to British Columbia – brothers Abraham and Farris Ray -- arrived in 1888. They worked as itinerant peddlers in Victoria. Many early Lebanese immigrants also worked in Vancouver Island’s forestry industry.  In 2023, the Lebanon Emigrant Plaza was inaugurated at Centennial Park on the southern shore of Victoria Harbor. I had a chance to visit the Plaza earlier this year and to view the Lebanon Emigrant Statue, which is a replica of statues in Halifax and several other cities that have prominent historical connections to the Lebanese diaspora.  We should indeed celebrate Arab Canadian heritage and the contributions of Arab Canadians to this country in April and every other month.  But let’s not do Arabs the dishonor of passing a bill in haste that willfully ignores the suffering of Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon, and the silencing of Arab Canadians because of their views on the situation in Palestine. 

I hope other honourable colleagues will join the debate and that we will take the time to reflect on what it means to celebrate Arab heritage in the face of Canada’s stance towards Palestinians, and the blatant anti-Arabs racism that pervades society.  We can start by observing this Friday the Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, which is based on a resolution that was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1977.  Canada, by the way, voted against that resolution.  29 November 1947 is the day the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine. 

When the time comes for us to call the question, I will vote in favour of the bill – not just to celebrate and honour Arab heritage, but to protest our collective complacency about genocide and crimes against humanity in Palestine, as well as to express the lament for peace that is captured in Haza Salam.  That, Ya Habibi, is what it should mean to declare April as Arab Heritage Month.  Not as in The Waste Land of T.S. Eliot, but The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote:

When April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower.

Thank you for your attention.