I saw the hateful slurs lobbed at the Jewish state during the Al Quds protest last Saturday in downtown Toronto and immediately thought that it could have been stopped years ago if there had been the political will from the mayor, the police chief and council.
My despair turned to sheer disgust when in the aftermath some of the mayoralty candidates jumped on the virtue signaling bandwagon, posting comments about the hateful diatribe spewed on Toronto’s University Ave.
This is after they did absolutely nothing while they sat on council.
Fact is, this hateful action went on for years in plain sight of Mayor John Tory, the Toronto police and all of the NDPers on council – who as of late have made a tremendous to-do about those who protest the inappropriateness of Drag Queen Story hour at various Canadian libraries.
The left has labeled the protesters transphobic and hateful as they regularly do when someone with common sense expresses concern that drag queens dressed in outrageous, sexualized outfits are not appropriate for young audiences.
The legacy media have been adept at perpetuating the notion that any protesters are transphobic.
But of course, the hateful anti-Israel diatribe openly spewed by Al Quds protesters in full public view in downtown Toronto is not an issue to either the legacy media or the majority of politicians, in particular those aligning with the NDP.
No surprise there. Anti-Semitism appears to be regularly sanctioned by socialist politicians and their union backers.
All you have to do is look at the recent election of Sara Jama, an NDP MPP in Hamilton, who has regularly engaged in anti-Israel activism.
I covered many Al Quds protests during my time at the Toronto Sun.
At the last Al Quds protest I attended in 2019, Toronto police officers actually accompanied the hateful group up Toronto’s University Ave. while they marched without permission to occupy this main thoroughfare.
I watched young ladies wearing niqabs holding professionally made signs calling for the destruction of Israel – bussed in from points north of Toronto to spread their hate.
The crowd was there without a permit occupying public property and blocking public streets.
It was, sadly, the predictable culmination of months of debate at City Hall when a series of motions were passed at a heated meeting of the mayor’s executive committee.
The motions directed city staff and Toronto police to enforce bylaw contraventions, issue trespass warnings and seek reimbursement for policing if protesters occupied city property without a permit.
The police were instructed to take “swift and immediate action” against any group advocating anti-Semitism or other forms of hate on city property – including on placards and through speech.
The evidence was all there for the police to see – the horrible signs and the slurs and lies about the Jewish state.
But they did nothing. It was all a ruse.
Months after the June 1 protest, the police opted not to lay any charges. No hate charges, no trespassing charges, nothing.
There was no political will to do anything. Our weak politicians and police chief merely emboldened the haters.
In fact, Montreal lawyer Dimitri Lascaris, a nasty Israel hater who once ran for Green Party leader and acted for the Al Quds organizers, bragged the day after the protest about how the hatefest continued despite all the threats from various and sundry politicians.
Lascaris was right about one thing: Talk is cheap and if politicians make threats, they need to follow through on them.
But they didn’t and after a brief respite during Covid (the equally hateful Al Quds event being held virtually) the anti-Semites returned to University Ave. in full hateful Technicolour last Saturday.
It is clear that protesting drag queen story hour is a non-starter, or at least according to the woke crowd.
But spewing anti-Semitism at a hateful protest is just fine.
Yet again, this is an example of the shameless double standard in Canada.
