‘Jack Layton is turning over in his grave’: ousted New Democrat decries party’s antisemitism problem

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It has been a most difficult year for Selina Robinson, who was ousted from B.C.’s NDP cabinet for her comments during a forum on Israel. She says she had long known the NDP had an antisemitism problem but has become estranged from her progressive peers since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.

Robinson’s comments came during an online panel discussion hosted by B’nai Brith Canada on Jan. 30. She referred to the territory on which the modern state of Israel was founded as “a crappy piece of land with nothing on it — you know, there were several hundred thousand people but other than that, it didn’t produce an economy. It couldn’t grow things; it didn’t have anything on it.”

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Her remarks sparked widespread backlash, with pro-Palestinian groups and others calling for her resignation. She issued multiple apologies and offered to take anti-Islamophobia training, but Premier David Eby condemned her comments as divisive.

She stepped down as post-secondary education minister on Feb. 7, and by March was sitting as an independent. She did not seek re-election in October.

She’s back with a memoir, Truth Be Told, released on Dec. 18.

In it, she expresses disappointment in her fellow NDP government members for their lack of support when she faced attacks due to her Jewish identity. Most distressing, she says, was the complete absence of vocal support from her colleagues in the face of racist behaviour, intimidation tactics and threats. She spoke to Dave Gordon:

What are your feelings towards the New Democrats today?

I always used to say, Jewish values are New Democrat values. And I still believe that, but what I am seeing is that New Democrats are contradicting their own values. They’ve become very unprogressive, particularly the federal party, and their approach to the conflict in Israel and the Middle East is so one-sided. And the comments that I see are so antisemitic. I am sure that Jack Layton is turning over in his grave. Tom Mulcair has spoken out about it, the growth in antisemitism. He was able to shut down this level of hatred and vitriol towards Jews. And so I want voters to pay attention to who they’re voting for, because I do not believe that today’s New Democrats represent progressive values.

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I’m really hoping that the book invites people to consider ways in which the progressive movement, which I consider myself part of, is inconsistent when it comes to Jews.

Is it your belief the New Democrats are increasing antisemitism in Canada?

Absolutely right. So this is coming for years. This isn’t new. I’ve seen it growing over time, among extreme voices among progressives, and they have become mainstream within progressive circles.

We’re seeing it now in union leadership in particular, and it is so unprogressive. They don’t listen to Jewish voices. The first lesson in racism is listen to those who are most impacted, but Jewish voices are completely silenced and drowned out.

So what we are seeing among leftist politics and extreme voices, they’re very hateful and very dangerous. I also see just politically, there’s a level of pandering to extremist voices, that is I think reprehensible.

As a result, the leadership of progressive federal parties, provincial parties, are aligning themselves with conservative Muslim groups that are anti-Israel.

You argue that you were brought down not by the “crappy piece of land,” but because you were Jewish. Can you elaborate?

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So I call myself the “Jew and the crew.” In government under John Horgan’s leadership, and then under David Eby’s leadership, if there was an issue in the Jewish community, everyone came to me to address it.

I grew up in the Jewish community and connected with all the synagogues. I know the Jewish leadership.

There’d be questions in the legislature around the adopting of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. And everyone in cabinet would turn to Selina to answer this question. And they wanted me to — David Eby, the house leaders. I’d do a really good job and I knew they were pleased. If there was a Holocaust memorial of some kind, it was always “Selina, are we talking to the right people? Are we engaging?”

So I was the Jew and the crew, the consultant, so to speak. So when I was the minister for post-secondary education, and antisemitism was on the rise, we were seeing it on all of our campuses. I was invited to speak on a panel about that. Of course, I should speak about that. I’m Jewish, and so I feel what the Jewish community is feeling on campus.

But I’m also the minister for post-secondary education, and so had lots to say about what we were seeing on campus. And when I said those four fateful words, “crappy piece of land,” what the context of that was, that I was already being identified by protesters months earlier. They were already attacking me on social media, partly because I’m Jewish, and partly because I basically said that professors who are actively antisemitic, that their words are wrong and abhorrent. And celebrating the massacre of Israelis and Jews on October 7 is disgusting. I was targeted for that.

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When I said those words and it became public, the premier’s first response to me was, “don’t worry about it. Happens to the best of us.” And then four days later, he was telling me that I had to resign. I am pretty confident it was because I’m a Jew, and not because I was a bad minister. I think I was a damn good minister in every file that I’ve had. I was fired because I was creating a bit of a shit storm, I think, for the premier, and he didn’t like that.

The left-leaning extremists wanted me gone, and it was done to make life easier. That’s how I see it. Other people think that the premier’s antisemitic. People can think what they want. They’d have to ask him.

What were your colleagues’ responses?

My heart is so broken, because the people that I worked with, and for, to create something better here in British Columbia, they were so silent when people were calling for death to Jews.

The lessons of the Holocaust and the lessons of any injustice is not as much the perpetrators, but as those who are the bystander, and that has been the most heartbreaking thing for me.

I thought, “Where are you?” You stood with me, and you stood with the Jewish community, on Holocaust Memorial Day. You said, “Never again.” You posted pictures on social media about the Jewish people; you did all the right things. And when it’s here, when it’s live, and when I’m shamed and afraid, you’re afraid to speak? That is frightening.

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I was pretty devastated, so I didn’t listen to media. But in writing the book, I went back to old media, and the things that the premier chose to say about me were very disappointing. He talked about, “deep wounds” that I created for people, and how divisive I was. It made it seem like I was evil incarnate. That’s what it felt like to me.

I was just shocked that the premier would say those things about me, after knowing me, working with me, counting on me to deliver on many things that I have delivered on, and then to suggest that I had “deep work to do.”

The “deep work” is really about the work that I think New Democrats across this country need to do.

I think the New Democrats have lost their way. They’re engaging in very unprogressive ways. The Jewish community is saying, “we are frightened.” Synagogues are being firebombed, schools are being shot at. And the NDP is supporting this stuff, “Zionism is racism.” And we’re saying, “we have a right to have a national homeland, just like everybody else.”

So if we really want peace, if we really say that we want to bring people together, then you bring people together. How do we engage in dialogue together, so that we can make sure that Palestinians do get a better life for themselves in the region? Demonizing Israel isn’t how you do it. It just isn’t. And progressives are engaging in demonizing Israel, and by extension, they’re demonizing Jews. You can’t separate Israel from Jews. You just can’t, impossible.

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Why’d you write the book?

There’s so few Jews in the world. There’s so few Jews in British Columbia, most people will go through life never knowing a Jew. And so I wanted to create a place where people can perhaps get their questions answered.

One of the things that happened after I was fired, just before I quit caucus, one of my New Democrat colleagues came by my office to ask some administrative questions, and she saw that I was pretty hurt. So she said something along the lines of “I don’t really know any Jews.” She lives in rural British Columbia. I thought, “we’ve been colleagues for four years, and you never asked me a question about being a Jew. Like, I’m right here.”

She kept saying, “I don’t understand the relationship with Israel,” and I’m thinking, “You’ve never once come to say you didn’t understand something.”

I wanted to create something that would allow those folks to read a little bit more about how I was sitting inside the legislature, and there’s a mob of people waving flags of terrorist organizations that have just murdered thousands of people because they were Jews, and they’re yelling “Intifada,” and literally I hear “death to Jews.” I want them to understand how painful that was for me and for all Jews. Nobody came to see if I was OK. Nobody. So I want them to get the lesson that they failed, and they are failing the Jewish community.

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My values have not changed. The left’s values are broken; their values aren’t consistent. They are not living up to the values they proclaim to have. There is a minority group, Jews, afraid in your community, and you are silent, because you’re afraid to upend your quote-unquote supporters.

Your thoughts on how the issue of Israel has become an obsession with certain unions?

Watch what (Ontario CUPE leader) Fred Hahn is saying.  I reached out to my CUPE friends, very strong supporters of mine. CUPE leadership worked on my campaigns. They basically said “it’s not our problem.” Like, are you kidding me? Hahn’s celebrating the death of Jews, and you think it’s not your problem?

My grandfather helped build the union movement in Montreal, and now you’re abandoning him and me. What is wrong with you?

What do you hear Jewish New Democrats saying about their party?

There’s been a group of Jewish progressives for the last, I would say, three to five years, poking away at the federal New Democrats to say “You’re getting it wrong. Your obsession with Israel is problematic.” Israel is not a perfect country, but it’s a democracy, and all you’re doing is attacking it. You’re attacking it more than you attack China, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Iran. You attack Israel more than all the other nations put together, and it’s an obsession, and it’s wrong, and it’s antisemitic, and they don’t see it, and that’s the problem.

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I have been receiving letters from many people who support New Democrats in British Columbia, and the federal party, and telling me they’re silenced about the women’s rapes, or they get told October 7 never happened. They’re horrified.

Then (they) judge me on a “crappy piece of land” — which it was, because it had no natural resources. But I didn’t say anything wrong, and I was attacked as if what I said was a lie.

Any given federal New Democrat has said far, far worse. You get into the double standard. The hatred coming from my party — the number of times my ex-colleagues have had to apologize to the Jewish community for misusing the Holocaust as a reference. But the apologies are ridiculous.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

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