Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack is an object lesson in how the Canadian left has lost its moral bearings. In recent days, he has been attacking Edmonton\u2019s police chief, Warren Driechel, for going on an educational trip to Israel with other big city chiefs in February. His hypocrisy is palpable, given that, within weeks of becoming mayor, Knack flew to the People\u2019s Republic of China for an official visit.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s compare.<\/p>\n
Israel is the Middle East\u2019s only real democracy. It has an independent judiciary that includes Arab judges, and has sentenced presidents, prime ministers and military officers when found guilty of crimes. It has a dynamic parliamentary system that includes Arab parties, which have previously played a role in the governing coalition.<\/p>\n
Israel is the only modern state founded by an ancient indigenous people in their historic lands after millennia of colonial occupation and genocide, making it the most successful example of decolonization in history. Born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of the world\u2019s only Jewish state is to provide a refuge for the victims of history\u2019s most durable and pernicious hatred.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Israel has been repeatedly attacked by hostile armies since its inception. It has been the target of endless campaigns of violence by groups recognized under Canadian law as terrorists, including a pogrom two and a half years ago involving mass rape and kidnapping that was the largest massacre of Jews since 1945.<\/p>\n
Relative to its size, Israel is one of the most innovative economies in the world. And it boasts the world\u2019s most experienced police agencies in dealing with terrorism.<\/p>\n
China, on the other hand, is a dictatorial one-party state that has been violently oppressing political dissidents, along with ethnic and religious minorities for over seven decades. It\u2019s responsible for the destruction of thousands of Buddhist (mainly Tibetan) monasteries and temples, Muslim mosques, Christian churches and other places of worship.<\/p>\n
The Chinese government is also responsible for history\u2019s largest state-sanctioned famine, the Great Leap Forward, during which an estimated 15- to 45-million people were killed, and the invasion, despoliation and partial ethnic cleansing of Tibet. It is currently engaged in a genocide (according to the House of Commons and others) against its Uyghur Muslim minority.<\/p>\n
Until recently, China enforced a brutal one-child policy, which led to countless forced abortions and sterilizations. It continues to operate forced-labour concentration camps. And it executes more people per year than any other country.<\/p>\n
Beijing is currently engaged in one of the largest military expansions in world history and has an expansionist agenda in the South China Sea, which includes building military bases on artificial islands and using its navy to harass neighbouring countries. It has refused to rule out the use of force to achieve its stated goal of taking over Taiwan, a peaceful neighbouring democracy.<\/p>\n
The Chinese Communist Party has flagrantly violated Hong Kong\u2019s democratic rights, in violation of its handover agreement with the United Kingdom, including eliminating political and press freedoms and imprisoning dissidents like Jimmy Lai. It has also arbitrarily arrested and wrongfully imprisoned numerous Canadians, including former diplomats and Hueseyincan Celil, who has been imprisoned, without consular access, since 2006.<\/p>\n
Globally, China is responsible for industrial and political espionage, including against Canadian targets, involving patent and intellectual property theft. For the past quarter century, it has been violating its World Trade Organization obligations through unfair trading practices, currency manipulation and subsidizing key industries.<\/p>\n
It has interfered in Canadian politics and imposed arbitrary tariffs on Canadian industries, including punishing sanctions on Alberta canola farmers, which were in place during Knack\u2019s visit. China is also the world\u2019s largest and fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and a key ally of some of the world\u2019s worst regimes, including Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia and the Iranian terror state.<\/p>\n
Why would a self-styled \u201cprogressive\u201d like Knack visit the dictatorial People\u2019s Republic of China, while boycotting the democratic Jewish homeland? Why would he want to deepen ties with Communist China, while stigmatizing the Middle East\u2019s only democracy?<\/p>\n
Why would Knack prefer close relations with a country that arbitrarily tariffs and blocks Canadian exports while engaging in unfair trade practices and industrial espionage, over an advanced free market economy with whom Canada has a free trade agreement?<\/p>\n
Does he prefer China\u2019s treatment of the gay community to Israel\u2019s? Or China\u2019s mass human rights violations to Israel\u2019s independent judiciary? As mayor of a city that was targeted by an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack, why is he hostile to a democracy that has to defend itself against terrorism on a daily basis?<\/p>\n
This would make no sense if left-wing politicians like Knack were motivated by principle or conviction. But they\u2019re not. The reason for his hypocritical stance is both sordid and simple: he\u2019s pandering.<\/p>\n
Pandering to what has become a key part of the Canadian left\u2019s activist base and voter coalition. Pandering to the groups who have spilled into Canadian streets over the past two-and-a-half years, praising Hamas\u2019s October 7 massacre of Jews. Pandering to the groups now defending the brutal Iranian theocracy, a regime that murdered 13 Edmontonians when it shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 in 2020.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I say that Knack personifies the left\u2019s moral inversion: blind, silent or indifferent to the crimes of the world\u2019s largest violator of human rights \u2014 including of a Muslim community, the Uyghurs \u2014 but obsessed with the hatred of the Jewish homeland emanating from campus radicals and others who regard Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Islamic Republic of Iran as righteous champions of anti-colonialism rather than murderous purveyors of hatred and terror.<\/p>\n
National Post<\/p>\n
Jason Kenney is a former federal cabinet minister and premier of Alberta. He is a member of Postmedia\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n