{"id":938784,"date":"2026-10-19T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/938784\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T12:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:14:11","slug":"this-week-in-history-new-laws-in-ottawa-and-a-motion-at-the-un-are-watched-closely-by-the-jewish-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/938784\/","title":{"rendered":"This week in history: New laws in Ottawa and a motion at the UN are watched closely by the Jewish community"},"content":{"rendered":"

The week of October 22, 1965<\/a>, laws and motions of great concern to Canadian Jews were being debated both at the United Nations and within the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

Just the week before, the Soviet Union brought a proposal to the UN to formally condemn Zionism along with Nazism and antisemitism \u201cas forms of colonialism and race hatred.\u201d This was introduced as \u201ca sub-amendment to an amendment\u201d to a draft convention previously introduced by the United States and co-sponsored by Brazil, which called for \u201cthe elimination of all forms of racial discrimination\u201d including antisemitism. World Jewish Congress President Dr. Nahum Goldmann expressed confidence that the Soviet Union \u201cwould not go through with the proposal,\u201d interpreting it only as a \u201ctactical move, aimed at the exclusion of antisemitism from the convention, because of the Soviet Union\u2019s \u2018sensitivity\u2019 on the subject.\u201d Israel\u2019s representative to the UN, Michael S. Comay, similarly viewed the Soviet sub-amendment as a tactical move against the \u201cU.S.-Brazil amendment on antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten years later, in 1975, the UN General Assembly would go on to adopt Resolution 3379, which denigrated Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.<\/p>\n

In Canada, the House of Commons formed a Special Committee on Hate Propaganda. Its forthcoming study of anti-hate legislation was highly anticipated. The Canadian Jewish News interviewed prime minister Lester B. Pearson about his position on the matter. The prime minister declined to directly comment: \u201cAs announced in the House of Commons on February 22, 1965, a committee headed by Dean Maxwell Cohen of McGill University has been investigating the distribution of hate literature in Canada. The committee has been functioning since late in January and I understand that its report is now being prepared for submission to the Minister of Justice within the next few weeks. In view of this, it would be inadvisable and inappropriate for me, as Prime Minister, to prejudge the report.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CJN also spoke with John G. Diefenbaker (then Leader of the Official Opposition), Thomas Douglas (leader of the NDP), Robert Thompson (leader of the Social Credit Party), and R\u00e9al Caouette (leader of the Creditiste Party). Diefenbaker similarly skirted The CJN\u2019s questions. Only Douglas gave a clear response, stating he was in favour of such legislation (\u201can unqualified yes\u201d).<\/p>\n

The proposed anti-hate legislation was strongly supported by the Jewish community, with the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Association of Former Concentration Camp Inmates and Survivors of Nazi Oppression actively lobbying for its adoption.<\/p>\n

The Special Committee\u2019s eventual report led to the Criminal Code being amended in 1970 to include as criminal offences, under specified conditions, the public promotion of hate against identifiable groups and the advocacy of genocide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The week of October 22, 1965, laws and motions of great concern to Canadian Jews were being debated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,25062,20739,317221,13200],"class_list":["post-938784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hate-speech","tag-ottawa","tag-this-week-in-history","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}