With antisemitism on the rise, Canadian officials are moving to make it a crime to publicly deny or diminish the Holocaust.
According to CTV News Canada, the federal government is preparing to make it a criminal offense to make a statement denying the Holocaust took place or condoning or downplaying the killing of Jews by the Nazi regime, except in a private conversation.
The wording in a budget bill provides for quickly changing the national criminal code: “We must preserve its memory, combat contemporary antisemitism and be unequivocal when we say: never again.”
The move to change the criminal code comes about as MPs and anti-hate groups warn about the rise of white supremacism and antisemitism in Canada.
“Jewish Canadians comprise one percent of the Canadian population yet are the target of 62 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes,” said Richard Marceau, vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “We live in a time of rising antisemitism.”
A number of European countries, including Germany, Greece, France, Belgium, and the Czech Republic, have already prohibited Holocaust denial, reports CP24, and Canada will become a member of this group of countries.
“Holocaust denial and distortion constitute a cruel assault on memory, truth, and justice – an antisemitic libel to cover up the worst crime in history – and thereby a cruel and mocking rebuke to Holocaust survivors and their legacy,” said Irwin Cotler, the prime minister’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.
A budget earmarked at $5.6 million over five years will be available to support Cotler’s office. While the penalty for being convicted of denying the Holocaust was not specified, similar legislation calls for a prison sentence of up to two years.
Educating people on the truth of the Holocaust
Surveys have found that a surprisingly large number of the public have little or no knowledge of the Holocaust, including people in the U.S. and Canada.
A 2012 report by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor noted a continued global increase in antisemitism and found that Holocaust denial and opposition to Israeli policy at times were used to promote or justify blatant antisemitism.
In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League conducted a study titled Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, which also reported high antisemitism figures around the world and, among other findings – that as many as “27 percent of people who have never met a Jew nevertheless harbor strong prejudices against them.”
This same study also showed that 75 percent of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa held antisemitic views.
A poll commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found that 54 percent of Canadian adults surveyed didn’t know that 6 million Jews were killed, a figure that rose to 62 percent among millennials.
Particularly interesting was this statistic gleaned from the report: Over 57 percent surveyed said fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust than they used to.
History, whether we are looking at the Holocaust or further back in time; are acts, events, or ideas that shape our future. And the Canadian bill includes funding for Holocaust education.
“Holocaust denial and distortion constitute a cruel assault on memory, truth, and justice—an antisemitic libel to cover up the worst crime in history,” Cotler said.
