Antisemitism envoy says resignation prompted by frustration over 'not connecting' with anti-hate message
OTTAWA — Ottawa's outgoing envoy for tackling antisemitism is accusing Canada's business sector and civil society of failing to call out a rising tide of hate against Jews and other minorities.
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In an extensive interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Deborah Lyons also said she could not get a meeting with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during her nearly two-year term.
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In a statement sent to The Canadian Press, the Conservatives said that Lyons was 'powerless' in her job.
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Lyons resigned early in her term as Canada's special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. She said her decision reflected her 'despair' over the growing gulf in society over violence in the Middle East and the failure of many Canadians to find common ground against hate.
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'People were listening and hearing on different frequencies, and so we just were not connecting,' said Lyons. 'That was where the big despair comes from.'
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She said her work wasn't made any easier by the silence of corporate leaders 'whom I asked many times to stand up,' and by faith leaders who seemed to keep quiet on the suffering of people from other religions.
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'I was incredibly disappointed with business leaders,' she said.
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'We have a tendency to want to blame politicians all the time, but where have the faith leaders been? Where have the priests and ministers and rabbis and imams and so forth (been)?'
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Lyons said that some community leaders did ask for her help in finding the right words to speak out against hate — because they feared that they would offend one community if they stood up for another.
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'I've been really quite amazed — and often become quite despondent and despairing — about the fact that it was hard to get people to speak up. To speak with clarity, to speak with conviction,' she said.
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'The mark of a country is not the courage of its military. It is the courage of its bystanders.'
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The Canadian Press has requested an interview with Lyons but has not yet had a response.
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Lyons told The Canadian Jewish News that Amira Elghawaby, the federal government's special representative on combating Islamophobia, tried to work with Lyons on fighting hate, citing an apparently shelved plan to visit provincial education ministers together.
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