Thank you to David C. Martin - for spotlighting MacKenzie King’s (Cabinet’s) practices of discrimination (systemic, racist, overt). I laud his well-expressed references, and propose further that all Mackenzie King monuments / schools, etc. require "update education panels" to include information re: his Cabinet's "None is too many"; turning away the SM St. Louis - and six million desperate Jews in other “ships" - following Canada's reluctant "participation at the Evian Conference (1938), allowing fewer than 4,000 Jews into Canada - throughout the entire WWII; MacKenzie King bought all the land around Kingsmere, his country house, so that no Jew(ish smells) could move in near him. Under his accountability "watch", industries / governments, private sector included in job notices that "Jews need not apply": on Montreal and Toronto park benches featuring the words “No dogs or Jews allowed” were not uncommon: Jewish professionals were routinely excluded from jobs at universities, hospitals, law firms. Clubs, resorts and beaches barred Jewish Canadians.
By contrast, monuments to Canada's first female Senator should be erected as the embodiment of all "Caring Canadians". She fought tireless for the admittance of Jewish refugees on grounds of compassion. Wilson was one of the country's leading voices against fascism and one of the few non-Jews lobbying for the refugees.
Nor has antisemitism and Jew Hatred abated globally today: rather, in Canada alone, it has increased 106% over the past decade - with children in K-12, through to university - vilified by fellows, including with statements such as, “I’m not sitting beside the Jew!” (in kindergarten!); “pick up the money, Jew!” (after throwing change on the floor); “What flavour gas do you want today, Jews?”
Is this the Canada we want? or are all caring Canadians going to rally together to eliminate hate, racism in its every manifestation?
Floralove Katz
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