The Battle for Mount Royal

The TV was the first thing I noticed when I walked into a restaurant in Montreal’s West End. 

“CANADIAN BUSINESSES PULL U.S.-MADE PRODUCTS IN RESPONSE TO TARIFFS,” the screen read, under another all-caps caption, “TRADE WHIPLASH.”

On that day in early March, the person defending the Canadian government’s position on CNN was my member of parliament, Anthony Housefather. 

I said hello to the woman behind the cash. She was lamenting Housefather, saying she no longer believed in him.

It was March 6 and Mark Carney was days away from his coronation as Canada’s 24th Prime Minister. The tide was turning in the country, and her response surprised me. The Liberals, she said, had let her down on Israel. They criticized Israel and hadn’t been the trusted ally and supporter that Israel had expected. 

Taken aback, I told her that I strongly believed that the Liberals had not been tough enough, and had on the whole looked the other way at much of the horror that I was seeing every day on social media or non-North American international news. I ordered my food and took it to go. 

Welcome to Mount Royal, a riding where Oct. 7 continues to loom large.

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Since the attack in 2023, Anthony Housefather has worked diligently in advocating for the release of the hostages in Gaza and to shine a light on the rise of antisemitism in Canada. He helped Canadians trapped in Israel find flights home in the days and weeks after the terror attack. Whenever a school or Synagogue was attacked in Canada, Housefather was consistently the first to stand up. 

He has also been one of the prominent Canadian supporters of the war in Gaza. If he criticized Israel for any illegal or morally questionable action committed during the war, I have not seen or heard it. Last year, Housefather openly considered crossing the floor to the Poilievre Conservatives after the Liberal government, with the help of the NDP, passed a non-binding motion calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. After deciding not to cross, he faced the scorn and ridicule of Conservative MPs. 

Depending on who you talk to, Housefather has either done too much to support Israel or not done enough to defend it. It’s an impressive feat.

“I promise that even when it is personally difficult for me, I will always stand up for what I believe in and for those who elected me,” Housefather told The Montreal Gazette in May of 2023. He had just cast the lone vote in the House of Commons against Bill C-13, the federal language bill that many Quebec anglophones found problematic. 

The main issue Quebec’s English community has with C-13 is its mention of Quebec’s Bill 96, which was enacted by invoking the highly irregular notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Charter. That the House of Commons voted 301 MPs to Housefather showed anglos that they had a champion in Ottawa. In normal times, this would have been the main local issue in this election. 

These aren’t normal times. 

***

Neil Oberman is the Conservative Party candidate in Mount Royal. I first learned of him last year when he represented some McGill students in their failed attempt to receive an injunction against the on-campus pro-Palestine encampments of last spring and summer.  

Before this election, and before the Canadian political world got thrown on its head, Many believed that Oberman had a shot at turning the riding blue. Once home to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Liberal stalwart Irwin Cotler, Mount Royal has voted red in every election since 1940. 

The Conservatives chose Oberman to run in Mount Royal because they believe they can outflank the Liberals by being to the right of them on Israel. They thought that Housefather had lost his voice in caucus and that the Liberal Party was no longer going to blindly support Israel no matter what it did in Gaza.

One of Housefather’s most vocal critics in the riding is Jeremy Levi, the mayor of Hampstead, a suburb of Montreal that lies entirely within the boundary of the riding. 

“(The) next longtime Liberal riding to flip to the Conservative party will be Mount Royal,” Levi told the National Post last June. Levi has become known on social media for his posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. In the pre-MAGA era, many of these posts would have been completely unbecoming for an elected official. Aside from Housefather, he has repeatedly trolled Justin Trudeau (and more recently Mark Carney), Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, and several members of the federal New Democrats, including leader Jagmeet Singh. 

The battle plans to take Mount Royal were all figured out. And for the Conservative Party, those plans seem to be set in stone. 

***

Last week, Neil Oberman came to my door. 

I got an email telling me he was coming and that he would be canvassing in my building. I knew what I wanted to ask him. I had seen Pierre Poilievre’s speech to launch his campaign. He said that, under his watch, Canada would “expel the criminals.” 

Meanwhile, the United States is now “expelling criminals” of their own. They are deciding who is a criminal without any due process, no hearing, no chance to defend yourself. Some of those arrested and deported have been living in the States while studying, some have penned pro-Palestinian op-eds for their school papers. Those less fortunate have been sent to a prison in El Salvador, where the administration has admitted that even if you ended up there by mistake, they still probably won’t bring you back. If you’ve ever had a woke thought in your life, you may want to reconsider travelling to the United States.  

PHOTO: Dave Kaufman

I told Oberman that I was concerned about Poilievre’s comment, especially in light of what is currently happening in America. 

“It’s a little bit drastic, a little bit crazy,” Oberman said, standing in my doorway. “I believe in the rule of law. You can protest all you want… I have no problem with free speech. I have a problem with hate speech that converts into hate aggression.” 

I find what’s happening in the United States more than a bit crazy. And to tell the truth, I find it quite drastic. I pushed on.  

I asked him, how do the Conservatives differ “from Liberals on Israel and on the United States?”

“Okay,” Oberman said, “on Israel, we support Israel. We support the only democratic country in the Middle East. We support the right of Israel to exist. We support people who live in Israel to live in peace without being attacked.” 

I asked him, “How does any of that differ from the Liberal Party?”

“Because they say X, they do Y,” he said. “If they truly believed in the state of Israel when Israel was at its weakest point, its darkest moment, they would’ve supported them. They would’ve not stopped the participation in the armament of Israel. Now, war is shitty. People dying is shitty. Nobody who has a brain says killing is good. But at that time, they had a pivotal decision. They could have made a decision. They could’ve said, ‘We support our friends.’ They decided not to support their friends…” 

I told him that I disagreed and that calling out the things you disagree on isn’t a sign of a bad friendship. What I didn’t say was that I believe that staying silent when watching a friend do things you find objectionable is the worst kind of friend there is. “The bottom line for me,” Oberman said, “is I don’t believe in the Liberal party. I don’t believe in their concept.”

All in all, nothing shocked me from what Oberman said. That is, until the last 10 seconds of our conversation.

“Right now, I can tell you that in Canada, the Liberal Party has a wing that is Hamas-oriented. Not Mr. Housefather, who’s a swell guy, by the way. A really strong guy. I don’t dislike him. I dislike his party.”

“I find that inflammatory,” I told him. Surely, wanting Palestinians to have a chance at a decent future doesn’t mean that there’s a Hamas-oriented wing in the Liberal party. 

“It could be (inflammatory),” Oberman responded. “You’re 100% (right).” 

And then he was gone. I never got to hear how the Conservatives differ from the Liberals on the United States. 

***

Three days later, I got a call from an automated pollster asking for a few minutes of my time to get my thoughts on the election. “If a federal election were held today,” the pre-recorded voice asked, “Who would you vote for?” I was given six options, the five major parties and their leaders, and a sixth option, for undecided.

I was asked who was my preferred candidate for MP in Mount Royal, who I voted for in the last federal election, and to rate three politicians “on a scale of 1-5 where 1 is very favourable, 3 is neutral, and 5 is very unfavourable.” The three politicians were Pierre Poilievre, Neil Oberman, and Anthony Housefather. 

“Thank you, just a few final demographic questions,” The automated voice said, before asking me my gender, my age, and “Finally, which of the following religious affiliations do you identify with? 

“Press one if you are Jewish 

Press two if you are Christian 

Press three if you are Muslim

Press four for another, or no religious affiliation.”

I answered every question up to that point, but when I was asked my religion, I froze. 

Why did they ask me that? Why was that the last question? 

They asked again. 

“Press one if you are Jewish …”

The fucking nerve. 

For those who are wondering, stats from the 2021 Canadian census: 25.1 per cent of Mount Royal residents are Jewish. Some 41.7 per cent are Christian, and 9.5 per cent are Muslim.

This “Press 1” bullshit nags at me. What does my religion have to do with this federal election? Why, if you’re Catholic, who make up 25.9 per cent of the riding, does it not? If this is a question about Gaza, is it worth mentioning that the Holy Father has spoken out many times against the war? Two weeks into the election, and to me (and most Canadians), this is unquestionably an election about America. About the future of Canada. About standing up to the big bad bully and feeling a sense of who we are and who we want to be in the face of evil next door. 

The thing is, the Conservatives have a plan, and part of that plan in my riding is to out-hawk the Liberals on Israel. It’s a plan they sure have stuck to. 

***

Antisemitism, the hatred of Jews, violence towards Jewish people, the denial of the Holocaust, attacks on my community in Montreal — these are all very scary aspects of a new reality. In many ways, Oct. 7 brought this to the forefront. Then, the days, and weeks, and months, and now a year and a half has passed. We have also seen the destruction of Gaza, the death of over 50,000 Palestinians, and the proposed forced removal of those who remain in Gaza in order to turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East. All of these acts by the Israeli government, and in some cases the tacit approval (or outright cheerleading) of those acts from the West, has made antisemitism so much worse.

Legitimate criticism of Israel’s government is now described by many as antisemitism. 

This rhetoric is blatantly dishonest and takes away the weight of what should be a very consequential word. My great fear is that the word “antisemitism” has been weaponized and politicized and has now begun to lose its meaning. 

It is impossible for me to unsee what I have seen in Gaza. To be labeled an antisemite for bearing witness is beyond folly; it is insulting to everything I believe. I know that many of my fellow Jews feel the same way and feel immense pressure from the community or their families to stand with Israel, no matter what. I would suggest that standing with what has become a state ruled by an authoritarian will lead to dangerous consequences. And to my fellow Canadian Jews, I would encourage you to look more critically at what is happening in the United States. 

For those living in America, depending on what you do in life and how high your level of privilege is, your life may carry on unabated, ish, for a while. But, while you’re blissfully carrying on, your federal government has descended into fascism. There is some pushback in the courts, but the rule of law is not being respected. A police state exists. Minorities are being targeted. Trans rights are being eliminated. America has also threatened the sovereignty of our nation, Canada, which in turn is a threat to our human and democratic rights. Should we not speak up, while we still can? 

Does speaking out make me an anti-American? To a MAGA loyalist, perhaps. And I’ll bet you they’d call me an antisemite. In the United States, the word antisemitism has been hijacked and corrupted of its true meaning by the current American administration to punish universities and deny them their funding. Support for Palestinian rights or attendance at protests on the campuses of American universities has led to ICE detentions, arrests, and probable expulsions for hundreds, if not thousands. 

As the Ivy League et al. cowers in the face of fascism, I wonder whether in four years’ time, people will admit to having a degree from some of these schools, that have been the envy of the academic world for so long. A degree from the School of Journalism at Columbia University, located at Pulitzer Hall (the prize guy), will soon be as prestigious as being nominated for an arts award at the Kennedy Center. 

Welcome to the new McCarthyism. It is what allows a Conservative candidate, a lawyer, to stand in my doorway and tell me that there’s a wing of Canada’s Liberal Party that’s Hamas-oriented. 

I used to know Anthony Housefather. Not well, but he was a frequent guest on my radio shows on CJAD and then during the pandemic, we started to go for walks, talking off the record about politics and journalism. After Oct. 7, we went for a walk and realized that our views on the war on Gaza were very different. The only time I reached out to him after that was when he was rumoured to cross the floor. I texted him and implored him not to. It seems that our budding friendship didn’t stand a chance with opposing views on such a delicate issue. 

Housefather has had every opportunity to speak out. When a hospital was bombed, and then another one bombed, and another, he did not speak out. When videos were released of people being burned alive in tents, he didn’t speak out. When a Canadian aid worker with the World Soup Kitchen was targeted and killed by Israeli missiles, Anthony Housefather said nothing. So much silence in the face of so many atrocities. 

I received another email from my building; Housefather would be coming to the building and canvassing. I was home, but alas, he never knocked.

If he had, I think I would have commended him for standing up for English rights and then told him that his lack of empathy and disregard for Palestinian lives had probably lost my vote less than six months after that House of Commons vote where he had stood so tall.

I would have asked him how he felt when he saw the United States abandon Ukraine at the UN Security Council vote in late February. The countries that voted with the US and Russia were a real who’s who. Sudan, Hungary, North Korea, Belarus… Of the 18 countries, it was Israel that jumped out at me. Did it jump out at him, too? That was one of those days where the world seemed to change, and everything felt quite clear.

PHOTO: Dave Kaufman

Anthony Housefather has passionately and unwaveringly defended Israel at every opportunity, both before and since Oct. 7. His principles to his beliefs have cost him, at the very minimum, walks with me and probably a whole lot more. It nearly made him walk away from the Liberal Party. After all he has done, all the political capital that he’s expended defending Israel in the face of so much horror, I ask where is Israel, with even the faintest of whispers right now, to stand up for Canada’s right to exist? Does Canada have a right to exist?

All this for your opponent to come to my front door and say that right now in Canada there’s a Hamas-oriented wing of the party, but don’t worry, you’re a swell guy? 

I would tell him that what Oberman said to me is something I have heard before, several times. I know from personal experience that that type of messaging is appealing and wholly believable to some of my neighbours and to members of the Jewish community of Montreal. It was the undertone of what I was told that day at the restaurant. That anything other than a blind allegiance to Israel’s policies in Gaza (and the West Bank) is antisemitism. 

If Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer is Hamas, if there’s a Hamas-oriented wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, if any Jew (or non-Jew) who thinks Israel shouldn’t commit genocide or support ethnic cleansing is an antisemite, or a traitor, or a Kapo, I ask, do people not see how fraught with peril this game is? 

When the director of an Oscar-winning film gets attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers and then detained by police, should we not speak up? If it was Denis Villeneuve who had been beaten and unfairly detained, would we be silent? Last year, a Jewish film director made a movie about life just outside the gates of Auschwitz. In his Oscar-winning speech, he made a direct comparison to what Palestinians are enduring and was met with an immense wave of criticism. 

Just last week, 15 bodies were found in a shallow grave in Palestine. They were paramedics and had been gunned down and buried by the IDF, who then proceeded to bury the ambulances the paramedics were travelling in. It’s a horrifying act and was initially denied by Israel, until a video surfaced proving the attack happened as described by eyewitnesses. I’m mortified that more people are not talking about it, but have you seen the Dow? 

In the face of such horror, we must speak out. It is our duty. Even from here in Mount Royal. Especially from here in Mount Royal. 

***

On March 20, Mark Carney announced that the government has pledged $100 million for Palestinian relief in Gaza and the West Bank. 

It’s a move that Housefather’s opponents like the mayor of Hampstead have pounced on. “I recognize that people are suffering in Gaza,” Housefather told Jewish News Services in early April. “And whether they are suffering because of Hamas or not, people need aid. As long as aid gets to people, I certainly support sending aid.” 

The election is in two and a half weeks. The battle for Mount Royal has been an incredibly discouraging one, no matter where your support lies. Whoever is elected will have to represent the whole riding, no matter whether you pressed one, two, three, or four. I fear this could prove to be a challenging task. 

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Revision – April 10 2025 11:32 p.m. We removed the following sentence: “The poll didn’t ask, but 25.9 per cent of residents of Mount Royal are Catholic.” It made it seem like the percentage of Christians in Mount Royal cited did not include Catholics.