Jewish British Columbia Legislative Assembly member Selina Robinson resigned last week from the New Democratic Party, alleging it is antisemitic, held double standards for her, and did not protect Jewish constituents.
Robinson said that the NDP-led provincial government offered a lackluster response to the Hamas October 7 massacre, which had claimed the life of Supernova festival attendee and Vancouver-born Ben Mizrachi. While the Jewish community was in shock, only around eight NDP members came to a vigil.
The now-independent Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA said that within days of the pogrom, Richmond-Queensborough MLA Aman Singh and Burnaby-Lougheed MLA Katrina Chen responded to Robinson’s email calling for solidarity with the Jewish community’s grief at the vigil with a request that the government “make a public statement about the plight of the Palestinians.”
“Ben Mizrachi hadn’t yet been buried. The IDF hadn’t yet taken any action. The world was stunned. And two of my colleagues wanted to move quickly past what had happened and refocus government on a geopolitical conflict that has been going on for years,” Robinson said in her resignation letter.
“But it wasn’t their antisemitism that broke my heart. It was your silence to their antisemitism that hurt the most. Not a single one of you responded to their insensitive, disrespectful, and inappropriate email.”
Robinson suggested that perhaps the party members had agreed with Sigh and Chen’s idea, and contrasted their behavior when they participated in a 2021 Holocaust awareness campaign.
“How eager you all are to join the few remaining Holocaust survivors as [Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA] Nicholas [Simons] plays Kol Nidre on the cello and we bow our heads, light candles in honor of those murdered – yet when the hordes gather and chant ‘from the river to the sea’ – a Hamas mantra referring to their desire to destroy Israel and the Jews – you are nowhere to be found,” Robinson wrote.
Robinson said that Holocaust survivors were reliving trauma from seeing the massacre and the marches in BC and that some had been hospitalized in the weeks following October 7. She said that the marches were also occurring on BC campuses, pushing Jewish students to hide in bathrooms and conceal their identities.
Robinson said that the academic work environment had gotten so toxic that almost 300 Jewish physicians had signed a letter calling on the University of British Columbia to address campus antisemitism, a state of affairs that led then-UBC clinical assistant professor Dr. Ted Rosenberg to quit.
“Where are your ideals of a broad, inclusive society?” asked Robinson. “How have you been standing up for your declared values?”
The MLA also attacked the BC NDP for silence in the face of a January Vancouver Police Department report warning that antisemitism incidents had increased by 62% in 2023, with 33 of the 47 incidents occurring after October 7.
Robinson: Party holds 'double standards'
Robinson said that when she queried BC Attorney-General and Vancouver–Hastings MLA Niki Sharma about what she was doing to protect the BC Jewish community, Robinson discovered that Sharma had not been in contact with community leaders. Sharma listed legislation and funds for additional security that would be made available, but Robinson said that the response was once that “you would give the opposition. There was no acknowledgment of my connection to the community or how my contacts and relationships could be useful. There was no sense of understanding that this community is feeling threatened, that people are afraid, that antisemitism was on display in civil society.”
BC Premier David Eby was criticized by Robinson, saying that after she had resigned as the Canadian province’s post-secondary education minister in February, she proposed that she work to facilitate dialogue with the Arab Muslim community, but that Eby’s chief of staff rejected it as “too political.”
Robinson, who had resigned from her ministerial position after public controversy, said that the party had held a double standard for the comments she had made during a January 30 B’nai Brith Canada online panel with other Jewish politicians. Robinson had described Mandate Palestine as a crappy piece of land with nothing on it” before Jewish resettlement. Robinson said that despite her apologies, she was asked to resign.
“Antisemitism is the double standard that we have consistently shown,” said Robinson. “When any of my colleagues have made antisemitic remarks it was expected that apologies should suffice.”
Robinson cited Vancouver-Kensington MLA Mable Elmore’s lack of apology after it was discovered in 2004 to have said that “we have vocal Zionists in our work sites, and we have had to battle them” over ant-war activism, and how Mental Health and Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside shared articles promoting BDS and accusing Israel of “pinkwashing,” stealing of Palestinian land due to capitalism.
“I raise these examples not to humiliate or shame any of you, but to point out the double standard,” said Robinson. “This double standard is antisemitism.”
Robinson said that she was resigning from the caucus because “This is not the party I signed on with – it has become a party that is afraid to stand with people, people who were hurting. It is now a party that puts politics and re-election before people.”
The MLA said that she would sit as an independent. She had said in February that she would not be seeking reelection
In response to Robinson’s letter, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, and Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs issued a joint statement calling on Eby to address antisemitism within the caucus, government, and the rising problem in the province as a whole.
“We have learned that in addition to being asked to forgive and work with members of government who offended our community or made antisemitic comments, a Jewish community member who was part of the government endured antisemitism within the government caucus first-hand,” said Federation CEO Ezra Shanken, RAV chair Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, and CIJA Pacific region vice president Nico Slobinsky. “It is the job of the Premier to ensure that all British Columbians feel safe.”
In February, Robinson’s office was vandalized with graffiti and posters calling for her to resign as an MLA. One poster said “There is only one solution, the Intifada revolution,” and another called her a “Jewish supremacist.”