Tom Mulcair: Violent protests expose crisis of confidence in leadership

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Against a backdrop of official failure and inaction, last weekend one private citizen showed what leadership looked like. When it became clear that a franchisee of the Second Cup chain had issued a loaded antisemitic threat of a “final solution,” CEO Peter Mammas acted unflinchingly and cancelled their franchise contract.

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Direct, immediate legal consequences for illegal and threatening behaviour. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and her police chief, Fady Dagher, should be taking notes.

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Plante and Dagher appear to believe that law enforcement authorities have to show tolerance toward people who are breaking the law.

We live in a free, prosperous and democratic country. We all have rights that are supposed to be protected, in accordance with the rule of law.

After Friday’s protest against a meeting of NATO parliamentarians degenerated dangerously into arson and serious vandalism, Plante was quoted as saying: “Antisemitism and Islamophobia are totally unacceptable. We have to protect the two parties.”

Expressions of religious hatred are not just unacceptable — they’re illegal. But what “two parties” was she referring to? Is Montreal’s Jewish community a “party” to the current Middle East conflict in her mind? Who’s the other “party” on the streets of Montreal?

Here’s more of Plante’s take on Friday’s violent protests:

“The demonstration itself had as its goal the sharing of concerns about what is happening in Palestine and the vandals took over the demonstration. … It’s using a cause to break things and put other people’s security in danger.”

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It seems Plante sees a bigger danger in what the “vandals” are doing than in hateful chants and threats.

With reasoning like Plante’s, antisemitism is being rationalized in Montreal. If you’re essentially calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, home to more than 7 million Jews, and attacking and harassing Jews and their institutions, you’re merely “sharing concerns” — as long as you’re not smashing windows or burning cars in front of the convention centre.

Last week, I wrote about how the Montreal police force stood by while demonstrators disobeyed a court injunction with impunity in front of a synagogue. Zero charges were laid.

On Saturday, Dagher held a hastily called news conference to try to defend the actions of his force the night before. The toughest question: How was it possible that there had been only three arrests?

No one was blaming the courageous rank and file officers, one of whom had been reported injured. The problem is at the top. When officers receive the signal to tolerate some illegal actions, but not others, where and when are they supposed to draw the line?

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To its credit, the Quebec government was beginning to show its frustration with the laissez-faire attitude of Montreal, with Premier François Legault recommending that Montreal police seek help from the Sûreté du Québec “as needed.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in with a speech before that NATO meeting on Monday and said the right things, making clear “there is never any room for antisemitism, for hatred, discrimination, for violence.”

That’s in stark contrast to the tone and content of statements coming from his foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly.

One consistent and telling difference between the English and French versions of official statements is in the way she qualifies Canada’s supposed position in favour of the release of the hostages.

For months the French versions of Joly’s statements have called for the release and return of “les hostages,” which can only mean all hostages. In the English version, she consistently calls for the release “of hostages.”

That may seem like a slight linguistic variance but Joly is too fluently bilingual not to know the difference. In English, the demand for the return of all hostages appears to have been toned down for the requirement that some be released. It’s hard not to see this as an effort on the minister’s part to pander to a specific constituency — and not for the first time, as I’ve written elsewhere.

We are living a crisis of confidence in our leadership and it begins at the top.

Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as minister of the environment in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.

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