Wednesday evening 60 opponents of genocide marched from the Mount Royal metro to Mélanie Joly’s home in the Plateau neighbourhood. The protest was called to condemn the minister for lying about Canada arming the Israeli military.
According to organizers’ press release, “Protesters are gathering outside the home of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly to demand answers and accountability after new evidence reveals that Canada continued to export arms to Israel during its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza — despite Joly’s public claims to the contrary.”
I marched from the metro to Joly’s home but rallied for barely 15 minutes since my three-year-old wanted to leave the (loud) pots and pans protest. Halfway through the march four police cadets on bikes began following us and two police were on hand almost immediately after we arrived at Joly’s home. The current industry minister didn’t appear to be home, but it wasn’t clear to me which condo unit was hers.
Yesterday the Globe and Mail asked if I was an organizer of the protest. I wasn’t. An organizer, however, asked me to circulate their press release, which I sent to a large media list and posted on social media accounts. I also shared a video of the protest on socials.
“Demonstration outside Joly’s home raises fresh security concerns”, suggested the rally was a threat to the minister or public safety. The front-page Globe article sought to justify the government adopting repressive ‘bubble zone’ legislation to deal with protest. As I noted to the Globe journalist, there’s some who’ve sought to frame all manifestations of opposition to Canada’s complicity in genocide as illegitimate.
The Globe coverage wasn’t surprising. A protest at Joly’s home in January 2024 led to widespread condemnation from pro-genocide voices.
At the time I pointed out that protests at politicians’ homes were common in the US and not uncommon here. In 2002 Joly’s cabinet colleague, Steven Guilbeault, was among a handful of Greenpeace activists who put solar panels on the roof of Alberta premier Ralph Klein’s home while in 2007 Greenpeace organized an action at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s house. During the 2012 Quebec student strike protesters marched on Premier Jean Charest’s Westmount mansion on multiple occasions and four years ago activists supporting the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ campaign against a pipeline rallied in front of BC Premier John Horgan’s home. More recently, tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated repeatedly outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s house.
In my article defending those who braved the cold to rally at Joly’s home eighteen months ago I criticized several NDP MPs for joining the genocide lobby’s attacks. Heather McPherson, Leah Gazan and others echoed those suggesting all manifestations of opposition to Canada’s complicity in genocide was illegitimate. I wrote: “Amidst the faux outrage, ‘pro-Palestinian’ NDP MPs joined the attacks. On the left of the party Leah Gazan posted ‘this is appalling full stop!’. For her part, NDP foreign critic Heather McPherson posted, ‘This is appalling. People do not have to agree with politicians and elected representatives, but to harass them at their private homes is completely and utterly unacceptable.’ (I don’t think McPherson has yet referred to Israel’s mass slaughter and famine campaign in Gaza as ‘appalling.) Then the party foreign critic retweeted her NDP colleague Alistair MacGregor claiming: ‘I love listening to my constituents. At my office. On the phone. Over Zoom. On Twitter. On Facebook. On Instagram. Not at my home.’ (Gazan also re-posted MacGregor.)”
Even if you felt uncomfortable about the protest outside a private home, as I wrote, “the NDP MPs were under no compulsion to comment on the Joly protests. They shouldn’t have bolstered the genocide lobby’s outrage against those who braved the cold to protest Canada’s role in enabling unimaginable horrors in Gaza.”
Looking back on my article, I’m reminded how leading NDP figures repeatedly conceded to the Zionist lobby and dominant political culture. Imagine criticizing the tactics of anti-genocide protests more times than joining a march against the holocaust? Amidst Israel’s bid to cleanse Gaza of non-Jews, imagine discussing antisemitism more than Jewish supremacy?
In so doing the NDP contributed in a small way to enabling Israel’s holocaust. While there’s no going back, there are lessons for the future.
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