SWING VOTE


slow trickle away from the Liberals that is still ongoing. Teir impact seems to have had a disproportionate affect on the com- munity at large. Levine calls such high profile newfangled


Tory support a “signal” to disenchanted Liberal Jews that it is “tolerable or even de- sirable” to vote Conservative. Robert Lantos may be the most poignant


case in hand. In the summer of 2006, the celebrated Canadian filmmaker told a well- attended pro-Israel rally in Toronto that he was bothered by the Liberals’ recent posi- tions on Israel. He praised the Harper government for


its “principled support” and said, “I hereby take off my lifelong federal Liberal hat to you. Symbolically, I toss it away, if there were anyone willing to catch it.” Te crowd reportedly applauded, but also laughed at the absurdity of anyone lunging for the film- maker’s mythical red hat. Not a good sign for the Liberal brand.


And Lantos was not alone for shortly there- aſter, Jewish power couple Heather Reis- man and Gerry Schwartz, longtime Liberal fundraisers, leſt the party, thanking Harper for supporting Israel in a newspaper ad.Te Calgary Sunreported that Reisman e-mailed a friend that she was “right there alongside Robert [Lantos].” “Aſter a lifetime of being a Liberal, I have


made the switch. It feels strange, but it is totally and unequivocally right,” she wrote. Even Ariela Cotler, wife of Jewish Liberal


MP and celebrated human rights champion Irwin Cotler, gave up her Liberal member- ship – if only for a brief time – aſter Ignatieff made the remark heard around the Jewish community. In November 2009, she wrote an article


published in theNational Post entitled, “Don’t make Israel’s defense a partisan issue.” In it, she wrote that she came back to the Liberal camp soon aſter leaving. “Mr. Ignatieff had recognized his mistake


[and] apologized,” she penned, going on to critique the Conservative ten-percenter flyer from 2009 that accused the Liberals of abandoning the Jewish community. Tis shiſt in support wasn’t anymore


evident than in the 2008 federal election in Tornhill, where two-time Jewish Liberal incumbent Susan Kadis – who famously re- signed as Ignatieff’s campaign head aſter his war crimes miscue – “got trounced,” as Povering puts it, by former broadcast jour- nalist and PC party member, Peter Kent.


26 friday night Winter 2011 To date, Kent remains overwhelmingly


popular with the local Jewish community who treat him like a honourary Member of the Tribe. Te riding of Tornhill was a perfect


place for the Conservative Party to begin making inroads with the Jewish commu- nity. Tornhill is one of only two ridings in Canada with a plurality of Jewish voters. Traditionally, Tornhill was a Liberal


stronghold, but from 1988 (when it was still part of the old York North riding) through the 2006 election, Tornhill seemed to be slowly slipping out of the Liberals’ grasp. Aſter reaching highs of 64 per cent with Chrétien immigration minister Elinor Ca- plan in the 2000 election, the Liberals under Kadis began to sag, managing to score only 54 per cent and then 53 per cent in her 2004 and 2006 victories, respectively. By the 2008 election, the riding looked ripe


for the picking. In other words, Tornhill was the perfect test case to see how the Conserva- tives would fare with the Jewish community. To do so, the Tories poured money, support and volunteers into the riding and came out successful, winning in 2008 by 5,000 votes. Karen Mock, the current federal Liberal


candidate for Tornhill, is quick to point to a Globe and Mail article from October 2007 that spells out the Conservative’s strategy. Ti- tled “Tories target specific ethnic voters”, the article offers quotes straight from the Conser- vative playbook. How to use its newly minted “ethnic outreach team” to quietly pull the ethnic vote from its traditional Liberal home. Apparently, Jews were a significant part of


the game plan. Te strategy, says the article, was largely overseen by the Prime Minister’s Office and Jason Kenney, the current Minis- ter Of Citizenship, Immigration and Multi- culturalism. It describes how Georganne Burke, the


Conservative community relations manager, urged Conservatives to use all means avail- able to “build the database” of ethnic voters by “renting or buying lists of names from third parties and by attending events where they can gather business cards and guest lists.” Burke held up Tornhill as a prime


example to staffers, according to docu- ments obtained by Te Globe and Mail, saying that 37 per cent of its voters were Jewish and could be turned. Furthermore, the way to find the 5,000 votes needed to unseat Kadis was to “target growth in the Jewish community, and those visible mi- nority communities, which are accessible.”


LET THE BATTLE FOR


TALE OF


PETER KENT MP, Thornhill, Minister of Environment POLITICAL AFFILIATION Conservative Party of Canada


FAMILY Wife, Cilla; married for 26 years. She is former print journalist. Daughter, Trilby, is a published author


EDUCATION Canadian Navy


CAREER HIGHLIGHTS Radio journalism and television broadcasting Member of the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame Recipient of the President’s Award from the Radio-Television


News Directors Association of Canada, and has been nominated for four Emmy Awards During journalism career, covered Yom Kippur War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Vietnam War and the end of the Cold War


PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST “We need to continue to help to ensure a peaceful two-state solution. We support and have made it very clear that we recognize and support both Israel’s right to exist, as well its right to defend itself. As supporters of the two-state solution we also give money to the Palestinians to help them build the infrastruc- ture they require in order to prepare them to be an independent state one day. Cooperation by showing support for both sides is essential to aid the peace process.


ANTI-SEMITISM IN CANADA “Anti-Semitism is on the rise. We can see it in the number of incidences and slurs, which occur. Some of it is cross-pollinated from Europe where there has been a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the last few years. It is a societal disease, which is the oldest form of hate. It’s something that all Canadians need to be sensitized to because while it may single out Jews and/or Israel, it is a hatred that can very easily spread to other dimensions and people. It is a constant threat to any democratic society. That is why we created the Parliamentary Committee to combat anti-Semitism.


Photography by credit


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