Thank you, Madam Speaker.

What we had in the last session was somebody who stood up on social media, who publicly made comments about somebody who was a Muslim. And they were horrible things to say. There was nothing good that could come from it.

The NDP—the 26 members who were in government last term who have returned all stood up in their place and said it made our Legislature look bad: “That member should not be recognized. That member does not represent what the people of Ontario want. That member should not be able to speak in their place and we should not recognize them as a member. We should take away their ability to stand up here and further discredit the Legislature of Ontario, further discredit the people of Ontario.” And they were all too happy to do it.

I will admit that member was not someone I was particularly fond of. That member was not someone that I would have said I would have shared a coffee with, because I probably would have had to spit it out at some point. I freely admit I had no problem personally saying that I didn’t want to hear from them again. But that didn’t factor into the decision on what we did. What we did as an Ontario Legislature was we said, “Your comments are not acceptable. You cannot attack a minority group in this country. You cannot disparage another group in this province.”

What we have now is a member from Hamilton Centre who historically has made comments that very much can be taken as anti-Semitic. On October 7, when a terrorist organization came into Israel, slaughtered women, children and families, dragged women out of their homes, raped them in the streets, livestreamed it on Facebook and were proud of it, the member from Hamilton Centre stood up and said, “Yes, but”—

Interjection.

And to the NDP member who wants to heckle me, it has been said before: When someone comes out and shows you who they are, believe them. And I believe you. That is totally unacceptable—totally unacceptable.

Interjection.

I withdraw the statement.

That is something that is absolutely disgusting. We can’t ever normalize terrorism. We can’t ever accept that that is a way of doing anything. What we have seen from this member repeatedly then is not just anti-Semitism—anti-Semitism is a fancy word for saying Jew hate, and that’s truly what it is, a hatred for Jews.

There was supposed to be a pro-Palestinian rally that turned into a pro-Hamas rally that turned into an anti-Israel rally: statements like—and the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke made the statement; he referred to it as well—“From River to Sea.” That is all of Israel. When you’re at a rally in support of a group that has made Holocaust-denying comments, when you’re there with them and you’re making those statements, you’re chanting that, you’re saying Palestine should have everything from the Jordan River to the Red Sea, that Israel should not exist. That can only be taken one way. You cannot say “Yes, but.” There is no “Yes, but.” That is, “I’m advocating for the destruction of the Jewish state.” That’s what it is.

Now, it’s an easy thing to correct. All that we’re asking in this motion: “Until the member retracts and deletes her statements on social media and makes an apology in her place in the House.” Stand up and say, “I made a mistake.” Stand up and say, “I shouldn’t have done that. I’ll delete that tweet. I’ll delete that statement. I didn’t recognize that what I was doing was harmful to a whole group of people. I didn’t realize that what I was doing was something that was racist. I now know better.” That’s all that has to be said and done.

But, what has the member done? They pinned the statement on Twitter—or X, I guess it’s called now—so that every time you go to her page, every time you take a look at what she is saying, that is what you see. She has doubled down on it, tripled down on it, however you want to describe it.

The Leader of the Opposition said this is not acceptable on the day she did it and said, “I want you to take it down and apologize for it,” and the member doubled down. She didn’t take it down. She proudly put it out there and said, “This is who I am.” We’re at a point where an apology doesn’t fix it. We are at a point where that voice should not be heard.

In 2018, I introduced a private member’s bill called the terrorist sanctions act, and part of the reason I did it was because of somebody the Trudeau government was trying to bring to Canada. At the time, Justin Trudeau said that these could be powerful voices in our country. Those are the voices I do not want. I do not want someone who is willingly standing up and promoting hate. I do not want someone who is willingly standing up and saying, “I believe the destruction of an entire country and the removal of a people from that area is acceptable.” That is not a voice that should be heard anywhere in this province. That is not an ideology that should be promoted anywhere in this province, and I’m going to come back to it again.

Twenty-six members are sitting in this chamber right now, who were in this chamber in the last government, who stood up unanimously and said, “That white guy can’t be heard,” because what he said was unacceptable, and those 26 members are sitting on their hands now because one of their colleagues has done it. One of their colleagues has promoted the destruction of an entire people with her comments, and they find that acceptable; it’s not. It’s disgusting—absolutely disgusting. There are a number of people on that side that I had a great deal of respect for, that I was proud to call my friends. I don’t know that I can do that anymore.

What we’re seeing is the worst that we can see in this Legislature. Not only do we have a member who is defending terrorists, but we have members defending that member with “Yes, but.” We heard the heckling—people at home didn’t hear it because it doesn’t pick it up on the mike. We saw what was going on in here. It was disgusting.

The member from Hamilton Centre needs to stand up—I’m sorry; the member from Hamilton Centre needs to rise above. She needs to say, “I was wrong.” She needs to say, “I recognize I was wrong.” She can say, “I’m a proud Palestinian” or “I’m of proud Palestinian background, but I don’t believe that anyone should be eliminated. I don’t believe that the country of Israel should be removed”—she is not saying that she dislikes Palestine or that she is not supporting Palestine by saying that; what she’s saying is that she recognizes that it’s wrong to oppress any group, that it’s wrong to have hatred for any people. That’s all she has to do. Take down the tweet. Admit that her comments were wrong. Admit that her comments were hateful. Admit that she created a great deal of stress and anxiety for an entire group of people, not only in Ontario, but everywhere.

Our House leader talked about a mistake that was made in the federal government, when a Nazi was celebrated and the Speaker of the House ended up resigning and taking responsibility for it. The Speaker could have had his own “Yes, buts.” He could have said, “Yes, but I didn’t know this person. Yes, but my staff did the research, and they didn’t pass that information on. Yes, but there were extenuating circumstances.” He had culpable deniability on it because he did have a staff who was doing all of the background on it.

The reality is, all of us have staff who do a lot of the work for us, who get us the information we need, but we are ultimately responsible for what comes out in our name, on our letterhead—or because of things that we do.

The member from Hamilton Centre did not have staff do all of this research. The member from Hamilton Centre did not have staff who put her in a position where she made a mistake. The member from Hamilton Centre did this on her own volition.

The Speaker in Ottawa stepped down and took responsibility for that mistake. All we’re asking is that the member from Hamilton Centre take responsibility for what she has said and done.

We have freedom of choice. We have free speech. What we don’t have is freedom from the consequences of our actions and freedom from the consequences of what we say or do. There are consequences for what we say and do. And in order for us to be good legislators, in order for us to have the trust of the people of this province—the trust of the people who elected us to come here—we have to take responsibility for what we say and what we do. We have to be able to stand up and say, when we’ve made a mistake, “I’ve made a mistake.” And we have to try and correct things so that we don’t continue making those mistakes, because the people of this province put their trust in us to step forward and do what’s right.

We’re asking the member from Hamilton Centre to do what’s right: to be accountable, to recognize it’s never acceptable to support terrorism. It is never acceptable to actively speak about the destruction of a people or the removal of another country. That is not acceptable. If I had my way, I would say not only should we be censuring her, but we should be removing her from this Legislature. We will leave that to the electorate in Hamilton Centre. She’s the one who is going to have to go back to those people and justify why they should trust that she has the judgement to do the job when she has demonstrated she does not have the judgement to do this job.

Speaker, I ask everyone here, vote in favor of censure, the same way that the 26 members of the NDP censured someone in the last session.

When we were in COVID, I had a few speeches on various things related to COVID, and I said that we were in unprecedented times here in the Legislature. We’re still in unprecedented times. I will admit I have not followed everything that has gone on in this Legislature for the entire 53 years that I have been alive. I don’t recall, prior to last term—

Interjections.

I don’t recall a time where the Legislature has censured someone prior to last term. I’m going to read the text of the motion when Randy Hillier, the former member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, was censured. The motion read, “That this House expresses its disapproval of, and disassociates itself from, continued disreputable conduct by the member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, most specifically his use of social media to make racist and discriminatory statements about a federal cabinet minister,” and it goes on to describe things.

The motion we have before us today: “That this House expresses its disapproval of, and disassociates itself from, continued disreputable conduct by the member for Hamilton Centre”—the only difference in that first line is the riding—“most specifically her use of social media”—“her” instead of “his”—“to make anti-Semitic and discriminatory statements related to the existence of the State of Israel and its defence against Hamas terrorists.”

The only substantive differences between the two motions, one that the 26 returning NDP members from the last government unanimously supported—the only substantive differences: “anti-Semitism” instead of the word “racism,” “Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston” instead of “Hamilton Centre,” and “his” instead of “her.”

Last government, 26 NDP members stood up in this House and said that comments made on social media against a minority group in Canada were inappropriate, and they said they didn’t want to be associated with that. They felt that that put this Legislature in disrepute.

Interjections.