Canada’s ‘Antisemitism Envoy’ Has Barely Mentioned Nazi Collaborators

 

Deborah Lyons’ work has included defaming pro-Palestine activism and meeting with Israeli government officials.

The federal government’s controversial envoy for “combatting antisemitism” has said next to nothing about the glorification and protection of Nazi war veterans and alleged war criminals in Canada, an analysis by The Maple of the current envoy’s first year in office has found.

Deborah Lyons, a career diplomat who previously served as Canada’s ambassador to Israel, was appointed as the Trudeau government’s “Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism” on Oct. 16, 2023 for a two-year term. The role, which is jointly managed by Canadian Heritage and Global Affairs, was established in 2020, with former Liberal MP and minister Irwin Cotler serving first in the position.

The envoy’s officially stated mandate is to support “efforts to combat antisemitism and hatred domestically, interacting with Canadian institutions and stakeholders to promote Holocaust education, remembrance, [and] research,” with a special emphasis on promoting the implementation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Critics have long argued that the IHRA definition conflates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism, enabling the suppression of pro-Palestinian speech and activism.

The Maple examined every tweet and piece of media Lyons has posted since Oct. 31, 2023, when her Twitter (now known as ‘X’) account was first launched, and searched news archives for stories that mentioned both her name and key search terms related to the glorification and protection of Nazi war veterans and leaders in Canada. The search included opinion articles authored by Lyons herself.

While Lyons has spoken against Holocaust denial and distortion in general, and called for more Holocaust “education,” The Maple found just two instances where Lyons, who is not Jewish, explicitly referred to cases where Nazi war veterans and collaborators have been glorified, applauded, or shielded from public scrutiny in Canada.

In February, Lyons shared a Globe and Mail article about declassified sections of a decades-old government report regarding alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada. Lyons tweeted that the disclosure “provides [Canada] the chance to reckon with its past to ensure it doesn’t make the same mistakes again.”

Last week, however, The Globe and Mail reported that the federal government would be withholding the names of around 900 alleged Nazi war criminals who found refuge in Canada after the end of the Second World War. While the story quoted several Jewish groups and scholars who were dismayed by the decision, Lyons was not mentioned in the story and has made no public statement about the decision as of the time of this article’s publication.

As reported by the Ottawa Citizen in September, Library and Archives Canada consulted a “discrete group of individuals or organizations” that included members of Canada’s Ukrainian community when determining whether or not to release the approximately 900 names, but did not speak to Holocaust survivors nor Holocaust scholars. Lyons did not comment on that story either.  (more...)

Canada’s ‘Antisemitism Envoy’ Has Barely Mentioned Nazi Collaborators