Note: This story has been updated to add a comment from Tantramar Liberal candidate John Higham.
With less than two months to election day scheduled for October 21st, New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservatives are continuing to solicit donations from conservatives across Canada on their helphiggswin.ca website.
Their appeal is based on four key planks that Premier Higgs supports: Fiscal Conservative Approach, Common Sense Policies For Parents, An Ally For Natural Resource Development and Principled Support For Israel.
The premier’s office has not responded to e-mails from Warktimes asking for more information on Higgs’s support for Israel after more than 10 months of war on Gaza.
What does he have to say about the International Court of Justice rulings that there is at least a plausible case for genocide against Israel and that all countries have an obligation not to support Israeli settlements in the occupied territories?
My e-mails also asked about the premier’s position on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as well as provincial subsidies and supports for companies in New Brunswick that manufacture weapons sold to Israel.
And since the PCs are making support for Israel an issue in the provincial election, it might also be asked how the premier’s “principled support” demonstrates he’s a leader Canadian donors and New Brunswick voters can trust.
PC candidate’s position
When asked about his own position, Tantramar PC candidate Bruce Phinney said he is calling for a ceasefire now that more than 40,000 people have been killed and more than 90,000 injured.
Councillor Bruce Phinney speaking against sending a letter calling for a ceasefire at a council meeting in March
“What’s outrageous is what is happening to the people and the children and the number of people that are being killed and everything. I think it’s absolutely terrible,” Phinney told reporters on August 14th, the day he announced he was running for the PCs in Tantramar.
At the same time though, he said he simply doesn’t know much about the roots of the conflict.
“I don’t know what’s been going on between Israel and Gaza except for what’s been happening recently. People have said to me this has been going on for hundreds of years,” he says.
“Do I like what’s happening? No. Do I think there should be a ceasefire? Yes.”
In March however, Phinney sided with the majority on Tantramar Town Council when he spoke against sending a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau urging him to call for a ceasefire.
He suggested then that asking for a ceasefire would amount to taking sides, making it seem the war is “all Israel’s fault and not Gaza. Hamas was the one that started it on October 7th,” he said.
When asked why he spoke against calling for a ceasefire then, Phinney said he believed a letter from Tantramar Town Council would not have made any difference.
Liberal position
New Brunswick Liberal leader Susan Holt also says she wants a ceasefire.
“We would like to see an end to the violence because too many people have lost their lives,” Holt said in Sackville on July 29th after the Liberals had nominated John Higham as their local candidate.
“We need to end the violence, but we need to be sure in doing so we’re not advancing anti-Semitism or not advancing anti-Palestinian thoughts,” she added.
NB Liberal leader Susan Holt
“We need the Palestinians to have access to their territory that has been occupied for far too long and we need a ceasefire that ends the violence. That’s our position.”
Holt spoke a few days after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
The court said other nations were obligated not to help Israel continue occupying territory or building and expanding its settlements on Palestinian land.
When asked if the New Brunswick Liberal Party would support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, Holt said that could be considered on a case-by-case basis, but the immediate need is for a ceasefire.
“I’d like to see folks focused on a two-state solution where we end the occupation and we end the violence and I’d like to see our national leaders take that approach.”
When asked if she would favour ending provincial subsidies for companies that manufacture weapons for Israel, Holt said she’s not aware of any such subsidies, but would love to learn more.
NOTE: Pro-Palestinian activists have pointed, for example, to federal and provincial subsidies to Apex Industries of Moncton which makes components for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets that Israel has used in its war on Gaza. Earlier this year, protesters marched to the Apex factory to publicize their call for an embargo on weapons sales to Israel. For information on Lockheed Martin’s sponsorship of research at the University of New Brunswick as part of its obligations under federal military procurement contracts, click here and here.
Note: Warktimes did not ask Liberal candidate John Higham for his position on Gaza, but after questions from readers, I e-mailed him to ask. Higham replied that he agreed with what Liberal leader Susan Holt had to say, but added:
However, I would comment that the fact that Mr. Higgs would use this tragic conflict and the misery of others to drum up dollars from out-of-province donors is hugely distasteful. But it is consistent with his divisive approach where Instead of bringing people together, he tries to pit New Brunswickers against each other. He has done this on many topics, and this is yet another reason why his government must be defeated.
Green position
Megan Mitton at the Sackville Commons in August
“As a provincial political party, we don’t have any policies on international issues. Our party does have a principle of non-violence,” Green MLA Megan Mitton wrote in an e-mailed response to questions from Warktimes.
“There’s heart-wrenching violence and death taking place in Gaza,” she continued.
“The UN’s independent human rights experts are calling for a ceasefire, arms embargo, and boycott and divestment actions. These latter actions helped end apartheid in South Africa. These actions will save lives and help restore peace, so yes, I support these calls.”
Mitton, who also serves as deputy leader, said that the New Brunswick Green Party would not subsidize arms manufacturers.
“That’s not how we build local economies or contribute to peace,” she writes. “This is a form of corporate welfare we oppose.”
NDP position
Tantramar NDP candidate Evelyne Godfrey says that although the provincial wing of the party has no official position on Israel/Gaza, she personally disagrees with the Conservative party’s tactic of soliciting campaign donations based on Premier Higgs’s support for Israel.
“I think what the PCs are engaging in here is dog whistle politics where they’re trying to take sides in a conflict that I suspect they don’t fully understand,” she said during an interview last month.
Godfrey, who is an archeologist, maintains that instead of what she termed “virtue signalling” from both supporters and opponents of Israel, more education is needed about the historic roots of the conflict.
Tantramar NDP candidate Evelyne Godfrey strongly supports Israel as a sovereign state that should be left to work out its differences with the Palestinians
“I was teaching a course on Roman Judea last year at UNB and so I know the history and background.”
Godfrey referred to a paper she wrote last January for a Holocaust Memorial Day event in Britain.
In it, she argued that the British sowed the seeds of the current conflict with an artificial division of Palestine that ignored 3,000 year old maps showing where the Jews and the Philistines lived in Biblical times.
Godfrey advocates a two-state solution in which Palestinians would be given the area around the Gaza Strip where the ancient Philistines lived, while Israel would be sovereign over Israelite land including the West Bank.
She does not agree that Israel is occupying Palestinian land.
To read her paper and see the map, click here.
Godfrey strongly disagrees with both the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as well as calls for an embargo on weapons sales to Israel.
She also criticizes those who use terms such as “genocide” to describe the war and “apartheid” to refer to the segregation of Palestinians.
“If you’re aiming these misused words at Israel and only at Israel, then I think at the basis of that, you really need to re-examine what’s motivating you because it looks a lot like anti-Semitism.”
Godfrey says it should be left to Israel to work out its differences with the Palestinians.
She’s also grateful for the unwavering U.S. support for Israel.
“All I can say is, thank God for the United States and I only hope that after this terrible, terrible time with the current war in Gaza, that we can come to a peaceful solution.”
As might be expected, I have my own views on this issue.
But why is it relevant to New Brunswick politics? I mean, I’m not going to vote for/against a candidate for NB office based on what they think about the Middle East.
Who cares?
Notice how Mr. Higgs wants this election to about anything other than the poor state of almost all public services, particularly health care, education, transportation and social services. Don’t let him do it. Make him accountable for his desire to privatize things like the medical system. Ask him and his candidates why it’s legal for some people to jump the queue and pay money for a same-day doctor’s appointment on-line. Ask them why they ran the system down to the degree that people now choose to resort to this.
I agree with Geoff Martin. Whomever is elected to lead us for the next 4 years will not have any say in what happens in the Middle East. Nor should they – their mandate is to manage things here in our own province. Therefore any focus on that issue by Mr Higgs at this time can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to distract our attention away from the REAL problems our province faces. We need to keep our political attention focused on the ‘here and now’, and not become sidetracked or railroaded by any such ploys.
Although my own views align most closely with the position articulated by Evelyne Godfrey, I think efforts to turn the Israel/Palestine conflict into a provincial election issue is, as others have observed, silly. It makes about as much sense as similar recent efforts to force the conflict onto the municipal agenda. At least local Pro-Palestine activists have shifted their energies from lobbying Town Council towards petitioning our Member of Parliament. Shame on Higgs.
Making this even a provincial election discussion is ridiculous Most people will not be making their candidates vote on some overseas conflict our MLA’s have no control over and some don’t even fully understand. I can’t believe this is even a story with all the stuff NB has to worry about. I’ll be voting for the person who is brave enough not to do this interview and it doesn’t look like there were any. They should of have shut this conversation down like the Mayor did.
“All I can say is, thank God for the United States…” Ms. Godfrey might have taught a course on ancient history (Roman Judea) but she appears to be completely out of touch with international realities since the late 1800’s when the U.S. became the world’s bully and has consistently led coups against democratically elected governments and installed dictators that would be friendly to the interests of U.S. corporations (don’t take my word for it – do a search for U.S. general Smedley Butler’s book “War is a Racket”. There are of course many other sources that detail the crimes of the U.S. government). I doubt if families of those citizens of the world that were murdered by U.S. forces or other forces that had the support of the U.S. would have expressed such glowing praise for the terrorist regime in Washington (Terrorism : the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims). There IS such a thing as state terrorism, as is currently being demonstrated by the ultra right wing Israeli government as it continues it’s murderous rampage. For a member of a political party whose focus is on social justice, it is hard to understand how she can support such blatant injustice against civilian populations.
Ms. Godfrey, in her adoration of the U.S. government, appears to be swallowing its propaganda hook, line, and sinker, as demonstrated by her attempt to equate opposition to the Israeli government’s actions to antisemitism. This is an insult to the many Jewish citizens of Israel and of nations around the world (including Canada) who have spoken out and strongly object to the government of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians for the last 75 odd years. As they say, the phrase “Never again!” refers not only to the millions of Jewish civilians murdered by Nazi Germany, but to all civilian populations around the world.
All that aside, I agree that this latest stunt by Higgs to try to distract provincial voters from the immediate issues facing us in the upcoming election, such as health care, education, and housing, is despicable but not surprising coming from “The Man From Irving”.