Former MP and long-time advocate for human rights is stepping down as Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced today that Ambassador Deborah Lyons has been appointed to replace Irwin Cotler, who held the position for the last three years.
Cotler made an impassioned speech about continuing to fight anti-Semitism especially at this very difficult time in history and called Lyons the “right person at the right time.”
Cotler was in Israel for his son’s wedding when the attacks occurred. He calls October 7 one of the worst days in Jewish history since the Holocaust.
Photo via CPAC
“…and I don’t use these words lightly, or easily. A day of mass atrocity, whose scale and scope of ‘pure evil’ as President Biden called it, is almost unfathomable.”
He also outlined some of what he’s learned in his role in recent years, indicating that the world is witnessing the highest level of anti-Semitism experienced since audits of anti-Semitism began 50 years ago.
He says the Anti-Defamation League has done work showing that the number of Americans who believe six or more anti-Semitic tropes, “that is the Jews control the media, control the economy, has doubled in the last five years.”
He ended his speech on an optimistic note; “Because I believe that the Canadian community will call up those reserves, those values that underpin the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms…that we will combat anti-Semitism with all the commitment that is mandated because we want to protect our democracy and human rights with all the commitment and engagement that is necessary.”
