Identity politics, Marxist-driven oppression theories and antisemitism are at odds with Enlightenment principles and Canadian values

The following is excerpted from a speech delivered by economist Jack Mintz upon accepting the Gordon Gibson Memorial Citizenship Award from the Aristotle Foundation at an event in Calgary on Wednesday.

I am deeply honoured by the Aristotle Foundation’s awarding me the Gordon Gibson Memorial Citizenship Award. Over the years, I enjoyed many interactions with Gordon, especially when I was president and CEO of the C. D. Howe Institute, whose events he regularly attended. Gordon’s steadfast support for democratic reform in Canada led to better governance and national unity — and, I daresay, deeper support for Canadian values. This is consistent with the objectives of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, which reminds us we should appreciate Canada as a country like no other, with its unique tradition and history.

Tonight, I want to explore what those Canadian values mean and how at times we stray from them — at our peril.

Let me be clear: Canadian values are not European values. They are not American values. They are our own. True, liberal Western societies have been deeply influenced by the classical Enlightenment philosophies, with their emphasis on inherent individual rights as a reaction to the despotism that was common until then. Today, Western societies share common Enlightenment ideals, including democracy, human dignity, freedom of speech and the rule of law.

In 1789 the French Revolution promised “liberty, equality and fraternity.” It also professed “popular sovereignty,” meaning that power should belong to the people, not the King.  The Americans’ Declaration of Independence had declared, 13 years earlier: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Canadians uphold liberal Western values, too, but also “peace, order and good government,” the foundational principles of our constitution. We believe in liberty but also in collective welfare and political and economic stability. Perhaps that reflects our historical struggle to meet the aspirations of two distinct European colonial powers and the many First Nations who lived here before the arrival of British or French settlers. With immigrants later coming from all over the world, we became a “mosaic,” not a “melting pot” like the United States.

Canadians can take pride in having through the centuries welcomed millions of people from all over the world, including my own grandparents and my wife’s parents, who escaped anti-semitism in Europe. Despite the challenge of earning a living and dealing with a new culture, from the 17th century on new Canadians have built successful businesses, strong public institutions and livable communities.

We have chosen a federal approach to government, with sovereign powers given to the provinces to accommodate regional diversity. Canada is far more decentralized than most federations. With federal institutions poorly designed to reflect regional interests, our provinces became the protectors of those interests. Although conflicts arise from time to time due to differences in cultures or claims on wealth, so far our adherence to Western liberal values and peace, order and good government has held the country together.

This focus on stability tends to make Canada more conservative — in a “small-c” sense — in maintaining our democracy. Europe has had a more checkered history, with its frequent political ruptures and wars, which the creation of the European Union did much to subdue. But we don’t want to be Europe, with its history of authoritarianism and currently overbearing bureaucracy and high public spending and taxes.

Conservatism also makes Canada different from the United States, with the ideological divisions and cleavages that plague it from time to time. Despite its periodic difficulties our next-door neighbour is a more dynamic society, with its greater emphasis on individual progress and lesser reliance on government.

Henry Kissinger observed that in a society that is cohesive “it would occur to no one to be conservative.” Conservatives become the defender of order while “progressives” become the partisans of change. The risk is that the two become polarized, no longer speaking the same language. As Kissinger put it: “Stability and reform, liberty and authority come to appear antithetical and political contests turn doctrinal instead of empirical.”

The risk to Canada today is that we lose sight of our Western values built on peace, order and good government. This danger is manifest in several ways.

The “oppressed versus oppressors” view of history emanating from the growth of European Marxism has created antagonism towards Western liberalism. Westerners are condemned as colonizers taking land and liberty away from native populations rather than bringing prosperity and freedom to communities. The oppressed-oppressor division doesn’t lead to reconciliation: it contributes to more division.

Western governments, in their pursuit of democracy, liberty, human dignity and the rule of law, created institutions that have benefited formerly colonialized peoples after they gained their independence. I have seen this in many countries I have advised over the years, ranging from Guyana to India. The British, who ran the world’s largest empire in the 19thcentury, created institutions that today serve as a basis for good government in 65 countries, including our own.

Nor should we divide our populations by identity. Doing so erodes unity and leads to polarization. Throughout our history, Canada as a “mosaic” has accepted diverse populations who have been given a new start in life. One of the things I’m most proud of was, in the late 1970s, leading an effort on behalf of Kingston’s Jewish community to settle three Vietnamese refugee families. Many other groups across Canada provided similar help. It’s in moments like these that our country is most cohesive.

But the recent shift towards identity politics that favour some “oppressed” groups but not others forces people apart instead of bringing them together. It’s especially concerning that our educational institutions foster identity politics in hiring, admissions and curricula. That undermines critical thinking and the inquisitive nature of academic learning. Even the federal government, rather than base awards solely on skills and merit, continues to use identity criteria in its research funding. Federal research funding is now harming post-secondary teaching as research quality declines. Thatshould be stopped.

Today is October 7th, the third anniversary of the attack on Israel, so I cannot help but talk about anti-semitism in Canada today. It pains me when Avi Lewis, leader of a national political party, falsely accuses Israel of genocide and says that Jews in Canada should atone for their support of Israel. And I’m perplexed by a prime minister who clearly recognizes the harm done by anti-semitism but fails to understand that those who declare they are anti-Zionist or anti-Israel soon turn to anti-semitism.

Anti-semitism is an illness that can destroy peace and order in a country. Though the term itself was coined in Germany in 1879, hatred of Jews dates from long before then. In the third century BCE, the Egyptian priest and historian, Manetho, reversed the story of Exodus, claiming Jews were lepers and outcasts thrown out of Egypt. The famous Purim story celebrated by Jews to this day was about a viceroy, Haman, planning to murder all Jews in Persian lands.

When Jews gained emancipation in the mid-19th century, anti-semitism did not abate but instead surged, culminating in the Holocaust in the 20th century. Did anti-semitism then die? After the1967 Arab-Israel war, the Soviet Union shifted its support of Israel to “anti-Zionism,” which it claimed was not anti-semitism. Yet its propaganda, quickly copied by others, portrayed Jews as conspiring capitalists, following the familiar tropes of the Protocols of Zion. Goaded by the Soviets, in 1975 the United Nations declared Zionism a form of racism. Jews were restricted from religious activity in the Soviet Union.

After the Second World War, Jews began to enjoy a golden age in which they were no longer subject to rules excluding them from full participation in the private and public sectors. In Canada in 1969, Herb Gray became the first Jewish federal cabinet minister. Major corporations no longer excluded Jews from board membership. Anti-semitism was expressed from time to time. But in the first two decades of this century only small minorities in Canada and other Western countries — less than 10 per cent — harboured ill feelings towards Jews. Globally, however, anti-semitism was much more prevalent, especially in North Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe.

All this changed dramatically after October 7, 2023. In Canada, the number of anti-semitic incidents swelled to 6,800 in 2025, 145 per cent more than in 2022. Almost a third of Canadians tell pollsters that anti-semitism is now more acceptable, while a fifth say Israel’s treatment of Gaza justifies negative attitudes towards Jews. The old ideas that Jews have dual loyalty or are too rich and powerful are haunting Canada again.

The worst incident took place in Belleville, with a potential massacre of 25 Jewish congregants who were saved by a lone, brave police guard. These days, I enter my synagogue in Toronto in the presence of two or three police cars, two security guards and several volunteers. If I walk by “river to the sea” demonstrators harassing Jewish events, I fear that violence may break out. Not surprisingly, in their everyday lives Jews are hiding visible linkages to Judaism, retreating to Jewish enclaves or, in some cases, emigrating to avoid anti-semitism in Canada. In Toronto, enrolment in Jewish schools has soared in the past three years, even though the cost is in addition to onerous property taxes for education.

Identity politics, Marxist-driven oppression theories and anti-semitism are not Canadian values. “Peace, order and good government” is our mantra in support of liberal values: democracy, human dignity, freedom of speech and rule of law. It is for this reason that I support organizations like the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, who remind us we should cherish our Canadian values.

Jack Mintz, regular FP Comment columnist and President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, is this year’s recipient of the Gordon Gibson Memorial Citizenship Award, presented by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. This is the text of remarks he delivered in a dinner Wednesday night in Calgary.