The Ontario NDP will vote against the Ford government’s attempt to bar Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama from participating in the legislature after she voiced support for Palestinians living under Israeli siege in Gaza, The Breach has learned.
It’s likely that the Progressive Conservative (PC) motion—which would prohibit Jama from speaking and may prevent her from voting on legislation for the duration of her term in office—will still pass later this week.
According to a party official who spoke on background, the NDP will fight to defend Jama from the “cynical attacks by the Ford government against a first-time member.”
The PCs’ extreme move is part of a broader attempt to silence solidarity with Palestinians by Western governments around the world. And this is not the first time that the right wing has targeted the Black Muslim MPP—since her election campaign, the Ford government, right-wing organizations and media outlets have tried to smear Jama as antisemitic without any evidence.
Former Jewish NDP MPP Rima Berns-McGown told The Breach that the PCs are going after Jama because she’s one of the only legislators asking critical questions about the government’s support for Israeli military aggression.
“If her voice isn’t there, they won’t have to answer those questions,” she said.
Jama’s initial statement, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, underlined what many human rights organizations have said about Israeli apartheid and the decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories.
It did not mention Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,400 Israelis, and Jama later issued an apology and condemned the violence.
Jama’s initial statement was criticized by Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, whose chief of staff also sent out a message to MPPs directing them to “not attend demonstrations related to the conflict at this time.” At the same time, Stiles echoed Jama’s call for de-escalation and a ceasefire.
The next day, Jama apologized. She and Stiles put out a joint statement that said the party stands against both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.
Since then, global condemnation has only grown of Israeli bombardment and a looming military invasion of Gaza, as United Nations officials warn of “mass ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
But now the PC government is demanding another apology and for Jama to take down her original statement—or else she won’t be able to represent her constituents in the legislature until her re-election.
Jama: ‘Human grief knows no bounds’
An email obtained by The Breach shows that Jama has already issued an additional, lengthy apology to her NDP colleagues.
“To every person who hasn’t felt seen, whose suffering has felt silenced by what I have said or by what I have left out where more words needed to be said, I am sorry,” Jama wrote.
“Human grief knows no bounds. Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, Palestinian or Israeli, wherever your kinship lies, I join with you in mourning the dead, the innocent lives lost, the families who no longer feel whole. I understand what it feels like to fear for your loved ones, to feel unsafe because of the complicated whirlwind of conflict and division around us.”
Just months ago, Jama was smeared as an antisemite during her election campaign.
Right-wing organizations, as well as a Toronto Sun journalist who has personal connections to the premier, attacked Jama and the Ontario NDP for nominating her. Their attacks were based on a video of Jama at a rally in 2021, where she made vague but legitimate comparisons between Israeli state violence against Palestinians and police violence worldwide.
Jama did not respond to a request for comment, but she previously told The Breach that her support for Palestinian human rights had been “used as a political tool” against her.
This time, the PCs are using their criticism of Jama to deflect from any questions about their own Greenbelt scandal, which saw the government remove environmental protections from extremely valuable land owned by private developers.
As Israel’s assault on Gaza escalates, Western countries around the world are cracking down on supporters of Palestine to a stunning extent.
France banned rallies in support of Palestinians and police used teargas and water cannons on protesters who defied the order. In the United Kingdom, a minister has told police that waving Palestinian flags or chanting slogans that criticize Israel could constitute a criminal offense.
Here in Canada, an employee of the federal Department of Fisheries is facing discipline because he wrote on social media that Western countries are aiding Israeli “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Gaza.
Will Ontario NDP shift on Israel?
While this is not the first time the PCs have used the issue to go after Jama, it’s also not the first time the issue has caused divisions in the Ontario NDP’s caucus.
Former MPP Berns-McGown, who represented Beaches—East York from 2018 to 2022, told The Breach that party staffers under former NDP leader Andrea Horwath told her not to speak about Israel and Palestine in public.
Berns-McGown was the NDP’s only Jewish MPP at the time. She wanted to take a stance against a slanted definition of antisemitism that was being used to silence critics of Israeli state policy.
“When the party doesn’t want to take the time and energy to sit down and talk about that, that’s a problem,” Berns-McGown said in an interview.
She said that Jama’s original statement gave the PCs a line of attack because it didn’t lead with “one sentence of compassion” for the Israelis who were killed by Hamas.
But Berns-McGown also said the NDP bears some responsibility, because the party can’t expect MPPs to know how to talk about this issue if it has stifled any conversation about it.
Ultimately, the former MPP said that politicians like Ford—who support Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has included cutting off food and water to civilians, dropping bombs on hospitals and the illegal use of white phosphorous gas—are on the “wrong side of history.”
UPDATE: A previous version of this article stated that if the PC motion passes, Jama will be unable to vote on legislation. The clerk of the legislature later told The Breach that his office is still determining whether that would be the case.
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