Canada: Anti-Israel Ontario MPP loses Superior Court bid to overturn her legislative censure

Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Sarah Jama, although elected as a public servant in Canada, has taken up the mantle to serve the Palestinian “resistance.” She has even hollered “globalize the intifada” at a campus encampment, and was ejected from the Ontario legislature for refusing to abide by a keffiyeh ban. Her latest defeat comes after Ontario Superior court struck down her bid to overturn a legislative censure. It’s a big loss for Jama, an icon of the Palestinian “resistance” inside the Ontario government.

“Courts can’t save pro-Palestinian MPP Sarah Jama from parliamentary exile,” by Colby Cosh, National Post, May 29, 2024:

A three-judge Ontario Superior Court panel published its widely foreseen ruling against Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama, the pro-Palestine chauvinist who was censured by the legislature last October. Three days after the Hamas murder and kidnapping rampage that sickened the world, Jama sent out a tweet denouncing Israel, calling for an end to “all occupation of Palestinian land” and to the Jewish state’s “apartheid” policies.

It was nothing she hadn’t been saying for decades, and if she said it now, with the memory of the October 7 pogrom fading fast on the political left, there might not be so much fuss. In the moment it looked like appalling wormbrained opportunism even to her NDP colleagues, who soon ushered her out of their caucus. The day after Jama’s offending tweet, she apologized and found the strength to write “To be clear, I unequivocally condemn terrorism by Hamas on thousands of Israeli civilians.”

Despite the new-found clarity (which was mixed with denials of the use of sexual violence by Hamas), the legislative assembly voted on Oct. 18 to censure Jama and to authorize the Speaker not to recognize her on the floor. She is still now condemned to invisibility in debates of the full assembly, although she is allowed to participate in committees and vote.

This led her to launch a lawsuit against the Speaker seeking judicial review of his decision to allow a vote on the censure motion. Despite the patent improbability of her cause, she found lawyers willing to go looking for unknown holes in the ancient constitutional axiom of parliamentary privilege.

The left leaning Hamilton Spectator has called Jama’s past comments “offensive and dangerous,” referencing them as “riddled with antisemitism, anti-Israel sentiments.”

Parliamentary privilege is a key concept. It bears a similarity to the professionalism expected of non-elected citizens with respect to their jobs. For example, a teacher who would litter social media pages with vulgarities and swearing could expect consequences, as could a cop who publicly articulates how much he or she might want to punch out an obnoxious neighbor. Ditto for a priest or minister who recklessly posted on X about his hatred or lusts. Jama is an Ontario politician who is serving a foreign agenda that seeks to annihilate a democratic state, and she proclaims it on social media.

Somehow Jama thought it was acceptable as an Ontario MPP to spread her hatred on X after the worst attack ever on Israeli citizens. She then continued to push the “resistance agenda” and holler “globalize the intifada” — a call for violence by rabid pro-jihad Palestinians.

Jama has no place in the legislature at all. As a public servant, she’s fomenting hatred against the Jewish people, and promoting the annihilation of a state. In a country where the freedom merely to criticize Islam and the aggressive transgender agenda are restricted under a woke prime minister, Jama has not only breached parliamentary privilege and caused costly disruptions in the legislature, but her seething antisemitism and call to globalize the violent Palestinian “resistance” may have crossed legal lines, according to Section 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code with regards to hate. She’s also tying up valuable legislative time to serve her agenda.