Article contentNow, under the guise of “human rights,” activists are demanding that Tennis Canada, the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax Regional Municipality, Scotiabank Centre and the International Tennis Federation bar Israeli athletes from setting foot on Canadian soil. Their message could not be clearer: exclude Israel, silence its representatives, and erase its presence from public life, in sport, in culture, and beyond.Article contentThis is not a protest. It’s collective punishment.Article contentTo their credit, Tennis Canada has quietly rejected this pressure, stating that sport brings unity and must exist outside political conflict. That principle, that individuals should compete on merit, not suffer exclusion based on nationality, is at the heart of Canada’s sporting ethic.Article contentAthletics in this country has always been a space where politics takes a back seat to character and community. Canadians welcome competitors, even those from countries with whom we may strongly disagree, because engagement, dignity and mutual respect are part of what makes us a mature and inclusive democracy. We treat people as athletes and fellow human beings, not as political proxies to be cancelled or erased.Article contentArticle contentWhat is so disturbing about this campaign is its obsessive and targeted nature. No other nationality is told its very presence is unacceptable. Only Israelis are singled out and told they are not welcome. Afghanistan has a team competing, though it’s governed by the Taliban. China has a team, despite the country carrying out a possible genocide against its Uyghur population, and Iran has a team in the competition, despite the fact that the Islamic Republic has carried out widespread human rights violations and crimes against humanity, along with funding global terrorist organizations. Yet only the Jewish state has been singled out.Article contentWe know, from hard-learned history, where such logic leads. When Jews are told they are not welcome on the tennis court, it does not take long before they are told they do not belong on our campuses, stages or streets. Canadians must reject this trajectory absolutely, not only for the sake of Jewish Canadians and Israelis, but for the sake of who we are as a nation. These are not our values.Article contentArticle contentCanada has never shied away from difficult global conversations. But we conduct our debates through dialogue and democratic institutions, not by erasing people from our civic spaces. We do not exile artists or athletes because of their nationality. We do not allow the loudest agitators to decide who may and may not participate in the shared life of this country.Article contentHalifax finds itself at the centre of a fundamental test of Canadian values. To cancel this Davis Cup tie would be to capitulate to exclusionary pressure and to betray the openness and fairness that Canadians hold dear. Hosting the match does not endorse any government’s policies, it reaffirms the principle that in Canada, people are not erased because of where they come from.Article contentThis is not just about tennis. It is about the kind of country we choose to be.Article contentCasey Babb is director of the Promised Land Project at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and an adviser to Secure Canada in Toronto.Article contentAlan Kessel is a former legal adviser to the Government of Canada and a former deputy high commissioner of Canada to the United Kingdom. He is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.Article content
Opinion: Halifax can ace test of Canadian values by hosting Davis Cup event
