Marci Surkes remembers her Grade 6 class trip to Ottawa as being the first time the Montreal-raised lawyer got the bug to work in Canadian politics. Last week, she pulled the plug on fifteen years working on Parliament Hill as an advisor to former Liberal cabinet ministers and leaders including Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, and most recently to Justin Trudeau himself. Surkes left politics for some peace and quiet, and to teach and write. But not for ever.
“I think anyone who’s been involved in politics or in political life knows very well that, a little like [the song] ‘Hotel California,‘ I think you can check out any time you like, but you never leave,” said Surkes from her Ottawa home on Jan 31. “It’s something that gets in you. It’s deep within the core of what you believe in.”
Surkes, 40, took the job as executive director of policy and Cabinet affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office right at the start of the pandemic two years ago. That meant being in charge of all the Liberal government COVID programs, including CERB, and files such as Truth and Reconciliation, and banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ persons. It was also her job to set the timetable when to introduce news laws into parliament.
But as the most powerful Jewish woman in the PMO, Surkes also had the ear of the prime minister on everything to do with Jewish issues. That made her the point person for lobbyists such as The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which reported contacting her 139 times in the past year.
“There is no issue of concern to the Jewish community that I was not brought into to be part of that conversation, to weigh in to either run with, if appropriate, or at least to gauge my opinion on, certainly,” Surkes confirmed in a wide-ranging interview with The CJN Daily.
Antisemitism summit in July
Last June, when the Liberals announced the government would convene an emergency antisemitism summit in the wake of a spike in hate towards Jews and Israel, Surkes’ fingerprints were all over the event. She had advocated for it to take place, despite what she admits was an unfortunate rollout of the initial announcement. It was leaked out at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon June 11, via Twitter, by Jewish leaders.
“I think the reality is that government is often dancing at multiple parties at the same time…and maybe in that instance, the timing wasn’t exactly the right timing in terms of reaching the audience that the government was attempting to reach,” Surkes said, referring to how the news came out on social media first from CIJA, then Irwin Cotler, and finally, from the government. “But there was sort of no malice behind that. It’s just when things come together and when the information is ripe and ready.”
In the aftermath of the two-week war between Israel and Hamas in May, a deluge of antisemitic incidents and online hate had made Canadian Jews deeply uncomfortable in their own cities. Jewish groups began approaching her and other government members for a forum that was “desperately needed”.
The summit was held July 21, as a day-long online event, with Liberal cabinet ministers and the prime minister in attendance. The four main opposition leaders were initially not invited to participate, except as spectators, and that came about only after they raised a stink. Not even the only Jewish leader of a federal party at the time, Annamie Paul, was on the early guest list.
Surkes acknowledges that was unfortunate.
“I really think that the community benefits when representatives from all parties acknowledge and work together on these critical matters. So that’s my personal view on those things,” she said. “I hate to see Jewish issues be used as a political football, I think. I just don’t think that serves any of us.”
Liberal commitments to the Jewish community
The Liberal government took also took some flak from the Jewish community after Ottawa pledged $25 million towards Palestinian relief projects in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of the money was earmarked for UNRWA, which has espoused anti-Israel material and support for terrorism.
Yet Surkes remains proud of the summit, and the aftermath, including promised work which is still going on today.
The summit was “a pretty crucial moment” for deepening the Liberal government’s relationship and support for Canada’s Jewish community, she said.
She pointed to a long list of initiatives:
- Renewal of the mandate of Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, professor Irwin Cotler, for a second term
- Increasing the pot of funds available for reinforcing Jewish buildings under the government’s Security Infrastructure Projects to $8 million in 2021-2022
- Pledges Trudeau made at the Malmo, Sweden virtual conference in November 2021, to combat antisemitism and continue to support the IHRA definition of antisemitism
Truckers protest: Bill C-10
After turning in her secure office cellphone last week on her last day (she actually had to carry three cellphones with her during her tenure at the PMO, including her personal one and two from work), Surkes spent the weekend as a civilian as thousands of truckers protested on Parliament Hill. She watched as images of Nazi flags and protestors dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier became public.
“From a perspective of somebody who’s been working in the security landscape [chief of staff to former Liberal public security minister Ralph Goodale], the right wing extremism and that ideology has taken hold in a way that is very damning and damaging to society as a whole, to the Jewish community, to other communities of colour, other ethno-religious communities in this country, it’s very disturbing,” she said.
One remedy that she expects will be introduced this term, albeit later than planned, is the revised online hate legislation covering Internet companies. It would have expanded the scope of what constituted hate in the Criminal Code to take into account social media postings, among other content. The Liberals tabled the bill during the last Trudeau administration, but it did not pass and received much criticism for putting too strong a limit on freedom of speech.
She expects the revised bill will be more acceptable, because the government held consultations over the summer and into the fall.
“It’s given the government more to think about in terms of how we broach social media platforms, what the responsibilities are, what law enforcement’s role is to take this stuff down and get it out into the trash,” she said.
Trudeau’s secret Jewish weapons
If you watched Justin Trudeau’s greetings to the Jewish community which he delivered from Parliament Hill during an online national Hanukkah event on Dec. 1, he nailed the pronunciation of the words for happy holiday, or “Chag Sameach”. Marci Surkes takes a lot of the credit for teaching him “a thing or two” over the years.
“I’ve taught him how to pronounce Hebrew words properly with the appropriate Chhh at the end, so to speak,” she said, smiling.
However superficial that might seem, Surkes said it speaks to a deeper commitment to understand the Jewish community on other levels: from traveling to Auschwitz in 2016 with Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger, to his long friendship with Irwin Cotler, to his regular contact with Montreal Rabbi Adam Scheier of the Shaar HaShomayim synagogue.
“To this day, the prime minister thinks of Rabbi Sheier as his rabbi and trusted confidant and somebody who he turns to for wisdom and teaching and understanding,” Surkes revealed.
Although Surkes did not have direct say over the Liberals decision to welcome Fredericton Green Party MP Jenica Atwin in the summer when she crossed the floor, she was well aware of the outcry from Jewish groups. Atwin had tweeted about the Israel-Palestinian situation in May, and called Israel an apartheid state, among other things.
“Obviously the [Liberal] party does recruitment of candidates. I will say only this. I certainly understand the concerns that have been raised about her continued presence in caucus,” Surkes said. “She is working, has developed relationships with the Jewish members of our caucus and is, I think, coming to a place of a better understanding of why the words that she used were not the right words.”
Lego tribute
As the first week on civvy street comes to an end for Surkes, she admits it is a big adjustment –but a welcome one– to a slower pace since joining the PMO at the start of 2020. For the first time in a while, she’ll be around for the six-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son she’s raising with her partner Rabbi Dara Lithwick, an Ottawa lawyer and spiritual leader at a Reform synagogue, Temple Israel. She’s teaching a course at Carleton University’s school of public management, and lining up speaking engagements.
Surkes is not ready to write a tell-all book, just yet. Plus, she has some legal restrictions for now that prevent her from spilling government secrets.
“I am definitely interested in, at some point, having the opportunity to write about what I’ve experienced because I actually think it’s been a historic period for Canada and I’ve been right at the centre of it.”
Meanwhile she can bask in the sendoff she received Jan. 25 from an Ottawa social media account known as @PoliLEGO. She’s shown as a yellow toy Lego figure in a red shirts and gray pants, standing at a podium in front of a photo of a government conference table inside Parliament.
“You haven’t made it in this business until you make it on @polilego! Thank you for this wonderful surprise, and for continually showcasing the best of Parliament—humour, passion, and camaraderie. #cdnpoli”
