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Canada: Conservatives Win Big, but Not Lubavitch Candidate

by Joshua Runyan – Chabad.org

Mark Adler (L), Canada’s first Jewish Conservative MP, with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (R).

Riding a groundswell of support for the Conservative Party that will allow Prime Minister Stephen Harper to preside over his first-ever majority government, Toronto businessman and author Mark Adler won in the York Centre electoral district Monday, setting him up to become his party’s first-ever Jewish MP.

Adler trounced longtime Liberal MP Ken Dryden with 48.3 percent of the vote.

Nationally, Conservatives took 54 percent of the seats in Parliament with about 40 percent of the vote. Liberals came in third behind the New Democratic Party.

Still, Liberals were able to hold on to some seats, including in Quebec’s Mont Royal district, represented by Jewish MP Irwin Cotlar for more than a decade. Cotlar successfully fended off a challenge by Conservative candidate Saulie Zajdel, a Chabad-Lubavitch Chasid and director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital in Laval.

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9 Comments

  • Jewish MP Irwin Cotlar

    as a voter in montreal i can tell you that
    Jewish MP Irwin Cotlar is a lubavitcher
    he is very close and supports chabad on all levels and attends chabad!!! it was great to have to jewish lubavitchers run againts each other

  • #1

    Really? Your comment should be given ONLY as a personal opinion, not a statement of fact.

    I didn’t know it was Chabad’s policy to give millions of dollars to Hamas, condemn Israel on retaliations & sell out Jews in Israel, support both gay marriages and abortions… Should I continue?

    These are all things Cotler stands for and has done. Maybe you have an agenda because you stood behind him in Ottawa all the years he was an MP, but your rubber stamp does NOT make him one of us. Some of us don’t here have never voted for him and don’t respect him, or maybe you don’t hear what people say on the street, in shul (or on mikva.net)

    It’s really not cool to suck up for political perps when it goes against all those principals we hold so dear.

  • to # 2

    you obviously have no clue what you are talking about
    cotler attends chabad and helped chabad for the last 40 years

  • Do not agree

    I do not agree with comment number one at all.Saulie Zajdel has been there for the Lubavitch community for years!Helping the Yeshiva,Bais RIvka etc etc etc Some Hakoras Hatov please!

  • Milhouse

    #4, how does that make him a Lubavitcher? Does he put on tefilin? Does he keep Shabbos? Does he obey the Rebbe? If not, he’s not a Lubavitcher no matter how much of other people’s money he stuffs in your pockets.

  • L. Ariber

    Mark Adler is one of two new Jewish Conservative MP’s. Joe Oliver from Eglinton-Lawrence (next to Mark Adler’s riding) is also Jewish and was elected the same time. They are both the first Jewish Conservative MP’s.

    Irwin Cotler is a nice guy but not at all in-sinc with Torah values. He’s a warm, secular, Zionistic Jew who will be able to acomplish absolutely nothing for those deluded Jews who voted for him in Mount Royal (Montreal). He’s going to be out of the government for the next 4 lonely years and will have zero clout in Ottawa. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cotlar resign his seat somewhere down the road when it dawns on him he will be sitting almost all alone in parliament, not even in opposition and with next to nothing to do. That will then be Saulie Zajdel’s opportunity to run in a by-election and win what he richly deserves. Only then will Mount Royal Jews get useful representation in Ottawa.

  • Cotler and Chabad

    Kotler and Chabad have a history – not a very good one. In French Canadiana – Cotler is what we English Speaking Americans call Kotler.