MONTREAL — Irwin Cotler arrived at a restaurant in this city’s Mile End neighborhood in a mini motorcade of six vehicles, all of them holding Canadian security agents. The protective force that has been assigned to him for 14 months accompanied him to his table, stood around with guns bulging in their frock coats and finally sat down to lunch themselves.
But that was nothing compared to the dinner, a few weeks later, to commemorate his life’s work, which included helping to release Nelson Mandela from South African imprisonment and to free Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky from imprisonment in the old Soviet Union. That evening, agents with machine guns stood at every door, guests went through airport-style magnetic screening and 10 giant Suburban vans sat idling outside, each with an armed security agent in the driver’s seat. I wandered outside to count them. The agents inside the vans did not welcome my presence on Metcalfe Street.
This is how Mr. Cotler has lived since Iran named the Canadian human rights crusader one of its principal enemies and, according to Canadian security personnel, planned his assassination.
The security cordon remains in place even if some putative assassins have been caught, for more may be dispatched. Mr. Cotler’s movements remain constrained. “This shows the dangers of transnational terrorism and assassinations,” he said over the telephone the other night, “because Iran sees no reason not to continue its international criminality.” Indeed, the regime in Tehran is not the forgiving sort, nor big on forgetting.
Then again, nor were the regimes in the many countries that have arrested him, or in Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union, which, among many others, have expelled him. In his line of work, being expelled is a sign of excellence.
“Irwin changed the moral compass of an entire society and changed the lives of millions,” said David Cohen, the American ambassador to Canada. “He has stood up against hate — loudly, unequivocally — as part of his effort to change the world. He has always chosen the relentless pursuit of justice. He always did what he must and stood up for what is right with unwavering moral courage.”
Our lunch that day may have been a pleasant diversion for Mr. Cotler, but the conversation at Estiatorio Milos wasn’t about the Canadiens hockey team or the current contretemps about the Quebec government’s effort to suppress the use of the English language on the streets of Montreal. Of course it wasn’t. Mr. Cotler remains focused on human rights, and between bites of lightly fried paper-thin zucchini and eggplant with saganaki cheese and tzatziki (“Don’t tell my wife”), he held forth on the Israel-Gaza war, Venezuela and the Iranian political prisoners whose release he has been advocating, a campaign that followed his pressure on the Canadian government to declare Iran a terrorist state.
He is 84 years old with miles to go — and dictatorships to assail — before he sleeps.
“There is no way to compete with Irwin as a human-rights advocate,” said Natan Sharansky, as the onetime refusenik, who served nine years in a Soviet prison with the name Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky, now is known.
Always Mr. Cotler’s talk is about work undone, though he already has done much — including carrying a handwritten note from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that opened the door to their peace treaty. An accomplished multitasker, he used the mission to meet the woman who became Ariela Cotler. The two married the day after the accord was signed. They have sparred, mostly about his diet and sometimes about Israeli politics, over the kitchen table for nearly a half-century.
Mr. Cotler is international chair of the Raul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights. As a boy, he took to heart a mere five words from the Book of Deuteronomy: “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”
“This has been Cotler’s guiding principle throughout his life,” said Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, who spoke of “some of the trouble Irwin has caused along the way.”
It was what the late Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a legendary figure in the American Civil Rights Movement, once called “good trouble.”
Last month, the Canadian Parliament put aside its differences, unanimously condemned Iran and stated that the House of Commons “salutes Mr. Irwin Cotler’s contribution to the defence of human rights and the fight against racism and antisemitism.”
No matter — or maybe it’s a matter of great significance, demonstrating the range of support Mr. Cotler has across the spectrum of Canadian politics — that the resolution came from the nationalist Bloc Quebecois party, which advocates the secession of Quebec from Canada, a position Mr. Cotler deplores. And for those with an eye to political nuance, the tiny type listing the sponsors of the commemorative dinner with all the security agents included former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and his successor, the Conservative Stephen Harper. Otherwise, they agree on almost nothing.
Mr. Martin appointed Mr. Cotler attorney general and minister of justice. Mr. Cotler then appointed Rosalie Silberman Abella to Canada’s Supreme Court, where as the first Jewish woman and first refugee to serve on the bench, she fought for employment equity and worked for same-sex marriage. The two have been a tag team of high purpose and deep conscience for decades.
For her part, Justice Abella refers to Mr. Cotler as “Canada’s greatest gift to the world” and characterizes him as “a cross between Louis Brandeis and Mother Teresa.” But she’s clear-eyed about her co-conspirator. “Irwin has no sense of work-life balance,” she said. “It doesn’t appear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Some of his human rights work was performed at home, in his native country, where he appointed Harry LaForme the first indigenous person on an appellate court in Canada. At the time, Mr. LaForme asked Mr. Cotler why he had been selected. Mr. Cotler’s answer was as eloquent as it was brief: “Who is better to deal with justice than someone who lived in injustice?”
Two decades ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) undertook an effort to determine the greatest Canadian of all time. Some 10,000 names were submitted. The winner was Tommy Douglas, the father of the Canadian single-payer universal health care system. I’ve studied Mr. Douglas’ life, which included being the head of the New Democratic Party and the leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. He was a great man. Even so, with Mr. Cotler as my choice, I’m calling for a recount.
A Swampscott High School Class of 1972 member, David M. Shribman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
