The Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Canada
Articles
The Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Canada
Articles

The Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Canada

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Owen Schalk covers the history of the Canadian state’s repression of Palestine solidarity activism both before and after October 7, 2023. 

Pro-Palestine Protestors in Montreal, May 15, 2021.

Since October 7, 2023, the Canadian state has imposed draconian measures against its own population with the goal of destroying organized opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The mainstream media is an active and eager participant in this campaign of political repression against critics of the Israeli state and Canadian foreign policy.

After the al-Aqsa Flood operation of October 7 and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, nationwide protests swept Canada in support of the Palestinian people fighting illegal Israeli occupation. Similar protests erupted across other Western countries against governments that diplomatically and materially support the Israeli state, including the US, France, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Canadian state institutions and media swiftly condemned the solidarity movement. Many people sympathetic to Palestine were fired for their views, journalists at major Canadian networks were censored for covering Israeli crimes, politicians and news outlets spread misinformation about the protest movement, politicians called for the deportation of activists, and police violently attacked the solidarity movement and allowed non-state intimidation by Zionist groups. These repressive methods aim to crush a protest movement that wants to end Canadian complicity in Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, which the International Criminal Court (ICJ) has labelled a plausible genocide.

The Canadian state has spent millions and burnt much of its global reputation in order to continue backing Israel’s regional wars and repressing the domestic Palestine solidarity movement. This is partly because, as settler colonial states built and maintained through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, the Canadian and Israeli states sympathize with one another, even at the cost of global isolation. Valerie Zinck, a solidarity organizer in Vancouver and Regine, puts it thusly: “Canada provided Israel with a blueprint for state formation as a settler society. Canada’s abiding support of Israel – from its inception until now – is not a coincidence; both colonial projects are incomplete and invested in the other’s future.”1 As Indigenous organizer Su Deranger explains, “Everything they did to us is being done to [the Palestinians], except they have better technology now.”2

Canada and the Partition Plan

In 1917, the British government’s Balfour Declaration declared its support for a Jewish state in Arab-majority Palestine, and during its period of mandate rule (1920-1948), Britain facilitated the emigration of Zionist settlers to Palestine en masse, leading to the Nakba–the eventual expulsion of over 700,000 Arabs from their land. As renowned Palestinian intellectual Edward Said writes, the Balfour Declaration was “made by a European power…about a non-European territory…in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory.”3

In 1947, following decades of Arab revolt and Zionist paramilitary violence through groups like Irgun and the Stern Gang, Britain referred the matter of Palestine’s future government to the UN General Assembly. Lester B. Pearson, Canada’s then undersecretary for external affairs and future prime minister, chaired the committee that established the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). Both Pearson and Ivan C. Rand, Canada’s lead representative to UNSCOP, supported the partition of mandatory Palestine into ethnically segregated Jewish and Arab states.4

According to the Partition Plan that prominent Canadians helped create (also known as UN Resolution 181), the Jewish state would comprise 56 percent of Palestine, despite the fact that Jews in Palestine made up only one-third of the population and owned only seven percent of the land. The Arabs, by contrast, would be given 42 percent of Palestine. Elizabeth MacCallum, the Canadian government’s first specialist on the Middle East, dissented from the Canadian government, arguing that the UN had no right to divide Palestine against the wishes of the majority of its population. Lester B. Pearson ignored MacCallum’s advice, leading the Canadian government’s top Middle East expert to declare that “we didn’t give two hoots for democracy.”5

Following Zionist paramilitaries’ dispossession and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of villages and property, and the killing of at least 15,000 Palestinians, the state of Israel was founded on May 14, 1948. One day later, a coalition of Arab states declared war on Israel, but after ten months of fighting, both sides signed the Armistice Agreement of 1949 to end the fighting. At the war’s conclusion, the Jewish state controlled about 78 percent of what was once Mandatory Palestine – 22 percent more territory than the UN Partition Plan had allotted. Rather than decrying Israel’s violation of Resolution 181, Canada welcomed the creation of the Jewish state. Pearson told the UN General Assembly, “I do not deny for a moment that it is a difficult circumstance for the Arab states to accept, but it is nevertheless the case.”6

Profiting from Zionism

In subsequent episodes of Israeli state violence – 1956, 1967, 1973, 2006, 2014, 2021, 2023–Canada backed Israel. Ottawa’s support extends to the UN, where the Canadian government refuses to join the majority of the world in voting against Israel’s illegal occupation of Arab lands. In 2020, the Trudeau government even pressured the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stop investigating Israeli war crimes, as according to Global Affairs Canada, “the Court does not have jurisdiction in this matter.”7

The Canadian arms industry sells millions of dollars worth of weaponry to Israel. These sales skyrocketed as Israel launched its genocidal assault on Gaza in late 2023.8 Canadian universities are investors in major arms companies that profit from Israeli destruction–McGill, for example, invests in nine of the top 100 largest weapons manufacturers, which helps explain university administration’s heavy-handed response to anti-genocide protests in 2023 and 2024.9 Awz Ventures, a firm in which former prime minister Stephen Harper is a partner, has invested $350 million into supporting Israel’s security industry.10 Further, registered charities funnel money to the Israeli military in violation of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) policy. Ottawa refuses to enforce these laws, while the Israeli government flouts the Foreign Enlistment Act by funding recruitment efforts on Canadian soil.

In addition to serving Western governments’ interests in the region, disciplining sovereign states from Nasser’s Egypt to Assad’s Syria to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel is a source of profit for Canadian companies and their connected political figures. As a result, Israel exists in a state of “legal exceptionalism,” as lawyer Shane Martinez puts it, wherein the Israeli government can openly flout CRA policy, the Foreign Enlistment Act, UN resolutions, and international law without any pushback from the Canadian state.

Palestine Solidarity in Canada

Unlike the state that governs them, organizers in Canada and Indigenous nations have long supported Palestinians in their struggle against occupation, dispossession, and apartheid. In 1976, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish visited Vancouver, where he recited a poem onstage with Indigenous activist and author Lee Maracle. After Darwish passed away, Maracle wrote a poem titled “Remembering Mahmoud.” On the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinians in 2003, John Boncore (“Splitting the Sky”), an activist who took part in the Gustafsen Lake standoff, shared a Vancouver stage with the parents of late US activist Rachel Corrie, who was murdered by the IDF earlier that year.

In 2012, Idle No More released a statement in support of the Palestinian cause: “We recognize the deep connections and similarities between the experiences of our peoples – settler colonialism, destruction and exploitation of our land and resources, denial of our identity and rights, genocide and attempted genocide.”11 Six years later, Larry Commodore, an Indigenous activist from the Soowahlie community of the Stó:lō Nation near Vancouver, participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, where he was assaulted by Israeli soldiers.

The Canadian labour movement has a long history of solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1988, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) condemned “the senseless, brutal violence used by Israel against demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza.” The CLC also sent study groups to Palestine to learn about the oppressive conditions there. In the same year, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) urged Ottawa to condemn the US government’s decision to bar Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), from speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York.12 Today, Labour for Palestine continues this tradition of solidarity.

The sovereigntist movement in Quebec, particularly the militant wing, took inspiration from the Palestinian struggle. In 1981, the PLO opened its first information office in Montreal. That year, the Parti Québécois invited PLO representatives to its 8th Congress, marking the first time that a political party in North America had invited the PLO to such an event.13

Despite the strength of the solidarity movement in Canada, Ottawa’s pro-Israel policies have not changed. If anything, they have grown more anti-Palestinian in the past twenty years.

In 2006, the Harper government cut funding for the Canadian Arab Federation and Palestine House. In a speech justifying the cuts, Minister Jason Kenney claimed that “integration” is the goal of Canadian multiculturalism policy, implying that Palestine solidarity is somehow foreign to Canada. Kenney stated: “…our immigration program, our citizenship program, our multiculturalism program must increasingly focus on integration, on the successful and rapid integration of newcomers to Canadian society, and on a deepening understanding of the values, symbols and institutions that are rooted in our history.”14

Evidently, the government did not consider Palestine solidarity to fit within “Canadian values.” Palestinian Canadian activist Rafeef Ziadah concludes: “Palestinian and Palestine solidarity groups…find themselves marginalised and silenced through an ongoing process that brands them as ‘extreme’ and ‘outside the norms of civility.’”15

Since October 7, Ottawa has ramped up this marginalization, including by listing the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terrorist organization.

In 2019, Canada adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which lists opposition to the Israeli state as a form of antisemitism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health orders were weaponized against Palestine solidarity, with tickets issued to organizers that imposed a minimum fine of $10,000 and a maximum fine of $100,000, with the possibility of one year in jail.16

In October 2022, Independent Jewish Voices, a grassroots Canadian Jewish organization committed to anti-racism and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis, published a report that argued Palestine solidarity activists in Canada face a “concerted, organized, funded campaign of harassment [and] intimidation” for their activities, from the state as well as pro-Israel organizations.17

Firing, Suspension, Demonization

Since the October 7 attack, Canadians have endured censorship, job loss, smear campaigns, state and non-state intimidation, and overt police violence for supporting Palestinians’ rights and organizing against Canadian involvement in Israeli crimes. A December 2023 CBC article noted, “Restaurant staff losing their jobs for cheering on a pro-Palestinian protest. A Palestinian Canadian journalist fired for her social media posts calling for a #freepalestine. Medical residents flagged to potential hiring committees for their support of Palestinians.”

Toronto-based labour lawyer Jackie Esmonde said, “I can tell you personally, in the last month and a half, I’ve probably spoken with someone at least once a day [about this]…I’m not seeing people making what I would consider hate speech or discriminatory speech.” By contrast, there were no reported cases of Canadians losing their job for pro-Israel views.18 Within the first month and a half of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, The Maple identified at least 16 people in Canada who were fired for their pro-Palestine views.19

Universities targeted students who expressed solidarity with Palestine. Dr. Yipeng Ge, a student at the University of Ottawa, was suspended for a pro-Palestine social media post. The same thing happened to a culinary instructor at George Brown College named Bashir Munye, a nursing student at the University of Manitoba, and a nephrologist at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital. At the same time, pro-Israel groups compiled the names of people who expressed solidarity with Palestine in order to share them with possible employers. The censorship campaign led 650 lawyers, law students, and professors across Canada to release an open letter noting the “chilling effect” on freedom of speech in the nation’s legal community.

The suspensions did not stop there:

At least six doctors and healthcare workers were suspended at Toronto’s SickKids hospital for social media posts supporting Palestinians while doctors at St. Michael’s around the corner were allowed to share an hour-long lecture about Israel to staff and students. Another half dozen physicians were removed from their roles assessing medical students’ residency applications at Queen’s University because they signed a petition calling for a ceasefire.  Meanwhile, medical schools are silent when it comes to doctors and a program director disseminating a list of students who signed the same petition with the intention of influencing their medical residency applications.20

As public outrage over Israel’s war on Gaza spread across the country, CSIS publicly demonized Palestine solidarity activists, accusing them of “violent rhetoric” and of harbouring “extremist actors…intent to mobilize to violence.”21

The McGill Encampment

University students took a prominent role in the Palestine solidarity movement, establishing encampments on campuses across the country. The first solidarity encampment in Canada was built at McGill, though the camp was a joint effort of universities across Montreal, a city with a long history of student protest and a strong solidarity movement.

Even before October 7, the McGill administration was openly hostile to Palestine solidarity on campus. In the winter of 2022, the student body voted 71 percent in favour of a Palestine solidarity policy put forward by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). The popular policy called for boycott and divestment from “all corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinian” and called for McGill to condemn “surveillance or smear campaigns against Palestinian and pro-Palestine students.” In response to the policy’s resounding victory, McGill’s administration threatened to withhold funding from the SSMU, an elected body that represents approximately 24,000 undergraduate students.22

On November 20, 2023, students voted 78 percent in favour of SSMU’s Policy Against Genocide in Palestine. A single pro-Israel student filed an injunction against the policy, which a Quebec superior court judge granted, suspending the policy in a brazenly anti-democratic fashion.23

After establishing the McGill encampment in support of Palestinians, organizers on campus and in the community reported being “ignored, rebuffed, suppressed, and even threatened by the university.” Meanwhile, McGill administrators instructed deans and teachers to bar discussion of the solidarity camps in their classrooms.24

The McGill administration offered official condemnations of its students, claiming without evidence that the students’ actions were antisemitic, illegal, and influenced by outside agitators. Shortly thereafter, encampments sprang up across the country, erected by students willing to risk their financial security, future education and job prospects, and physical wellbeing to protest university involvement in Israeli crimes.

Across campuses, demands were similar: full transparency from administrations regarding investments in companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine; divestment from complicit companies; the severing of ties with Israeli economic institutions; institutional condemnation of the genocide; protection of students’ right to protest; institutional condemnation of Israel’s actions; and a call from university administrations for the Canadian government to halt arms sales to Israel.

Within twenty-four hours of the McGill camp going up, the university requested police intervention, effectively encouraging the state to perpetrate violence against its own students. “The encampment is illegal,” said Premier François Legault, “the law must be respected, so I expect the police to dismantle these illegal campsites, which is what McGill has requested.”25 The next day, university security delivered an in-person warning to the protestors and demanded they leave. After that, police and private security forcibly cleared the students and destroyed the encampment with excavators and bulldozers.

A participant at the McGill encampment claimed to have witnessed Zionist counter-protestors assaulting student protestors in full view of McGill security.26 Meanwhile, the University of Toronto allowed a Zionist vigilante group called Defenders of Freedom Canada to mobilize on campus. The group works closely with J-Force, a private security firm that aims to intimidate Palestine solidarity protests. The Jewish Defence League (JDL), which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group and the US government classifies as a terrorist organization, also mobilized on campus. These Zionist counter-protestors waved the fascist Kahane Chai flag and chanted “Let’s make Gaza a parking lot.”27

In the aftermath of the fascist counter-protest, the University of Toronto’s Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) held a press conference in which they called on the university to ban such hate groups from campus. MSA President Mohamad Yassin stated, “When terrorist-associated groups roam freely on our campus shouting hateful and Islamophobic remarks at our students, the administration did nothing…President [Meric] Gertler, Vice-Provost [Students] Sandy Welsh, where are your statements affirming student safety now?” The MSA press conference did not receive mainstream press coverage.28

Accusations of antisemitism against the protests fell apart under the slightest scrutiny, most obviously because Jewish students and faculty were prominently represented in the encampments. One visitor to the McGill camp noted, “For a supposed hotbed of antisemitism, the scene at McGill’s Gaza protest encampment was distinctly Jewish: giant bottles of kosher grape juice and matzah bread piled on the ground, the fixings for a Passover dinner.”29 Raoul, a McGill law student, said, “There are a lot of Jewish brothers and sisters in this camp. The notion that all Jewish people are a certain way is antisemitic.”30

It is clear that antisemitism accusations were intended to obscure the actual structure and goals of the protests, and to justify the use of state violence to repress the students’ demands for transparency, divestment, and condemnation of Israeli atrocities.

Encampments Across Canada

State denunciations of the students came from across the official political spectrum: Legault, Ontario premier Doug Ford, Prime Minister Trudeau. Albertan authorities took a notably repressive position. Sixteen hours after students erected the University of Calgary encampment, police violently cleared it at the behest of the administration. “They attacked us after we packed up,” said protest participants:

After all the tents in the encampment had been removed, without provocation, the police launched a sudden and violent attack on what remained of our peaceful assembly. They charged towards us, struck us with batons and shields, and fired pepper balls and grenades at us. They threw protesters, including students, to the ground and beat them severely. Several people sustained concussions. A mother of two students had her rib fractured by police.31

After the attack, two police vans trailed participant Katy Anderson to her house. Anderson had suffered a concussion in the assault after being hit with police shields, kicked, and pepper sprayed. “They followed me all the way until I reached my parking lot at the back alley of my apartment building,” she said. The next day, University of Calgary president Ed McCauley falsely claimed there were “no injuries” in the violent police dispersal of the encampment.32

Alberta premier Danielle Smith welcomed the violence and encouraged similar repression against University of Alberta students, stating: “I’m glad that the University of Calgary made the decision that they did. I’ll watch and see what the University of Alberta learns from what they observed in Calgary.” A few days later, Edmonton police attacked and dispersed the University of Alberta encampment. In response, Alberta legal scholars suggested that the violent action against encampments may have been a violation of the students’ Charter rights.33

At the University of Toronto, administrators requested a court injunction to clear the students. The university received its injunction in July 2024, and the encampment was closed. Calgary, Alberta, York University and Laval University all dispersed their encampments without injunctions. At the University of Manitoba, the encampment disbanded to avoid legal action by the administration, while at the University of Winnipeg, solidarity activists dismantled their camp because they feared for their safety.34

Administrators and politicians spread immense amounts of misinformation about the student encampments:

…presidents at universities of McGill and Victoria made false claims about student actions and spread misinformation about violence that students were not responsible for. In another case, a professor at University of Toronto conferred with police after a student made a short presentation about the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in class. In public statements that were frequently amplified by the media, university presidents accused encampments of being unsafe spaces and spreading hatred. But in spite of the heightened surveillance, administrators from Victoria to Toronto have still shared no evidence of their public claims.35

Media Mobilizes for Israel

The mainstream media went along with the smear campaign, describing the encampments using negative, subjective terminology. In The Globe and Mail, nearly half of the sentences used to describe student protestors were negative, including words like “hateful,” “violent,” and “hostile.” The Toronto Sun and the National Post called the solidarity camps “a threat to humanity’s values” and “a threat to Canada.”36

However, media involvement in the suppression of Palestine solidarity went beyond misrepresenting student protests. Pro-Palestine journalists were fired by media outlets for their statements, while outlets repressed factual information to ensure a pro-Israel bias.

At Global News, a Palestinian Canadian journalist named Zahraa Al-Akhrass was fired for pro-Palestine posts, which the outlet claimed “advocate[d] for violence” and constituted “serious, journalistic bias.” A manager had previously ordered Al-Akhrass to remove posts critical of government officials, as well as posts that contained the hashtags #freepalestine, #gazaunderattack, and #gazagenocide.37

CTV suppressed use of the word “Palestine” in its coverage, creating a “culture of fear” at the network in order to shield Israel from criticism. Journalists working at platforms owned by Bell Media, CTV’s parent company, reported widespread anti-Palestinian bias:

The journalists said senior producers and senior editors across the platforms of CTV’s parent company Bell Media have disparaged Palestinian guests, told employees that protests calling for a ceasefire should not be reported on, and blocked or delayed stories that included too much contextual information about Israel’s military occupation and regime of apartheid in Palestine. The journalists, who are not being identified for fear of retribution, described a widespread bias at the media conglomerate against Palestinians that’s resulted in one-sided, incomplete coverage of the violence in Gaza that does “a huge disservice” to Canadians.38

An analysis of thousands of sentences published by The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the National Post found that “[t]he largest Canadian newspapers have given disproportionate attention to the deaths of Israelis, portrayed Israelis in more humanized ways, characterized their deaths as more worthy of indignation, and more often identified who was responsible for killing them.”39 The bias in Canadian media has resulted in “sanitizing political violence against Palestinians and unequally stirring emotions about Israeli deaths.”

For its part, the CBC responded to complaints of biased coverage by claiming that Israeli killings of Palestinians do not merit the words “murderous” or “brutal” (words the network used to describe Hamas actions against Israelis) because the killings happen “remotely.”40

In May 2024, The Breach published an anonymous essay from a long-time CBC producer. The essay accused Canada’s public broadcaster of “whitewashing the horrors that Israel would visit on Palestinians in Gaza…[W]hile virtually no scrutiny was applied to Israeli officials and experts, an unprecedented level of suspicion was being brought to bear on the family members of those trapped in Gaza.” When the producer tried to remedy this bias, they faced severe pushback:

I expressed concern to my team about the frequency of Palestinian guests getting cancelled, the scrutiny brought to bear on their statements, and the pattern of double standards in our coverage. After this, I pitched a reasonable and balanced interview: two genocide scholars with opposing views discussing whether Israel’s actions and rhetoric fit the legal definition of the crime. Senior colleagues sounded panicked. My executive producer replied that we had to be “careful not to put hosts in a difficult position.” They wanted time to consult with higher-ups before making a decision. A few hours later, I was sitting across from the same executive, being warned about “crossing the line”…I pointed out that the network was deemed a suitable place for interviews with guests who characterized Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s oppression of the Uighurs as instances of genocide. The managers looked uncomfortable. I was reassigned to work on a panel with two guests calling on the West to support regime change in Moscow and Tehran.41

Well before October 7, the CBC refused to cover Israeli crimes against Palestinians. The producer wrote: “Here are some of the TV interview ideas that a colleague and I pitched but had turned down: Human Rights Watch’s 2021 report designating Israel an apartheid state; the Sheikh Jarrah evictions in the same year; Israel assassinating Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022; and the Israeli bombing of the Jenin refugee camp in July 2023.” In 2021, hundreds of Canadian journalists signed an open letter condemning CBC’s one-sided coverage of Israel-Palestine.42

After October 7, CBC guests who spoke about Israeli atrocities and Canadian complicity in these crimes had their interviews cancelled, despite the fact that their statements aligned with UN findings and Western human rights organizations. Coverage of student protests was edited to imply that the students were “siding” with Hamas. Around this time, a CBC employee accused the anonymous producer of antisemitism, despite the producer being of Jewish background. The producer resigned shortly thereafter.43

CBC claimed that the essay’s “broad conclusions are not true,” but following publication, numerous employees contacted The Breach to share similar experiences at Canada’s public broadcaster. They assert that the CBC’s anti-Palestinian bias has become a workplace safety issue. “I have seen egregious things happen,” said one employee, “like them putting on an Israeli official in the middle of December and letting him go off about beheaded babies and how Hamas is coming for us in Toronto and Vancouver and not challenging him.”44

Surveillance, Infiltration, Police Raids

Amid the media and ruling class’s sanitization of Israeli atrocities, obfuscation of Canadian participation in the crimes, and demonization of Palestine solidarity, Canadian state forces have infiltrated and repressed the broader solidarity movement.

The “Indigo 11,” a group of activists who postered Indigo bookstores and painted their windows red to draw attention to owner Heather Reisman running a foundation to recruit foreigners into Israel’s military, were arrested in aggressive pre-dawn raids on November 22, 2023: “[Police] broke doors, ordered suspects out of their beds, and went on to completely ransack every single room and confiscate computers, cars and other private property, in some cases in the presence of terrified children and the elderly.”45 The operation against the Indigo 11 likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Irina Ceric, a law professor at the University of Windsor, said, “It appears to be an attempt to intimidate and terrorize these activists.”46

In November 2023, five people were arrested and criminally charged for protesting at the 2024 Giller Prize ceremony against Scotiabank’s investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. On Human Rights Day in December 2023, police assaulted and arrested a solidarity activist in Toronto.47 Horse-mounted police attacked a Palestine solidarity gathering at a 2024 Land Day event. Four people were hospitalized and several others suspected they had suffered concussions. As one participant recalled:

[Police] are pushing and pulling and yanking protestors and slamming them onto the ground over rows of bikes, they are grabbing people every which possible way, including by the neck, people were bloodied and hurt, people had to be sent to the hospital. And then as if on cue – the mounted police on gigantic horses come straight down side by side on Parliament trampling people left and right.48

In May, police in riot gear used tear gas and batons to repress a street protest in Montreal. That same month, Vancouver police violently dispersed a rail blockade. Following the police attack, three legal groups filed police brutality complaints against VPD officers, including an officer who wore an Israeli flag patch and a Punisher skull.49 The groups allege that the VPD have “allowed anti-Palestinian racism to persist within its ranks”–a statement that could apply to Canadian politicians and media as well.

A secretive team in the Toronto Police Service’s Hate Crimes Unit, known as Project Resolute, has specifically targeted Palestine solidarity activists, recalling the anti-communist Red Squads of early-twentieth century Canada. Under Project Resolute, officers have executed night-time raids of activists’ homes. The ransacking of one Palestinian Canadian family’s home was so violent that a family member stated, “It took us back to our life in the West Bank, when Israeli soldiers raided our home.”50

As part of Resolute, police have engaged in actions including “pre-dawn raids, snatching people on the street, trying to turn arrested individuals into informants, showing up unannounced at university lectures, and capitalizing on years of surveilling activist movements.” Kevin Walby, a criminal justice professor at the University of Winnipeg, called these acts “the height of political policing.” He added, “the police aren’t acting to target everyone consistently… It’s driven by pervasive anti-Palestinian sentiment among government officials. And it undermines the very idea of hate speech law when police apply the charges so selectively to serve political interests.”51 According to one officer, Project Resolute has set up a “fully-integrated intelligence sharing mode” with the RCMP and CSIS, allowing all of Canada’s repressive agencies to more easily spy on the Palestine solidarity movement.

Meanwhile, the so-called “Hate Crime Working Group” within the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General has backed the targeting of Palestine activism and expressed “commitment to the state of Israel.” The group’s co-chair, Karen Shai, referred to a Palestine solidarity activist as a “terrorist.”52 At the same time, the Ontario government banned keffiyehs in the provincial legislature, leading to the ejection of elected representative Sarah Jama.

According to Walby, these actions constitute “strategic incapacitation” of “groups that threaten the political order… The tactics also include bogus or trumped up charges, early morning raids, and surveillance and strategic intelligence to know as much as possible about activist communications.”53

Destroying Solidarity Through Deportation and Immigration Controls

Some pro-Israel people and groups have called for political deportations and stricter immigration controls in order to destroy the solidarity movement in Canada. Political deportation efforts do exist in Canada, as the state’s attempted deportation of environmentalist Zain Haq shows, and some politicians, including BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad and Hampstead mayor Jeremy Levi, have called for similar actions to be taken against the Palestine solidarity movement. They have been supported by Zionist groups like B’nai Brith, which has called for the deportation of Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, the wider “deportation of extremists,” and “stricter immigration controls.”54

Thomas Carrique, Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, directly blamed immigration for the spike in protest activity, ignoring Canadians’ widespread horror over Israeli crimes. “Through immigration,” he said, “thousands of people, who may have had an orientation towards violence as a means of expression or activism, continue to arrive in Canada every year… Protests are an opportunity for the blending of other activist splinter groups, or simply thugs…”55 The language of “splinter groups” and “thugs” shows how much anti-terrorist rhetoric, and language with racialized connotations, infuse the repressive state apparatus in Canada.

Despite calls for restricting “extremism” through stricter immigration controls, little more than 200 Gazans have been able to enter Canada since the start of Israel’s genocide. They have faced extreme scrutiny from authorities, including “questions about scars on the bodies of the applicant’s family members, a complete history of their employment since age 16, a list of all addresses where they had lived and all their social media handles.”56 By contrast, almost 300,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada since the Russian invasion as part of an unlimited visa program.57

Israel’s Mass Murder and “Canadian Values”

As of November 2024, the Israeli military has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The number may be much higher: according to a Lancet article from July 2024, as many as 186,000 Palestinians have been directly or indirectly killed by Israel’s assault.58

Since invading Lebanon on October 1, 2024, Israel has killed almost 3,000 Lebanese and wounded nearly 13,000 more. Yet Canadian-made weapons continue flowing to the IDF, while the state spends millions repressing Canadians who are horrified over the complicity of Canadian companies and institutions in these atrocities.

Why does the Canadian state support Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and its aggressive war against Lebanon? Moreover, why is the state so preoccupied with repressing those who oppose its pro-Israel policy? Because Canadian leaders believe that Canada benefits from its closeness to Israel, through weapons sales, investments, and the disciplining of nationalist forces that threaten Western dominance of the region’s resources and labour.

Based on the available evidence, it seems Ottawa does not care that its ruthlessly anti-Palestinian domestic and foreign policies have led to global isolation, relegating Canada to the handful of nations whose governments have continued arming Israel’s rampage despite international condemnation and calls for peace.

For the Canadian elite, the problem is not Israeli settler colonialism, the illegal occupation of Arab lands, fascist Zionist paramilitaries in Canada, the open flouting of CRA policy and the Foreign Enlistment Act, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, or the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The problem is that a massive portion of the Canadian population is horrified by anti-Palestinian oppression and murder and wants an end to Israel’s legal exceptionalism in Canada.

Put simply: according to the Canadian state, widespread horror over the mass murder of Arabs does not fit with “Canadian values.” Therefore, those who organize against it must be suppressed.

 

 

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  1. Quoted in Halena Seiferling, “The more they oppress, the less safe they feel,” Briarpatch 44, no. 2, (2015), 12.
  2. Quoted in Seiferling, “The more they oppress,” 12.
  3. Quoted in Zena Al Tahhan, “More than a century on: The Balfour Declaration explained,” Al Jazeera, November 2, 2018, www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/11/2/more-than-a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-explained.
  4. Yves Engler, Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt (Fernwood Publishing, 2012), 37.
  5. Quoted in Bahija Réghaï and Cathryn Atkinson, “Al Nakba: Expelled from home and native land but not from history,” Rabble, May 14, 2010, rabble.ca/anti-racism/al-nakba-expelled-home-and-native-land-not-history/.
  6. Quoted in Engler, Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping, 42.
  7. Quoted in Engler, “On the ICC and Canadian Government Hypocrisy,” Palestine Chronicle, March 4, 2020, www.palestinechronicle.com/on-the-icc-and-canadian-government-hypocrisy/.
  8.  “The truth about Canada’s weapons exports to Israel,” The Breach, February 22, 2024, breachmedia.ca/canada-weapons-exports-israel-gaza-2023/.
  9. Judi Rever, “Students lift veil on university financing and demand end to genocide complicity,” Canadian Dimension, June 2, 2024, canadiandimension.com/articles/view/students-lift-veil-on-university-financing-and-demand-end-to-genocide-complicity.
  10. Tim Groves, “Stephen Harper’s firm pours $350M into developing military tech for Israel,” The Breach, December 6, 2023, breachmedia.ca/stephen-harper-awz-ventures-surveillance-tech-israel/.
  11. Quoted in Marion Kawas, “Solidarity between Palestinians and Indigenous Activists has Deep Roots,” Palestine Chronicle, February 18, 2020, www.palestinechronicle.com/solidarity-between-palestinians-and-indigenous-activists-has-deep-roots/.
  12. Charlene Gannage, “Breakthroughs for Palestinian labour solidarity,” Canadian Dimension 24, no. 3, (1990), 41.
  13. Daniel Rickenbacher, “The Anti-Israel Movement in Québec in the 1970s: At the Ideological Crossroads of the New Left and Liberation-Nationalism,” Canadian Jewish Studies 29 (2021), 82.
  14. Quoted in Rafeef Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent: Multicultural Policy and the Silencing of Arab Canadians,” Race & Class 58, no. 4 (2017).
  15. Quoted in Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent,” Race & Class.
  16. Robert Hiltz, “Hamilton Police Are Using COVID-19 Laws To Crush Dissent,” The Maple, July 8, 2021, www.readthemaple.com/hamilton-police-are-using-covid-19-laws-to-crush-dissent/.
  17. Quoted in Jeremy Appel, “Palestine advocates face ‘organized, funded intimidation,’ finds new report,” The Breach, October 12, 2022, breachmedia.ca/palestine-advocates-face-organized-funded-intimidation-finds-new-report/.
  18. Brishti Basu, “’Chilling effect’: People expressing pro-Palestinian views censured, suspended from work and school,” CBC, December 22, 2023, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/chilling-effect-pro-palestinian-1.7064510.
  19. Davide Mastracci, “A List Of Some People In Canada Fired For Pro-Palestine Views,” The Maple, November 10, 2023, www.readthemaple.com/a-list-of-some-people-in-canada-fired-for-pro-palestine-views/.
  20. Brishti Basu, “‘Abuse of power’: Hospitals, med schools crack down on Palestine advocacy,” The Breach, February 29, 2024, breachmedia.ca/abuse-of-power-hospitals-med-schools-crack-down-on-palestine-advocacy.
  21. Quoted in Stephanie Taylor, “’Violent rhetoric from extremist actors’ increased since Oct. 7 attack, CSIS says,” CBC, May 6, 2024, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/israel-hamas-csis-spike-violent-rhetoric-1.7195000.
  22. Linda Gyulai, “McGill gives students’ society ultimatum on its Palestine Solidarity Policy,” Montreal Gazette, March 25, 2022, montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/mcgill-gives-students-society-ultimatum-on-its-palestine-solidarity-policy.
  23. Joe Friesen, “Quebec court delays ratification of McGill student union’s pro-Palestinian referendum,” The Globe and Mail, November 22, 2023, www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mcgill-students-israel-referendum/.
  24. Xavier Richer Vis, “McGill tried stifling classroom discussion of Gaza, internal emails reveal,” The Breach, May 30, 2024, breachmedia.ca/mcgill-tried-stifling-classroom-discussion-of-gaza-internal-emails-reveal/.
  25. Quoted in Cecco, “Quebec premier says police should dismantle pro-Palestinian student camp,” Guardian, May 3, 2024, www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/03/pro-palestine-campus-protests-canada.
  26. Alberta Advantage (podcast), “Sous les pavés: Student radicalism from the ’60s to today,” May 14, 2024.
  27. Etan Nechin, “Jewish Far-right Extremists Linked to Outlawed Terror Group Show Up at pro-Palestinian Events in Toronto,” Haaretz, September 12, 2024, www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-09-12/ty-article/.premium/jewish-far-right-extremists-show-up-at-pro-palestinian-events-in-toronto/00000191-e69b-d383-a5d3-f69be55c0000.
  28. Selia Sanchez, “MSA holds press conference to address Islamophobia and hateful groups on campus,” The Varsity, September 23, 2024, thevarsity.ca/2024/09/23/msa-holds-press-conference-to-address-islamophobia-and-hateful-groups-on-campus/.
  29. Martin Lukacs, “Canadian students camping for Gaza aren’t antisemitic—they’re building brave new alliances for justice,” The Breach, May 3, 2024, breachmedia.ca/canadian-students-camping-for-gaza-arent-antisemitic/.
  30. Rever, “Students lift veil on university financing and demand end to genocide complicity,” Canadian Dimension.
  31. Keegan Colwell, Emily Beckley, Léo Hooper, and Dania Samih, “‘They attacked us after we packed up’: Calgary students speak out on police brutality,” Canadian Dimension, July 6, 2024, canadiandimension.com/articles/view/they-attacked-us-after-we-packed-up-calgary-students-speak-out-on-police-brutality.
  32. Brishti Basu, Savanna Craig, and Athina Khalid, “Universities, police spread ‘jaw-dropping’ misinformation about encampments,” The Breach, July 19, 2024, breachmedia.ca/universities-police-spread-jaw-dropping-misinformation-about-encampments/.
  33. “An Open Letter Regarding the Response to Recent Protests at the Universities of Alberta and Calgary,” May 14, 2024, ablawg.ca/2024/05/14/an-open-letter-regarding-the-response-to-recent-protests-at-the-universities-of-alberta-and-calgary/.
  34. “Pro-Palestinian encampment at University of Winnipeg comes down,” CBC, June 24, 2024, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pro-palestinian-encampment-down-university-of-winnipeg-1.7245179.
  35. Basu, Craig, and Khalid, “Universities, police spread ‘jaw-dropping’ misinformation about encampments,” The Breach.
  36. Katia Lo Innes, “Student camps for Gaza faced negative bias in The Globe and Mail, study shows,” The Breach, September 10, 2024, breachmedia.ca/student-encampments-newspaper-coverage-biased-negative/.
  37. Basu, “Chilling effect,” CBC.
  38. Emma Paling, “CTV forbids use of ‘Palestine,’ suppresses critical stories about Israel,” The Breach, November 22, 2023, breachmedia.ca/ctv-bell-media-forbids-palestine-suppresses-criticism-israel/.
  39. Lukacs, Innes, and Ben Cuthbert, “Palestinian deaths count for less in Canada’s newspapers. Data proves it,” The Breach, December 22, 2023, breachmedia.ca/palestinian-deaths-canadian-newspapers-data/.
  40. Paling, “CBC says killing of Palestinians doesn’t merit terms ‘murderous,’ ‘brutal’,” The Breach, January 5, 2024, breachmedia.ca/cbc-palestinian-deaths-dont-merit-murderous-vicious-israel/.
  41. Molly Schumann, “CBC has whitewashed Israel’s crimes in Gaza. I saw it firsthand,” The Breach, May 16, 2024, breachmedia.ca/cbc-whitewashed-israels-crimes-gaza-firsthand/.
  42. Manisha Krishnan, “CBC Journalists Told They Can’t Cover Israel-Palestine After Demanding Fairer Coverage,” Vice, May 21, 2021, www.vice.com/en/article/cbc-journalists-told-they-cant-cover-israel-palestine-after-demanding-fairer-coverage/.
  43. Schumann, “CBC has whitewashed Israel’s crimes in Gaza,” The Breach.
  44. Basu, “Inside CBC, concerns emerge about broadcaster’s response to Palestine essay,” The Breach, May 24, 2024, breachmedia.ca/cbc-palestine-essay-response/.
  45. Faisal Kutty, “Drop the charges against Indigo ‘Peace 11’ protesters,” Al Jazeera, January 5, 2024, www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/5/drop-the-charges-against-indigo-peace-11-protesters.
  46. Lukacs, “In stunning pre-dawn raids, Toronto police ‘terrorize’ Palestine activists,” The Breach, November 24, 2023, breachmedia.ca/toronto-police-pre-dawn-raids-palestine-activists-indigo/.
  47. Nur Dogan, “Toronto Police Violently Arrest Palestine Solidarity Protester On Human Rights Day,” The Maple, December 12, 2023, www.readthemaple.com/toronto-police-violently-arrest-palestine-solidarity-protester-on-human-rights-day.
  48. Quoted in Natalia Marques, “Palestine solidarity protesters attacked by police in Toronto,” People’s Dispatch, April 3, 2024, peoplesdispatch.org/2024/04/03/palestine-solidarity-protesters-attacked-by-police-in-toronto/.
  49. “Legal groups file three complaints over VPD treatment of Palestine protesters,” City News, September 18, 2024, vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/09/18/legal-complaints-vancouver-police-pro-palestine-protestors/.
  50. Lukacs, “Inside the ‘shocking’ police operation targeting pro-Palestine activists in Toronto,” The Breach, June 17, 2024, breachmedia.ca/inside-the-shocking-police-operations-targeting-pro-palestine-activists-in-toronto/.
  51. Ibid.
  52. Lukacs, “Secretive committee in Ontario ministry pushed crackdown on pro-Palestine activism,” The Breach, June 27, 2024, https://breachmedia.ca/secretive-committee-in-ontario-ministry-pushed-crackdown-on-pro-palestine-activism/.
  53. Quoted in Lukacs, “Inside the ‘shocking’ police operation targeting pro-Palestine activists in Toronto,” The Breach.
  54. Quoted in Mastracci, “The Israel Lobby Wants You Suspended, Fired Or In Prison,” The Maple, October 39, 2024, www.readthemaple.com/the-israel-lobby-wants-you-suspended-fired-or-in-prison/.
  55. Quoted in Crystal Greene, “Canadian police chiefs claim that officers are being ‘doxxed’ by ‘thug’ activists at protests,” Ricochet Media, September 19, 2024, ricochet.media/justice/police-state/canadian-police-chiefs-claim-that-officers-are-being-doxxed-by-thug-activists-at-protests/.
  56. Yara El Murr, “‘Our families are dying’: outrage as program fails to bring Palestinians to Canada,” The Guardian, March 13, 2024, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/13/canada-gaza-outrage-faulty-visa-program.
  57. Laura Osman, “Staff warned immigration minister about setting ‘significant precedent’ with Ukraine visa program,” CBC, July 24, 2024, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-warned-over-ukranian-visa-program-1.7273396.
  58. Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, Salim Yusuf, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential,” The Lancet, July 20, 2024, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext.