“This falls short of what Palestinians need”: Labour for Palestine - Canada’s statement on the Liberal-NDP Compromise
March 19, 2024
The NDP motion on Palestine, that was debated in Canada’s parliament yesterday, occurred amid an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and across occupied Palestine. The motion was the result of a rising tide in Canada and across the world in support of Palestinian self-determination, human rights, and liberation.
Over the last few months, we saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of cities across Canada week after week, engage in direct actions, lobby their political representatives, and shut down weapons manufacturing companies complicit in the genocide. This debate does not signify a sudden crisis of conscience, but is a sign that organizing and mobilizing across every community, including within the labour movement, is growing stronger.
After more than five months of genocide against the Palestinian people by the apartheid settler-colonial state of Israel, with the full political, diplomatic, financial and military support of Western imperialist states including Canada, this motion was disappointing. The final motion fell far short of what is needed from the international community for the liberation of the Palestinian people.
The original NDP motion itself was weak but we provided conditional support for it, recognizing, in particular, the need for an arms embargo on Israel. The final Liberal-NDP compromise version that passed rightfully called on the government to demand an immediate ceasefire. Unfortunately, it also adopted the Israeli Zionist narrative and failed to address other important demands including:
Calling on Israel to conclude a prisoner exchange deal;
Imposing sanctions on Israeli leaders complicit in the genocide;
Imposing a two-way arms embargo on Israel;
Recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to resist the illegal occupation;
Recognizing the right of Palestinians to national self-determination by recognizing the State of Palestine.
As trade unionists we understand negotiations, but this compromised motion effectively gives the current Liberal government and the entire Canadian political establishment cover to continue supporting the genocide. This is unacceptable. We are not proponents of vague concepts of statehood, and ultimately advocate for the national liberation of all Palestinian and Arab lands but the clause that would have recognized the State of Palestine was essential. Its final amendment exposed the Canadian government as an opponent of Palestinian autonomy and self-determination. This clause should have been non-negotiable.
Labour for Palestine will continue to work with coalition partners and hold our government to account on calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and on upholding its mandate to end the export of arms to Israel. We recognize this as an important step forward and commit to continue to organize and build the movement for Palestinian liberation and an end to the genocide. We will continue to organize within the labour movement to oppose the imperialist nature of the Canadian government, and to mobilize the masses of the labour movement towards the Palestinian struggle.
This motion would not have been a debate without the mass mobilizations that the Palestinians, our allies and members across Canada have organized with unwavering determination.
Labour for Palestine Vancouver:
Selina Robinson must resign
February 4, 2024
For Immediate Release
Labour for Palestine Vancouver calls for the resignation of Selina Robinson as the Minister of Post-secondary Education and Future skills on the basis of her interference with the employment of Dr. Natalie Knight and her ongoing racist comments about Palestine, Palestinians, and Indigenous people.
We denounce Selina Robinson’s interference in an autonomous public post-secondary institution’s Academic Freedom and personnel policies in the termination of Dr. Knight. We are further outraged by Robinson’s racist and hateful comments about Palestine and Palestinians, and her offensive comparisons between Israeli settlers and Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She has damaged relationships and broken trust with communities across BC that is beyond repair. Selina Robinson must resign from her position as Minister of Post-secondary Education and Future Skills.
Dr. Knight made comments in support of the Palestinian right of resistance in the face of more than 75 years of Zionist settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The comments were “rigorously investigated” by Langara’s Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression Advisory Committee and were found not to be hate speech or violate any policies. Nevertheless, without due process Dr. Knight was terminated following statements by Minister Selina Robinson. Robinson’s use of her post to pressure Langara to fire a professor who made comments against her own personal political views is dangerous and unprecedented. It sends a message to all workers that if academic freedom no longer applies to professors, we also cannot speak out in defence of the right of Indigenous people to self determination and resistance to occupation.
Selina Robinson’s comments that Palestine was “a crappy piece of land with nothing on it” in a Jan. 30 at a public panel is the same justification for genocide that colonizers made in Canada—the doctrine of terra nullius. She further compared the occupation of Palestine to a fight between the Tsleil-Waututh and the Squamish First Nations over land. These racist remarks and support of colonial narratives are an impediment to Truth and Reconciliation in British Columbia, and as such it is clear that Robinson cannot remain in cabinet.
Labour for Palestine Vancouver demands the resignation of Selina Robinson from David Eby’s NDP cabinet. We call for justice for Dr. Knight and all workers who have been made unsafe for supporting just resistance against colonization due to Robinson’s actions and remarks. We further call on the Langara administration to take immediate measures to ensure the safety and protection of faculty, students and staff.
For more information or comment: labourforpalestinevancouver@gmail.com.
It has been two weeks since Palestinian trade unions released an urgent call for action, calling on international trade unions to take action to halt the arms trade to Israel. The CLC is silent.
It has been one week since representatives of leading pan-Canadian labour, faith, Arab, Jewish, and civil society organizations, released a statement calling on the Government of Canada to call for an immediate ceasefire of all hostilities in Israel-Palestine, to end the blockade of Gaza, and for the restoration of humanitarian aid and access to the basic necessities of life. The CLC is silent.
The Canadian Government shamefully abstained on the vote of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) emergency resolution for an immediate and humanitarian truce in Gaza on October 28th. The CLC is silent.
As a pan-Canadian network of labour activists who work to deepen solidarity with Palestinian workers and people in their struggle for liberation, we call on the CLC to honour its 2021 resolution to oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine, call on the Canadian government to end arms sales to Israel, and support divestment from companies complicit in the occupation.
Join us in sending a message to the CLC that silence on this issue is complicity. It is time to take a stand.
Taking a stand.
In collaboration with Labour Against the Arms Trade, and together with nearly 50 unions, federations of labour, labour councils and locals, Labour 4 Palestine is demanding that the Government of Canada immediately suspend bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2021
“The Canadian government must end complicity in violence and apartheid”: Labour Organizations Call for Immediate Arms Embargo on Israel
Ottawa, Ontario – Close to 40 labour organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers from across Canada, have added their names to an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging the Government of Canada to immediately suspend bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel.
“The recent bombing of Gaza, including of civilian sites, should compel Canada to reassess all Israel-bound arms exports and imports,” said a letter co-authored by Labour 4 Palestine and Labour Against the Arms Trade (LAAT). “We demand that the Government of Canada immediately suspend bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel.”
The letter, signed by thirty-nine labour organizations, including a number of national and provincial unions, local labour councils, and provincial labour federations, points out that, since 2015, Canada has exported $57 million worth of weapons to Israel, including $16 million in bomb components. Signatories represent workers across both the private and public sector and range from the Ontario Federation of Labour, which represents over one million Ontario workers belonging to more than 1,500 locals and 54 affiliated unions, to small union locals and regional labour councils.
“This letter is a historically unprecedented demonstration of union solidarity with the Palestinian people,” said Simon Black, organizer with LAAT. “From the fight against apartheid in South Africa to opposition to the Iraq War, Canada’s labour movement has been on the right side of history. Labour opposition to Israel’s regime of occupation and apartheid will only continue to grow.”
“Palestinian people and workers are facing an ongoing Nakba, brutal occupation and unspeakable war crimes and crimes against humanity, as witnessed by the latest massacres of civilians in Gaza”, said Hassan Husseini of Labour for Palestine. “Canada must end its complicity with these crimes by immediately imposing an arms embargo on Israel, as Canadian labour activists from across the country are demanding,” he added.
“As members of the labour movement in Canada, we call on the Canadian Government to stop allowing Israel to act with impunity and to end our complicity in this ongoing violence,” states the letter.
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For more information, contact:
Hassan Husseini, Labour for Palestine - Canada
613-447-3706
hassanhusseini46@gmail.com
@HassanHusseini2
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Labour to Prime Minister Trudeau
June 8, 2021
RE: Immediate suspension of all trade of arms and related materials with State of Israel
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:
We, the undersigned labour organizations in Canada, call on the Government of Canada in the most urgent terms possible, to immediately suspend bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel.
From May 10 -18, Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip killed over 220 Palestinians (including more than 60 children), wounded 1600 and displaced more than 52,000 people. Several trade unions in Canada forcefully condemned the Israeli military attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s imminent confiscation of Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah, and violence that preceded the vicious and disproportionate attack by Israeli forces on Gaza. The Canadian Labour Congress further recognized that “Ongoing evictions and Israel’s illegal occupation is in blatant violation of international law and amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
Since 2015, Canada has exported $57 million worth of weapons to Israel, including $16 million in bomb components. The ongoing bombing of Gaza, including of civilian sites, should compel Canada to reassess all Israel-bound arms exports and imports, including the recently signed contract with Elbit Systems, which supplies 85% of drones used by the Israeli military to monitor and attack Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet Canadian governments have repeatedly put arms deals with Israel ahead of the rights and lives of Palestinians. As the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade points out, arms sales to Israel “do not just provide military support, they also send a clear sign of political support for the daily abuse that is central to the occupation.”
In a news release on May 18, 2021, several United Nations Special Rapporteurs stated:
“The underlying reality is that there is an occupying power, with one of the best equipped militaries in the world, ruling over an occupied people who have the right to be freed from an unwanted and protracted alien regime.” “…This struggle is deeply unequal. The 54-year-old Israeli occupation – already the longest occupation in the modern world – is becoming even more entrenched and even more abusive of fundamental human rights.”
In January 2021, B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories released a report unequivocally stating that Israel is an apartheid state. Human Rights Watch, in its April 2021 report: A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, concluded that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. The report called on the member states of the United Nations to “Condition arms sales and military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.” Even the President of South Africa remarked on May 20, 2021 that the situation in Palestine brought back terrible memories of the apartheid era in his own country.
As members of the labour movement in Canada, we call on the Canadian Government to stop allowing Israel to act with impunity and to end our complicity in this ongoing violence. We demand that the Government of Canada immediately suspend bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel until Palestinian human rights are respected, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and Israel ends its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Sincerely,
SIGNATORIES:
Labour Against the Arms Trade (LAAT)
Labour for Palestine - Canada (L4P)
Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)
Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
Canadian Federation of Nurses Union (CFNU)
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC)
Memorial University of Newfoundland Faculty Association (MUNFA)
Workers United Canada Council
Canadian Staff Union / Syndicat canadien du personnel
Canadian Union of Labour Employees (CULE)
Centre international de solidarité ouvrière (CISO)
Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain-CSN
Amalgamated Transit Union of Canada (ATU)
SEIU Local 2
Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour
Nova Scotia Federation of Labour
Ontario Federation of Labour
Canadian Union of Public Employees - Ontario
Canadian Union of Public Employees – British Columbia
British Columbia Government and Service Employees Union (BCGEU)
British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF)
British Columbia Ferry & Marine Workers' Union
British Columbia Union Workers' Union
Canadian Union of Postal Workers - Toronto
Sudbury & District Labour Council
Hamilton and District Labour Council
Peel Regional Labour Council
Durham Region Labour Council
Vancouver and District Labour Council
Waterloo and District Labour Council.
COPE 343
Unifor Local 2025
USW Local 7536
PSAC Local 901
PSAC Local 610
CUPE Local 3906
CUPE Local 1281
CUPE Local 3903
CUPE Local 4705
CUPE Local 582
CUPE Local 4207
CUPE Local 1004
Teamsters Local 879, Field Staff at SEIU Healthcare, Stewards Committee.
Cc’
Hon. Chrystia Freeland Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Hon. Marc Garneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Michael Chong, Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs
Jack Harris, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic
Representative Office of Canada to the Palestinian Authority
Embassy of Canada in Israel
Canadian Labour Congress
