The Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel since 2006. Their stance has encountered opposition from the Canadian Jewish Congress and parts of the press but also widespread support from university professors, Independent Jewish Voices, Palestine House, Canadian Arab Federation and labour unions. In 2009 the CUPE Ontario university workers' committee proposed to extend the campaign to boycott any joint work with Israeli institutions that carry out military research. That resolution became the focus of extensive controversy and was modified in response to pressure from the CUPE national president; the amended version was brought before the CUPE Ontario conference in May 2009 and passed with a 2/3 majority.
2006 In May 2006, the Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) voted unanimously to pass a resolution to support the "international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until that state recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination." The three-point resolution continued on to call for action to develop an education campaign about the "apartheid nature of the Israeli state", and for CUPE National to conduct research into Canadian involvement in the occupation. The Canadian Labour Congress was also enjoined to add its voice "against the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state...". The resolution summarized its reasons for making this call by directly referencing the "Israel Apartheid Wall", and by recognizing the 170 Palestinian groups that have called for the global campaign. It further noted the voice of its sister union, CUPE BC, and its opposition to the occupation of Palestine. The BDS Campaign has received widespread support across the world from labour unions, church organizations and city councils.
Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League labelled CUPE's action as "deplorable and offensive." The Ontario regional director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Steven Schulman, characterized the vote as "outrageous." "For a respected labour union to engage in such a vote, which is completely one-sided and based on mistruths, is shocking," he said.
In January 2021, B'Tselem, a highly respected Israeli human rights organization issued a report that declared Israel to be an apartheid state. In May 2021, Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report that also accused Israel of operating an apartheid system where Jewish citizens have supremacy over Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.
On June 6, 2006 Willie Madisha, president of the 1.2-million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions wrote, in a two-page letter, "I congratulate CUPE Ontario for their historic resolution on May 27 in support of the Palestinian people- those living under occupation and those millions of Palestinian refugees living in the Diaspora. We fully support your resolution."
CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan has defended his organization's position by referring to the support it received from the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians,Israel and Jewish supporters of CUPE Ontario Resolution 50 , CUPE OntarioSlurs will not silence us a group of Canadian Jews who oppose Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and supports the CUPE resolution. A petition was distributed in the Israeli and Jewish communities by the ACJC in support of the CUPE action. In part it read:
We assure CUPE that it is no more anti-Semitic to criticize and oppose Israeli government policies than it was anti-American to oppose the Vietnam war or is anti-Canadian to oppose the present war in Iraq. It is never anti-Semitic to oppose injustice, destruction, gross inequity, and inequality. We also assure CUPE that Israel, having the 4th most powerful military in the world, is in no existential danger.
CUPE National has responded to the Ontario resolution by stating that,
CUPE National respects the right of its chartered organizations to take a stand on all issues. As a national union we are governed by policy resolutions adopted at our national conventions. And as such, we will not be issuing a call to our local unions across Canada to boycott Israel.
The United Church of Canada, Toronto Conference has expressed support for CUPE stating that the Church:
reaffirms the United Church's commitment to "the right of Israel to exist in peace and security within internationally-recognized borders and the right of the Palestinians to exist in peace and freedom in an internationally-recognized homeland and state"; recognizes that "the path of peace is dependent on the ending of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, including the withdrawal of Israeli settlements there"; and calls on the church to divest and boycott goods and corporations related to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are time honoured non-violent ways of bringing an end to intolerable situations.United Church of Canada, Toronto Conference, announces support for Resolution 50
On July 7, political commentator Lysiane Gagnon wrote in The Globe and Mail of Toronto:
An editorial in the Canadian Jewish News also took issue with some CUPE leaders comparisons between Israel's policies and South Africa's apartheid system.
Let there also be no condoning the sly attempt by CUPE Ontario leaders to hide or obfuscate its true aim. The logic of the haters of Israel is as simple as it is distorted: Israel is an apartheid state. It must be treated in the same manner as the only other apartheid state was ever treated. It must be dismantled! By joining with the hate-filled slogans being hurled at Israel, the union, was de facto supporting, condoning and even affirming the call for the elimination of the Jewish State.
2009 call for boycott of Israeli academics In January 2009, CUPE's Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee announced plans to introduce a resolution that would ban Israeli academics from speaking, teaching or researching at Ontario universities. Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario, stated that "Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general." Ryan stated that the resolution was a reasonable response to Israel's attack on the Islamic University, which he likened to the torching of books by Nazis during the Second World War.Ontario union calls for ban on Israeli professors by Vanessa Kortekaas, National Post, January 5, 2009CUPE Ontario to recommend support for ban on Israeli academics in response to Gaza bombings, Press Release from CUPE Ontarion, January 5, 2009.
Janice Folk-Dawson, chairwoman of the university workers committee, stated that resolution will protect the quality of education by preventing Israeli academics from professing biased views. She also stated that "International pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily. We are proud to add CUPE voices to others from around the world saying enough is enough" and that support for the resolution "is coming from the rank-and-file members, not just the leadership." Despite the expected backlash, Folk-Dawson stated that "We believe we are doing the right thing."
Support The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians expressed support for the resolution, stating that "We think it perfectly appropriate for a Canadian union to seek some means of counteracting the Canadian government's reckless support for Israeli government intransigence -- for example, by trying to destabilize the elected government of the Palestinian authority."
Bruce Katz, Jewish co-president of Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) Montreal, stated, "I wish to congratulate you and CUPE Ontario for your valiant support for the cause of Palestinian human rights."
The United Church of Canada's Toronto Conference has expressed support for CUPE's position as did the Congress of South African Trade Unions
Michael Neumann, a philosophy professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario expressed support for the boycott. Neumann argued that a boycott is not antisemitic, stating that "It targets Israeli, not Jewish, professors." He further stated that "People may always have bad motives underlying good motives. And it's not absolutely impossible that some of these people have anti-Semitic feelings deep down, but do I think that plays a large part? No, I certainly do not."Ontario union's proposed Israeli ban not anti-Semitic: academics by Katie Daubs and Lee Greenberg, Canwest News Service (reprinted by the National Post), January 6, 2009. Judy Haiven, an assistant professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who is Jewish, commended CUPE for calling for the boycott. In a letter to the editor, Haiven stated that "the many silent professors in Israel who refuse to criticize their own government for human rights violations and for murdering Arab civilians should not be welcomed," although "Israeli academics who speak against the massacre in Gaza should be exempt from a boycott."Academic boycott welcome, says Jewish professor by Judy Haiven, National Post, January 9, 2009 (reprinted on the website of CUPE Ontario).
Criticism The resolution was immediately criticized by the Leo Rudner of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who stated "I think it's ironic individuals who speak about freedom of speech jump to the opportunity to take that freedom away from other individuals." Emanuel Adler, chairman of Israeli Studies at the University of Toronto, also criticized the resolution, stating that "the conflict and the violence should not be brought inside the university." Jonathan Kay, a columnist for the National Post, sharply criticized the resolution, stating that "Mr. Ryan and his fellow CUPE leaders care about demonizing only one country: the Jewish state."Jonathan Kay on the disgusting anti-Israeli bigtory of Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario by Jonathan Kay, National Post, January 05, 2009.
Frank Dimant, vice-president of Bnai Brith Canada criticized the resolution, stating that "This blatant and openly discriminatory resolution by CUPE-Ontario against Israeli nationals is in contravention of Canadian Human Rights Law. Public unions should not be used as breeding grounds for negatively singling out one group of people and denying them their basic rights and freedoms."
Paul Davenport, President of the University of Western Ontario (UWO), subsequently stated that UWO will not participate in any boycott of Israeli academics. Davenport stated that "I'm very dismayed at the suggestion by CUPE that universities should boycott faculty from Israel. "We believe in academic freedom... it is simply very unwise to try to eliminate interactions between academics."Western rejects CUPE call for boycott by Kate Dubinski, London Free Press, January 8, 2009.
Oren Gross, former professor at Tel Aviv University and current professor at University of Minnesota Law School, sharply criticized CUPE, asking why CUPE did not propose boycotts against "American and British academics who did not condemn their governments' war in Iraq, Russian academics who had been silent during their country's assaults on Chechnya and Georgia, Chinese academics who did not protest against their government's actions in Tibet, and ... Palestinian academics who remained silent in the face of a continuous campaign of terrorism orchestrated by Hamas from Gaza."CUPE Ontario's proposed boycott of Israeli academics is just plain anti-Semitic by Oren Gross, The Globe and Mail, January 13, 2009.