OTTAWA – The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has proudly announced that its 2025 biennial convention will be held from October 6 to 10. There are two ways to interpret this scheduling decision. The first is that Canada’s largest labour union, an organization with a budget in the tens of millions and a staff of hundreds, simply does not own a calendar. The second, far more chilling possibility, is that they do own a calendar, but they just don’t care about their Jewish members.
This year’s national convention falls on Sukkot, one of Judaism’s three pilgrimage holidays. It is a time when observant Jews are religiously prohibited from work on their holiest day. Many other Jews, religious and secular alike, gather with family and community to celebrate. By scheduling its most important event during Sukkot, CUPE has effectively barred its Jewish members from meaningful participation. The message is as clear as it is insulting: Jews are not welcome here.
If this were a simple oversight, it would be a case of gross incompetence. But it is not. This is not an isolated incident but part of a long-established pattern. In 2019, CUPE held its national convention on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Before that, in 2017, the convention also conflicted with Sukkot.
Three strikes in these matters are not just bad luck but a clear sign of institutional contempt. One cannot imagine the union scheduling its convention on Christmas, during Easter week, or Eid al-Fitr. Such moves would be met with immediate and justified outrage. Yet, when it comes to the Jewish calendar, CUPE demonstrates consistent indifference.
To compound the insult, there is profound irony in the holiday itself. Sukkot celebrates the ancient, unbroken connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and its agricultural cycles. It is a living refutation of the “settler-colonizer” libel that CUPE National, CUPE Ontario, and too many CUPE locals so eagerly perpetuate against the Jews, the Indigenous people of Judea, as part of their institutionalized anti-Zionism.
But the insult cuts much deeper this year in particular. The convention is scheduled over the two-year commemoration of the October 7 Hamas-led massacre. The celebratory social media posts from CUPE Ontario’s president and CUPE 3906 on the very day of the slaughter still echo. Since that dark day, CUPE, at all levels, has repeatedly taken sides against its Jewish members and the Canadian Jewish community.
Scheduling the convention for October 7 is not a failure of awareness. It is an act of hostility, a profound twisting of the knife that aligns perfectly with CUPE’s abject failure to represent its Jewish members. It would surprise no one if CUPE National uses this painful anniversary to discuss or even celebrate the passing of a BDS motion.
This scheduling confirms that CUPE’s rhetoric on “inclusion” is a lie, “diversity” a shield for its bigotry, and “anti-racism” a selective weapon masking its prejudice and hate.
This decision is further proof to many Jewish members that CUPE is neither a safe nor a welcoming space. It culminates a pattern of escalating hostility, with the union actively collaborating with, and often leading, the anti-Zionist hate movement that directly endangers Jews in their unions, workplaces, and public life.
The question is no longer whether CUPE has a problem with its Jewish members. The question now is what the rest of us will do about it.
But this is not just a Jewish problem; it is a Canadian one. A union that insists on discriminating against one minority undermines the very principles of solidarity and fair representation that the Canadian labour movement was built upon.
Moreover, by aligning itself with the anti-Zionist hate movement, CUPE lends institutional legitimacy to normalizing hate. It allocates members’ dues and taxpayers’ money to importing poisonous international politics instead of focusing on pressing labour issues.
CUPE’s agenda is profoundly anti-Canadian. It imposes a duty on all of us, union members, taxpayers, and policymakers alike, to act. A union that prioritizes foreign conflicts over navigating the challenging labour issues of a digitalizing and changing economy is undermining the stability of our future workforce.
Beyond the rotten morals and toxic environment it fosters, CUPE’s actions damage Canadian employees and pose a direct threat to the Canadian economy. This must be stopped.
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