OTTAWA — The same pattern of radicalized incitement that preceded the terrorist massacre of Jews in Australia is unfolding in Canada as well. It is not confined to fringe actors. It is being perpetuated inside Canadian institutions that are meant to safeguard rights, ensure accountability, and protect workers.
When Canada’s Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights launched its study on antisemitism in December 2024, it was intended as a serious national effort to confront Jew hatred in the wake of October 7. Instead, the proceedings have exposed how deeply entrenched this hatred has become. While some witnesses testified with clarity and courage, others used the same forum to distort facts, deny atrocities, and undermine the very purpose of the study. A process designed to combat antisemitism has, in part, become another platform for it.
This tactic is familiar. Across Canadian society, Jewish communities and their allies have encountered platform abuse, inversion, exclusion, and open hostility. From streets to campuses, certain institutions have become especially toxic. Among them, segments of the organized labour movement stand out. Their governance structures have long been vulnerable to capture by ideological activists who exploit internal processes to advance agendas unrelated to workplace representation.
Since October 7, 2023, that exploitation has accelerated. Some unions have emerged as major drivers of hostility toward Jews, fueling campus encampments, endorsing hate rallies, promoting boycotts, and spreading inflammatory narratives online. In several cases, unions have taken leading roles in efforts that explicitly reject the legitimacy of the Jewish state and target anyone who dissents from that position.
As Jewish members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, this reality has been experienced firsthand. We have faced exclusion, intimidation, and open hostility within our own union. What began as participation in a workplace organization became forced activism. We learned how decision-making mechanisms were being manipulated, how mandatory dues were diverted to ideological campaigns, and who was responsible. We also found others across the country who had reached the same conclusion and were prepared to push back.
One of the most cynical tactics employed has been the tokenization of Jews. Unions routinely platform marginal figures presented as “Jewish voices” to provide moral cover for antisemitic conduct, while silencing mainstream Jewish members who object. This approach allows institutions to claim legitimacy while dismissing those who raise concerns as inconvenient or irrelevant.
That tactic has been evident inside CUPE and across the broader labour movement. When the same pattern appeared in submissions to the Senate committee, it confirmed what many already understood. The manipulation is systemic. When a national study meant to confront antisemitism begins echoing the methods that enable it, silence is no longer an option.
Our concerns deepened when the committee heard from a group claiming to be Jewish that shares an address with an anti-Israel advocacy organization, and from an individual who has denied or minimized the atrocities of October 7. These moments compelled us to expose to senators the environment we have witnessed and endured within public-sector unions.
Public-sector unions, and CUPE in particular, have become fertile ground for a new, systemic form of Jew hatred. As unions adopt increasingly extreme and one-sided positions on the Hamas-Israel conflict, hostility toward Jewish members has escalated. Complaints have been dismissed as “not antisemitic,” often on the grounds that this hatred does not resemble older racialized tropes. What Jewish workers face today is a new expression of an old hatred: antizionism weaponized against identity.
This hostility has nothing to do with workplace representation. Yet Jewish members are compelled to fund it. CUPE Ontario, CUPE National, and other provincial divisions, along with numerous public-sector unions, have issued biased statements, organized so-called educational events, promoted fringe groups, and circulated antizionist conspiracy theories and libels.
A self-appointed network operating under the name “Labour for Palestine” has embedded itself across public-sector unions, explicitly rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state while feeding members a steady stream of ideological propaganda. Through this influence, the doctrine of the BDS movement has become institutionalized within union culture.
The consequences have been severe. Union spaces have become unsafe for Jewish members. Dozens have filed human rights complaints across CUPE, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. These cases reveal a consistent failure of internal mechanisms to address systemic discrimination.
This pattern spans provinces and unions. It is a national problem that cannot be dismissed as isolated misconduct. It demands federal attention and action from Ottawa.
Antizionist activists have learned to exploit union governance, transforming these organizations into engines of ideological campaigning. With large budgets and broad reach, union-backed “solidarity” campaigns have become deeply embedded in institutional culture. In a country that prides itself on tolerance and multiculturalism, this environment has provided especially fertile ground for radicalization.
The entrenchment is structural. It manifests in boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, union-funded propaganda campaigns, conventions that normalize extremist rhetoric, and the exclusion of mainstream Jewish participation. In some cases, union events have provided platforms for rhetoric that crosses into explicit incitement. From national conventions to local chapters, the pattern is consistent.
At the local level, many chapters have tolerated harassment, hate speech, and extremist content online and in person. While individual stories are numerous, the policy failure is clear. Mandatory union dues are being misused to fund ideological campaigns that target the very members compelled to pay for them.
At the center of this issue is the 1946 Rand Formula, which requires all unionized workers to pay dues regardless of political or ideological disagreement. Jewish workers are thus forced to subsidize campaigns that attack their identity and values.
For this reason, we asked the Senate committee to endorse concrete reforms. These include a modern review of the Rand Formula to ensure dues are used strictly for core labour representation, stronger financial transparency requirements, the creation of an independent complaint mechanism, and the establishment of an external accountability office to audit union governance and compliance with human rights standards.
These recommendations are not unique. The Canadian Jewish Labour Committee, which represents mainstream Jewish unionized workers, has advanced similar proposals. The CJLC has urged senators to restore unions to their core purpose, including requirements for nonpartisanship, limits on geopolitical activism such as BDS campaigns, and stronger protections for members.
They have also called for full-membership votes with meaningful quorum requirements when unions take political positions, along with opt-in and opt-out protections to prevent members from being coerced into funding causes that target them. Additional recommendations include independent accountability mechanisms, expanded failure-to-represent protections, and uniform health and safety standards in all union spaces.
These policy changes are not abstract. They are necessary to restore trust, protect minority workers, and ensure unions fulfill their original mandate. Transparency, oversight, and accountability are the minimum standards required in any democratic institution.
Policy alone, however, is insufficient. Ending union-enabled hatred in Canada requires moral clarity and political will. Legislators, labour leaders, and workers must confront the misuse of institutional power and recognize that targeting Jewish workers has no place in Canadian society.
The Senate’s study must become a turning point. Without reform, unions will continue to undermine their legitimacy, weaken the labour movement, and endanger the workers they claim to represent. The cost of inaction is not limited to Jewish communities. It threatens the integrity of Canadian institutions, the stability of the workforce, and the health of the national economy.
The opportunity to act has long been overdue. The responsibility to do so is now unavoidable.
… and don’t forget ETFO and ETT. Teacher’s’ unions. Thank you for writing this.