Welcome back to This Week in Canada, where teachers’ unions are now running their own Middle East policy, misgendering gets you hauled in front of a tribunal, and we’re importing doctors and nurses from the U.S. Let’s jump in!
In recent weeks, Canada has seen a spate of gunfire directed at synagogues, and the government has issued a warning that a terror attack against the Jewish community was a “realistic possibility” within the next six months. Unsurprisingly, Canada’s Jews are questioning whether they could still be safe.
Canada’s teachers are on the case, and they have a message for their nation’s Jews: Sanction Israel. At its annual general meeting, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), one of the country’s largest teachers’ unions, passed a motion on March 16 endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Some attendees wore buttons declaring “BDS Saves Lives” and “BDS Saves Kids.”
BDS resolutions are not new in Canada—they’ve long circulated in student unions and parts of the labor movement—but it’s the first province-wide endorsement by a K–12 teachers’ union. And it reflects a broader shift in schools across the country, which have become increasingly hostile to Jews.
