The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has a long and storied history of antisemitism and anti-Israel activism.
CUPE is Canada’s largest union, with 750,000 members across the country representing workers in health care, emergency services, education, early learning and child care, municipalities, social services, libraries, utilities, transportation, airlines and more.
As of May 30, 2024, a keffiyeh-clad woman graces the cover page of the union’s X account, a not-so-subtle indication of the political stance of the “public sector” union. This is well-supported by statements from the union supporting the pro-Hamas encampments at colleges across Canada, and calls for a ceasefire on October 10 – even before Israel responded to the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas.
CUPE has promoted the “struggle for liberation in Palestine,” an arms embargo against Israel, a reversal of Canada’s suspension of UNWRA funding for aiding Hamas and praised local unions for participating in anti-Israel protests.
CUPE ONTARIO
Nearly 40 percent of CUPE’s members are represented by CUPE Ontario, which defines itself as “the political wing” of the union – a wing that is also profoundly anti-Israel.
CUPE Ontario claims that the “vast majority” of Ontario’s workers have chosen CUPE Ontario to represent them. The Ontario branch comprises 290,000-plus members, who elect their leaders and vote on political action at the organization’s convention.
CUPE Ontario’s president, Fred Hahn, is a virulently anti-Israel political activist. To date, members have re-elected Hahn eight times as their president.
Fred Hahn, CUPE Ontario President: 2010 - Present
Fred Hahn
Fred Hahn promoted incitement and expressed support for terrorists, honored a domestic terrorist, equated Israel with Nazi Germany, spread hatred of Israel and engaged in anti-Israel activism.
Fred Hahn, the president of CUPE Ontario, is a vocal anti-Israel activist who regularly expresses support for terrorism and spreads hatred of Israel.
On October 8th, 2023, the day after Hamas’ horrific attack, Hahn posted on X, “I’m thankful for…the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress…”
He later made his position on Israel clear as he posted, “We must be clear that the State of Israel is an apartheid state.”
On October 8, Hahn posted from his CUPE account on X praise for the October 7 attack, writing: “As we all think about reasons to be thankful this #thanksgiving2023, I know I’m thankful for the power of workers, the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress…”
(Resistance is a known euphemism for nationalistic terror used often by activists. It is regularly used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and antisemitic violence.)
The statement prompted Canada’s Labor Minister Seamus O’Regan to denounce Hahn and CUPE for their posts, which he said reflected a “glorification of violence” and spread “antisemitic conspiracy theories.”
After CUPE Ontario’s response to the October 7 attack, 80 Jewish members of the union filed a case with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against CUPE Ontario, President Fred Hahn and CUPE Local 3906 (representing 3,500 CUPE workers at McMasters University in Hamilton, Ontario).
On October 7, as Jews in Israel were being slaughtered, raped, beheaded and kidnapped, CUPE Local 3906 posted: “Palestine is rising, long live the resistance…” The post also included a quote from Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist Ghassan Khanafani.
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The Jewish CUPE members charged that Hahn and the unions made them feel “isolated, unwelcome, scared, silenced, discriminated against, threatened and harassed.” In addition, the complainants alleged that Hahn told Jewish union members the Jewish people “stole” the land of Israel from Palestinians.
Ironically, in its statement of defense, CUPE showed how embedded antisemitism has become in Canada’s largest trade union. In response, the union claimed that they were not acting in a discriminatory manner when they declared Israel to be a settler-colonial state because it is illegally occupying Palestinian land. Further, the union claimed that Israel has a history of occupation and colonization and is engaged in ethnic cleansing.
Kathryn Marshall, the lawyer representing the claimants, said the goal of the case is to work toward “ending the pattern of systemic discrimination in the union for Jewish members that’s been going on for years.”
CUPE regularly participates in and even calls for rallies against Israel. In early May 2024, students as well as members from CUPE Local 3902, 3261 and 1230 set up an illegal encampment at King’s College Circle at the University of Toronto, calling on the university to sever financial ties with the Israeli government and for a ceasefire in the ongoing war in Gaza.
CUPE Local 3903 – York University Teaching Assistants and Contract Faculty
Post-October 7, CUPE Local 3903, which represents Toronto’s York University teaching assistants and contract faculty, published A Toolkit on Teaching Palestine, which it billed as “A guide for Teaching Assistants at York University on the importance of speaking about and teaching Palestine in the classroom.”
According to an article in University World News describing the toolkit, members of the local union were urged to divert tutorials to teaching on Palestine liberation during the week of January 21-28, 2024. The outlet also rerported that York administration warned the teaching assistants that deviating from the assigned curriculum would constitute a breach of contractual expectations.
University World News also reported that the toolkit “links to a resource that provides what is arguably an entirely one-sided view of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.” The outlet said that the administrators criticized the toolkit for encouraging unprofessional behavior in its educators.
The toolkit reportedly made no mention of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Rather, it stated, “Palestine and the stories of Palestinians have long been marginalised, silenced and erased in mainstream reporting and history-making.”
The toolkit further claimed that York University is complicit in Israel’s “genocidal violence” due, among other things, to its “economic and academic relationship” with “various Zionist cultural organisations,” citing Hillel as an example.
Jay Solomon, chief advancement officer for Hillel Ontario, said it was his “understanding that there are [several] instances when the toolkit has been used.”
CUPE Local 4600
On January 31, 2024, CUPE Local 4600 at Carleton University in Ottawa released a statement voicing solidarity with the Palestinian people in their “ongoing struggle for liberation.” It further claimed that “the events of 7 October are a retaliatory escalation against the current and long history of settler-colonial systemic violence and oppression in historic Palestine against the Palestinian people.”
Carleton professor Harold Goldman, who teaches Holocaust-related history courses, called the statement “an escalation” in the union’s “hateful response to the horrors of the October 7 pogrom.”
Goldman said the union’s statement “goes so far as to blame the rapes, murders, torture, and kidnappings inflicted on civilian men, women and children, that day, on the victims themselves.
“It is a document worthy of Joseph Goebbels in its inversion of cause and effect, of victims and perpetrator, and in its abuse of terms like genocide, murder and apartheid [all of which the statement says are being perpetrated by Israel].”
CUPE’s Antisemitism Goes Back Deeper
CUPE Ontario has a long history of antisemitic leadership and activism. Its previous president, Sid Ryan, who served from 1992 until Hahn took over in 2010, has been openly hostile to Israel and Jewish organizations in Canada for almost two decades.
Ryan was quick to support Hamas on October 7, 2023, firing off posts lambasting Canada’s political leaders who were condemning the attack.
Against the major of Toronto, Ryan wrote on October 7, “@oliviachow What a terrible disappointment you are to all of those around the world who are fighting for social justice…”
Ryan tweeted similar sentiments against, among others, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau and opposition challenger Pierre Poilievere. On November 13, 2023, he called them “a bunch of cowards, afraid to show their faces for fear of a backlash from the usual suspects in the Israel lobby.
Sid Ryan
Sid Ryan defended Hamas terrorism, spread anti-Semitism during an Israeli war against Hamas and denied multiple Hamas war crimes in late 2023. Ryan has also expressed support for other terrorists on social media.
