Boycott Indigo Books Because...
Although using a new URL, activists behind the boycott of Canada's largest bookstore still say that 'Indigo Kills Kids'.
A representative for the campaign talks about their choice of language, tactics and targets - most notably the CEO of Indigo Books, Heather Reisman. You'll hear how this Canadian oligarch has proudly poured millions into the HESEG foundation, which actively recruits soldiers for the Occupation Forces, and rewards them for their violence.
This connection to the genocide is important, not only in justifying the boycott, but to refute claims Reisman is being targeted for being Jewish.
The IKK campaign also respond to critics from the Left side of the political spectrum, and reflects on the work that still needs to be done.
Hosted by Jessa McLean and Produced by Santiago Helou Quintero
Calls to Action: Take the Pledge to Boycott Indigo and Demand CRA Revoke HESEG's Charitable Status
Related Episodes:
- Machinery of Suppression: Bill C9 and the weaponization of antisemitism (jan 2026) Jews Say NO to Genocide break down the latest suppressive legislation from Carney and challenge the narratives being used to pass it.
- Answering the Call: Labour for Palestine (jan 2024) L4P representative Anna Lippman on the call from Palestinian workers to disarm Israel and Free Palestine.
More Resources:
- Rabble: Boycott Israel campaign hits Chapters and Mountain Equipment Co-op
- Assaulted for questioning ‘charitable’ donations by billionaire - Yves Engler
- CJPME: More on Indigo
- Just Peace Advocates: Billionaire couple continues to support genocidal army
- The Maple: Indigo’s Copyright Victory Opens A New Front In BDS Struggle
- Indigo Kills Kids Website
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Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. Good morning. Can you introduce yourself, please? Hi, good morning. Yes. I am an activist
Speaker:and an organizer with the Indigo Kills Kids campaign. That's a pretty inflammatory name
Speaker:for a campaign. I mean, it's the truth. It is the truth. It is the truth. uh And I think
Speaker:folks will agree with us by the time we get done with this episode. Why did you name your
Speaker:campaign Indigo Kills Kids? Without getting into the details, mean, like we talked about
Speaker:before we recorded Language Matters. Yeah. And we try not to be inflammatory or, you
Speaker:know, appeal to a broad audience. But I mean, that's knee-jerk right there. Well, we want
Speaker:people to stop and think, and we want people to ask the question. Like when you hear the
Speaker:phrase Indigo Kills Kids, the idea is like, why? What do you mean Indigo kills kids? It
Speaker:makes you ask questions. And that's what we want people to do. We want you to ask. We want
Speaker:you to think critically and we want you to dig deeper. Because yeah, most people when
Speaker:they think about Indigo, it's very bright, spacious books. almost, it feels like some of the only
Speaker:place you can buy books. They've got a great kids section, right? It totally drives with
Speaker:the branding that they're trying to put out there. That's for sure. I don't imagine.
Speaker:um Its major shareholder, Heather Reisman, appreciates the title. Have you faced a lot of backlash?
Speaker:I mean, of course, yes. I'm right out of the gate. We were served with a cease and desist
Speaker:within two weeks of the campaign launching. That was followed up when we ignored it
Speaker:because we're all, I don't, we don't need people telling us what to do. let alone lawyers. um
Speaker:Two weeks later, we received a series like back to back to back. We received a series
Speaker:of legal notices, including a lawsuit, claiming copyright infringement, suing for damages,
Speaker:which then they leverage to enforce an injunction on our website and to have us uh to have the
Speaker:site blocked. In Canada, they also put in a request with, what is it in Canada, we have
Speaker:like the domain, the domain, the domain police. uh And in the US ICANN and the Canadian version,
Speaker:they put in a complaint there saying that we were, the URL will cause confusion and there's
Speaker:too much likeness. And effectively they scooped both domains, which in my opinion, But it's
Speaker:hilarious because if you look up, uh, like the DNS, or if you do like a who is look up on
Speaker:indigo kills kids.com, the owner is indigo books. So I mean, it's just, I maybe didn't look the
Speaker:way that they wanted it to look. Yeah. Yeah. The optics are brilliant. And this campaign
Speaker:is about optics. It really, really is about optics. have, um, a billionaire who has a.
Speaker:massive corporation whose husband owns himself massive corporations and is a primary owner
Speaker:in this corporation as well. And they are viewed as like this, you know, all Canadian
Speaker:couples, so to speak. And here they are literally funding hundreds of millions of dollars uh
Speaker:and funneling it, using it as a sort of money laundering almost uh methodology of getting
Speaker:money into Israel. They are using Canadian tax dollars and our charity system to funnel money
Speaker:into Israel and into their military specifically, which is committing a genocide. So it's just
Speaker:this all this darling Canadian optics look is BS. Okay. can't brush over the foundation
Speaker:like that though. It's way worse. I mean, kills kids and funding a genocide, but like
Speaker:it's just way worse than that too, right? So let's get into the foundation that Reisman
Speaker:founded and spearheads. And I'd also like to paint that picture that you started to,
Speaker:but let's fill it in a bit on this Canadian couple, but they're oligarchs. Like when we
Speaker:talk about Canadian oligarchs, this is one of them. It's not just even about a bookstore.
Speaker:Reisman's family has ties to politics, long ties to politics. Paul Martin as prime minister.
Speaker:later on we'll talk about the Indigo 11 and the role she says she didn't play there. And
Speaker:so a lot of political power, right? but this foundation that's at the heart of the boycott,
Speaker:really, right, is how you were able to say that they definitively kill kids is really tied
Speaker:to that lone soldier program. Do you wanna go into it? I have been brushing up on it this
Speaker:morning, but I imagine you have been talking to people about this for a long time now.
Speaker:So what... is this Lone Soldier Foundation and what's so wrong with it, right? It's a
Speaker:charity. The Canadian Reparative Health Agency still recognize its charitable status, right?
Speaker:People are working on that. A lot of people are working on that, but it's a charity. Yeah,
Speaker:absolutely. I mean, everyone pulls on the heartstrings. Oh, well, like, and that's her line. You know,
Speaker:she changes her line every five minutes or, know, oh, they're helping veterans and like,
Speaker:how dare we. And like, oh, they're helping orphans. How dare we? Well, let's talk about what, you
Speaker:know, the Hetzer Foundation is. So the Hetzer Foundation is a charity. The foundation
Speaker:basically uh has scholarships for lone soldiers. It's a scholarship fund for lone soldiers.
Speaker:And lone soldiers are foreign nationals who join the Israeli military. So we're talking,
Speaker:they can come from anywhere, but lone soldiers... can come in three ways. They can either go
Speaker:to Israel and join the IOF for a short period of time. They do their service, but they don't
Speaker:get citizenship. Some of them do go and get citizenship. And the last category, which
Speaker:is the smallest of the three, is that it's people who are either orphaned or have been isolated
Speaker:from their family. in Israel. So that's the one that she likes to lean heavily on. But
Speaker:the fact is, is that the organization gives scholarships to keep people in Israel after
Speaker:they have completed service in the Israeli military. And then we can talk about what all the different
Speaker:things that the Israeli military is doing from dispossession, from killing children. Quite
Speaker:literally, they are in Gaza killing children. They are killing children in the West Bank.
Speaker:I mean, to claim that Indigo or the CEO, the primary shareholder is not funding this genocide
Speaker:is a ridiculous notion. At the end of the day, if you're putting money into a charity, you're
Speaker:getting a tax break on that. You're sending it. You're giving it specifically to people.
Speaker:You're paying people who are then using who have now killed people, killed children. And
Speaker:on the other hand, your hypocrisy is. disgustingly on display because here in Canada, you're promoting
Speaker:literacy, you're promoting, you know, um, you've got this beautiful kids section, you're creating
Speaker:this experience where Indigo has been really personal for a lot of people, but then on the
Speaker:flip side, you're literally destroying education in Guzda. You're, you're destroying, you know,
Speaker:history and, and lives there. So it's really an inflammatory thing for them to even claim
Speaker:that they're not. that they're not having a hand in this genocide. so I think it's just,
Speaker:yeah, Hesseg is a big problem. Like, why are we finding lone soldiers and why are we finding
Speaker:Canadians to go and fight in Gaza? Yeah, we're funding them in two ways, right? Through the
Speaker:tax donations that are our tax dollars. And then, I mean, if you're still shopping at Indigo,
Speaker:you're funding it that way by lining the pockets of these oligarchs who are on this fucking
Speaker:mission. But one of the things about the lone soldier program that I think really irks me,
Speaker:because we've had refuseniks on the show, know, Israelis are conscripted into the IOF, the
Speaker:IDF. They don't have to go. They can go to prison instead. making a choice. Yeah, they
Speaker:can make a choice. um But there is conscription. The lone soldier program, no wonder she leans
Speaker:in on the domestic uh soldiers, the orphans. eh It's the encouraging people who are not
Speaker:legally obligated to participate in the genocide whatsoever and luring them with money and
Speaker:gifts and possible citizenship. she's doing this from Canada, right? So she's recruiting
Speaker:and funding a foreign army from other places in the world as well as Canada and sending
Speaker:them over. And then like the bonus. is then the genocide, right? Like this was an issue
Speaker:for people in 2010, right? As the genocide has been continuous, the ethnic cleansing has
Speaker:started at the NECPA. We understand that. But like this opposition, the Reisman and the Hessek
Speaker:Foundation and the lone soldier program predated October 7th. But now it just seems incredible
Speaker:that their charitable status hasn't been revoked. I found some numbers here. I'm sure you have
Speaker:some too, but I thought like just to give people an idea, the foundation that Schwartz and Reisman,
Speaker:that's the couple there, have provided to the foundation is $185 million over the past, I
Speaker:think five years. And what- average? They average about 5 million a year. So over a lifetime
Speaker:they've spent, they've actually sent um about almost 200 million to HESC. So it started in
Speaker:2016 organization. And so they've been slowly funneling money in. um over the last, yeah,
Speaker:and over the last five years, it's like, it's had an uptick and they average about 5 million.
Speaker:Does that come from her profits at Indigo? I mean, surely. m ah That's like her primary
Speaker:business. mean, they, it's their foundation. So everything goes into the Reisman Schwartz
Speaker:Foundation. It is 40 % like if you look at how funds are distributed from the Reisman Schwartz
Speaker:Foundation. And, and I'll be honest, uh the experts in this is just for peace advocate,
Speaker:just peace advocates. They've done so much incredible work around this and there's amazing documentation
Speaker:around this that they, that they pulled. They've done a freedom of information requests from
Speaker:from CRA and they've compiled a lot of really great information, but uh effectively they've
Speaker:sent over $300 million to Israel in various capacities. And if you look at that, like
Speaker:185, I mean, that's a big chunk of it going straight to HESG. So they heavily favor HESG
Speaker:in their donations when they're funneling money down. Sorry for interrupting. No, no, the clarification
Speaker:was important. And I think like it just helps justify the boycott, right? um As well as
Speaker:the, you know, quote unquote, inflammatory language that you used um to kind of catch
Speaker:people's attention and ask about this. Because I think it horrifies people once they realize
Speaker:because mainstream media, you know, way back when November, twenty, twenty three. November
Speaker:2023, some activists threw washable. I'm always reminded by a friend that was washable red
Speaker:paint and posters on the outside of an Indigo bookstore. We lovingly refer to them as the
Speaker:Indigo 11 now. And I mean, that was, I don't know if that was like the kickstart of the
Speaker:campaign, but very quite early on people. targeted Indigo as a pressure point. Do you
Speaker:want to speak about the Indigo 11? Because I think it helps demonstrate the politicization
Speaker:of Reisman. She's not just a bookstore owner who happens to, you know, fund charities that
Speaker:have questionable outcomes. She is a Zionist. She supports this genocide and seemingly the
Speaker:criminalization of anybody trying to stop it. Absolutely. mean, her she's litigious to the
Speaker:core. And that was, you know, something that we factor in when we when we organize against
Speaker:her. I think that so the Indigo 11, yes, they were not connected to the Indigo 11 and, you
Speaker:know, they had their own legal. uh, legal situation that we, we want it. We didn't want to, we
Speaker:didn't want to taint. want it, you know, they need to be able to, to go through that. Um,
Speaker:and they were able to, to overcome that. But yeah, so they, they, they threw the paint,
Speaker:they put the posters up, there were late night raids. It was national news. Um, and they,
Speaker:The other interesting part was, and maybe you want to speak to this as well, is the direct
Speaker:call to the TPS chief and the Toronto police chief and being able to get on the line with
Speaker:the Toronto police chief and have that discussion and push this investigation forward, which
Speaker:then to criminalize and harm these activists who were longtime activists. And uh one of
Speaker:the things I will say, like I want to... want to say though about this, you mentioned earlier
Speaker:was that this is a pressure point. In 2006 when the organization was founded, Hesseg, the foundation
Speaker:was created. There were a number of like old Jewish ladies that used to stand outside the
Speaker:Bay and Bloor location every Friday. So right when it started, the Jewish community was...
Speaker:was holding Indigo to account, was holding Heather to account out there every Friday speaking
Speaker:out against this. And so, you know, I think it's been for those who have been part of the
Speaker:Palisade movement, the Palestinian solidarity movement, they've sort of they've known about
Speaker:this and there's very few, you know, Canadian targets that we can really lay into at this
Speaker:level. Like there's lots of American, there's lots of British, there's lots of multi-national,
Speaker:but very few that are that have this type of visibility and have this type of power and
Speaker:that are Canadian. And when we talk about that proximity to power, we also have to, so she
Speaker:has this direct line to TPS. We know that she rubs shoulders with political elites and they
Speaker:all do. mean, her husband also owns WestJet. And we also found through email leaks recently
Speaker:that uh she was in direct contact with Benny Gantz. And she was a part, uh she funded
Speaker:and supported an anti-BDS, like online cyber campaign and cyber attacks. So she's not just
Speaker:some, you know, Canadian, just some lady, some rich white lady. She has direct lines to
Speaker:power and she wields that power and she wields it to stomp on anything. that would harm Israel
Speaker:and harm her business. Yeah, I am going to speak to that call to the police chief a little
Speaker:bit. mean, we know she made, she was able within hours, you know, to have access to the police
Speaker:chief, made two points of contact. And the way the Toronto police reacted to that paint and
Speaker:posters was unreal. So within days, hate motivated charges were added. In the end, 10 night raids,
Speaker:so, you know, middle of the night, people were dragged out of their homes wearing what they
Speaker:were wearing when they were in bed. ah They were, their homes were turned upside down,
Speaker:their devices taken from them. They were given... ridiculous unconstitutional bail conditions,
Speaker:not allowed to speak to each other. Many of them lost their jobs and still do not have
Speaker:employment. Two years later, I just recently hosted an event to raise money for the Toronto
Speaker:Community Justice Fund and they were speaking there. know, 70 officers went to arrest these
Speaker:folks. you're talking about like gangs and drug officers. showed up. Completely disproportionate.
Speaker:Yeah. And not one criminal conviction after millions spent. And this didn't, they weren't
Speaker:all fully kind of cleared until March, 2025. So a year and a half of legal drama plus, you
Speaker:know, probation or whatever comes because the way that the system works, but in the end,
Speaker:no criminal convictions. But that response, and a judge did rule. that she did not have
Speaker:any impact on the case whatsoever. But there's no other way for me to reconcile that kind
Speaker:of such early heavy-handed response. We've seen it since, but they just came out fully
Speaker:swinging after that and you know, those are dots people can connect themselves I think.
Speaker:So what's it feel like then when like you have all of this information? Oh wait, no, I have
Speaker:one more little thing to get people riled up. I've got a little note there that I just, you
Speaker:there's so many moments where I was just like, no, they didn't. But, uh you know, you have
Speaker:to go back to 2009 to Operation Cast Lead. Okay, this is where it, heavy, heavy bombardment
Speaker:of the Gaza Strip. and 1400 Palestinians were martyred and what did the foundation do? It
Speaker:sent 160,000 dollars worth of gifts to soldiers who took part. This is the kind of like literally
Speaker:rewarding them for killing children. So I don't know if I imagine indigo books in this gift
Speaker:basket. I know that probably isn't what happened, but this is what I envision. This is how fucked
Speaker:up. And you have all of this, right? You have all the, you might not have had that great
Speaker:tidbit, but you just, you have all of this knowledge. You saved that for another time, but. And
Speaker:then people are still coming at you with really pathetic defenses, you know? Why you shouldn't
Speaker:be boycotting ingo. I mean. Forget about inconvenience because it is hard to find another bookstore.
Speaker:Maybe we can link something to the episode for folks to replace it. I mean, that framing
Speaker:that framing that initially started as it was anti-semitic, like how does that feel having
Speaker:to feel that ridiculousness knowing what you know? It's the Hezbollah, right? It's the
Speaker:propaganda and it's the default setting for folks when they hear that you're going after
Speaker:Indigo and she's a Jewish woman and therefore you're anti-Semitic. Like how could you go
Speaker:against it? you know, first of all, across the country and even in our organizing group,
Speaker:we have people with Jewish backgrounds. We have people with Muslim backgrounds. We have people
Speaker:with like, know, um like LGBTQT, like we have a variety of people. Like if one thing Indigo
Speaker:is doing, it's bringing people together to hate on them because they, yeah, they suck. and
Speaker:when we're talking about this critique of, of antisemitism, we have to go back to this concept
Speaker:around, you know, the fact that they're oligarchs, they're not some small mom, paw run deli or
Speaker:mom, paw run you know, small business, they are a massive, they are a corporation. They
Speaker:are a massive corporation that makes like millions and millions of dollars. And so, you know,
Speaker:they, have to put them into that context. And we also have to remember, we can switch out,
Speaker:we can switch out their, their identity for anything. They don't have to be a Jewish.
Speaker:could be, they could be anything. They could be atheist. doesn't even matter. It's irrelevant.
Speaker:They are billionaires. their identifiers. That's good. They are billionaires. They're billionaires.
Speaker:We don't like billionaires. mean, at the of the day, billionaires eat the rich. Like, what
Speaker:are we, what are we doing? What are we doing? Um, giving them more money in general, like
Speaker:even just as a society that's trying to support each other and build community, like they are
Speaker:not there to build community. And I always. find it really funny when we have the criticism
Speaker:about like, how could you be going after this, you know, this Canadian, this person that's
Speaker:like, you know, she's got ah so many credentials and she's so important to us. And I'm like,
Speaker:you know, it's fun when I literally had a train of thought and it got completely derailed.
Speaker:But at the end of the day, like we are talking about a billionaire. We're not talking about
Speaker:some our community. need to be, and that's what I was going to say, like we need to be
Speaker:promoting our community. We need to be pushing small bookstores. We have people in our community,
Speaker:our neighbors literally that we could be supporting. We could be, um, we could be helping. And there
Speaker:are other options. Like we can talk about the other options that exist. But at the end of
Speaker:the day, like just at a base level, let's take away the identity. She's a billionaire. She's
Speaker:finding a foreign military. Um, and she's a hypocrite like, and like why and she's highly
Speaker:litigious. And so if she really cared about the people, like, you know, why not engage
Speaker:in a discourse? And quite frankly, she's she's she's lying about what her organization does
Speaker:as a PR stunt to like reframe. Speaking of stunts before Christmas of 2025, I knew it was going
Speaker:to happen, but it was so fun to watch online. And I texted a friend that I knew would have
Speaker:been downtown. said, did you go shopping at Indigo yesterday? And their response was,
Speaker:well, just to return something. um Let's talk about that, because I did love that. You love
Speaker:that. It's not just a boycott, right? You folks are finding other ways to interrupt business
Speaker:as usual. Yeah, we want to disrupt. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we want
Speaker:to do. And we have to remember that Well on one hand they're highly litigious and we don't
Speaker:we don't want to. There is an open lawsuit as well. So trying to uh you know we don't want
Speaker:them to also attach any financial uh dollar value to things. But at the end of the day
Speaker:we want to disrupt. We want to make doing business like uncomfortable. And at the end of the
Speaker:day like something like the economic like an economic boycott in this way can really make
Speaker:an impact. So I can give you some. some background so in case folks don't know what that action
Speaker:was, we based it on the, there was like an anti-ice action that happened in the US where
Speaker:they had those ice scrapers at Home Depot. They all went to Home Depot. They purchased
Speaker:17 cents ice scrapers and then they all queued up and returned the 17 cent ice scrapers in
Speaker:protest of Home Depot's complicity with ice and so on and so forth. So looking at that,
Speaker:We were talking about ways that we could potentially model something similar and how we could have
Speaker:an impact. And we've discussed over the last year and a half, like with various organizers
Speaker:across the country, know, uh actions around, they have people have independently returned
Speaker:books, they've gone and they've purchased books or a core component of the campaign is really
Speaker:just to waste time because time is money. How do we communicate with corporate corporations?
Speaker:We communicate with corporations. with money by using money. And if we want their behavior
Speaker:to change, we need to affect the things that are important to them and what affects what's
Speaker:important. Like what's important to them is money. So things like bookmarking and stickering
Speaker:are ways to impact their money. It's not damaging their product, but it's a nuisance. They have
Speaker:to go, they have to, they have to peel these stickers off that say Heather picks genocide,
Speaker:or they have to peel stickers off that say like 50 % off genocide. And We're not doing anything
Speaker:they're not doing. They have the same stickers on their books. We often stick them on top
Speaker:of their stickers. So it's not that they can't remove them. It's that they have to. They have
Speaker:to go through and remove them. And so this is time and this is money. In the same way that
Speaker:folks had lined up and they provide, they'll go to the till and at the end they'll just
Speaker:say, actually, you know what, Indigo kills kids. I'm not really into this. And they'll walk
Speaker:away. So they'll waste time that way. em And this was another way of wasting time and creating
Speaker:a backlog. So if we think about um not just the returning of the books and how that mess.
Speaker:So what we did, let me take a step back. What we did was we got folks to uh purchase books
Speaker:at any Indigo. And then the idea is you can return at any Indigo. And then the idea was
Speaker:basically to queue up and return. And some people and to create a backlog to kind of bottleneck
Speaker:things. And on a day they had a book signing that day. It's like the busiest shopping day
Speaker:of the year. It's the Saturday, the weekend before Christmas is the busiest shopping day
Speaker:of the year. And so we create a bottleneck and a number of things, outcomes can happen. People
Speaker:can get frustrated and walk away. So that's loss. the purchasing and returning. Um, the
Speaker:numbers are going to show there's like an hour and a half of time on the busiest shopping
Speaker:day of the year in a retail, uh, in a retail space where every hour counts and you've just
Speaker:literally gave them a zero sales in that hour. In fact, you've probably given them negative
Speaker:sales because they've returned things. And so now you're messing with their inventory system.
Speaker:You've got the time that it takes for them to have to reshell all those books. You've got
Speaker:people looking for books that they can't find because they're, they've been pulled off the
Speaker:shelves because they've been returned. So all of these things, know, one of the critiques
Speaker:that was shared with us was, you know, oh, like what's $3,000, like whatever, that's
Speaker:a drop in the bucket. I was like, and we have to think of it, it's more than just the dollar
Speaker:value of the books. It's everything else that goes into running a business that costs money.
Speaker:Okay, yeah. And to that critique as well, one, you never know what drop is going to overflow
Speaker:the bucket. We talk about that a lot. The smallest movements you just never know. You will never
Speaker:know. You might not even know after it happens that that was the drop that counted. But we
Speaker:all saw this action. This was really bad PR for Indigo, right? Because these lineups kind
Speaker:of brought a little bit more attention to the boycotts. was a big deal. that... You know
Speaker:how hard it is to break the algorithm and get your word out and get the message out? mean,
Speaker:trust me, we all, had someone ask that last night in the photography course, right? How
Speaker:do you then make sure as many people see your images? And it's like, well, sometimes it means
Speaker:being disruptive, being a pain in the ass. And that is very valuable. So what do you
Speaker:say though to Reisman's most recent kind of pivot away from my her identity as the target
Speaker:to these kinds of actions hurt retail workers. You're attacking retail workers and like that's
Speaker:like We can laugh, we've heard this critique before because we've seen folks do fill up
Speaker:grocery carts and leave them because Galen Weston, we hate Galen Weston. I don't even know what
Speaker:religion he is. We hate him just because he makes our groceries too much money. And that's
Speaker:enough for me. of billionaires and money. And that's what it is. Well, then they'll protect
Speaker:that under the fucking charter. But I would like to let's hit that though because It's
Speaker:not an uncommon critique of when we go to retail outlets and cause a disruption. Sure.
Speaker:I mean, I love to talk about all the union busting that Heather does and the stores that she
Speaker:specifically closed down due to union busting or um the way that she by union busting at
Speaker:one location. What they did was they hired a bunch more part time people and like forced
Speaker:people to either quit or, you know, I mean, to claim that this is about workers, what
Speaker:a comical response. And I'm sorry, you pay people minimum wage, like girl, get fucked.
Speaker:That's uh their job, you pay them. We weren't vandalizing anything, we didn't damage goods.
Speaker:There was no red, like I saw. years ago, somebody had, I think in Calgary, they dragged like
Speaker:red paint through the store. Nothing like that. We just, pardon? Not judging. Yeah. It's just
Speaker:a accident. Yeah. Oops. But at the end of the day, you know, we have to look at it and what
Speaker:did we do? We just, what? We lined up and as customers we're entitled to. Are we not entitled
Speaker:to purchase and change our minds? Are we not entitled to like, and it's part of our charter
Speaker:rights for expression. We are allowed to disrupt. We are allowed to protest. It is our duty to
Speaker:do this. And I find it comical that the who critique with like, this is about workers are
Speaker:not people that are out there with the unions. They're not the ones actually supporting any
Speaker:sort of workers rights. They're the same people that are like, get a job when you're out there,
Speaker:approach this. They're the same people that are really actually anti-worker themselves.
Speaker:it's not anything out of the realm of what the workers do on a day-to-day basis. It's just
Speaker:scaled up. Yeah, scaled up. And I imagine the folks partaking in these actions don't take
Speaker:it out on the workers. I mean, as an organizer, we usually make that explanation, right? You
Speaker:know, like when you're calling MPs office and you know it's a staffer that's likely going
Speaker:to take your message. Like we do not chew them out. We do not, you know, make it their problem
Speaker:because they've been put in between us and our opponents. 100%. Yeah. And, you know,
Speaker:and that's a big uh part of the campaign is actually like reminding folks that we're here
Speaker:to educate. That is our primary responsibility. And I think we have moments and we see this,
Speaker:right, where we see folks where we're upset. what? Almost three years, two and a half years
Speaker:in, three years in, we're exhausted. People are frustrated. I know with these actions,
Speaker:know, CJA loves to have their by-court um that counters, which is like also just fun to make
Speaker:fun of. But overall, you know, there's a lot of counter action that comes at, at the people
Speaker:that are running these actions. And so I know it's, it's easy for folks to get worked up.
Speaker:It's easy for them to get heated. You know, I've seen stuff where people, you know, maybe
Speaker:have heckled folks as they entered the store. And one of the things that at a national organizing
Speaker:level, what we try to remind folks is, you know, it amazes me how many people just don't know
Speaker:about the Indigo boycott. There's it's one of the most common responses when you talk to
Speaker:people and you're educating them and you say like, engage with them on why we're boycotting
Speaker:Indigo. Many of them are like, oh, I have no idea. uh They become quite surprised. So it's
Speaker:incredible how many people still are unaware. And so I think that That's one thing to remember
Speaker:that as organizers, like we really want to be bringing people into the movement. And we really
Speaker:want to be bringing people, um, keeping that door open and keeping that, pardon me, that
Speaker:conversation going with folks. And so it's really important to remember that one, when we're
Speaker:out there, um, how we present ourselves or like how we engage with people, including the workers,
Speaker:you know, um, in order to get people to come and join the boycott, join the movement and
Speaker:like, you whatever your gateway boycott, so to speak, and get your foot in the door. And
Speaker:also we're representing Palestinians. We are still speaking for Palestinians if we're not
Speaker:Palestinian. And so how we approach things and how we um amplify, we have to be careful that
Speaker:we're also not harming our Palestinian comrades either and that we're doing right by them.
Speaker:So it's really uh important that we Like we don't, we don't want to go for the workers.
Speaker:They are, they're doing what they need to do. And honestly, some of the workers like, you
Speaker:know, work it from the inside. Like I've heard some really fun stuff that some of the workers
Speaker:are partaking them in themselves that are also, um, you know, participating in their own ways.
Speaker:And even in some of the same ways that we participate and, but they're just doing it on the inside
Speaker:and they just. It makes me laugh and I love it and I'm happy that people are finding ways
Speaker:to express themselves and to call it out where it needs to be called out. I love that. By
Speaker:the way, my mom had this uh Indigo gift card around the holidays. We don't remember when
Speaker:she got it, but she had it and she was like, uh okay, I know there's a boycott. What do
Speaker:I do? I'm like, you go use that because right now they have your hundred dollars. So for
Speaker:clarification, if you have a gift card, you spend that and not one penny. You know, like,
Speaker:don't know how you do that. She tried her best. I don't know what she ended up leaving money
Speaker:on the card or spending a couple bucks in the store. But she was she came to me for clearance
Speaker:first. And I was like, no, no, no, they're not keeping your money. uh And we want to make
Speaker:sure that when you use those books or those gift cards, use them to purchase Palestinian
Speaker:authors specifically. That's because at the end of the day, like the authors are getting
Speaker:some money. Though if you're going to be giving Indigo some of that money or if you're going
Speaker:to use that money, at least you know some of that gift card money is going to Palestinian
Speaker:authors. So we really encourage that. the end of the day, authors don't get to decide where
Speaker:their books are distributed. ah So that's another thing that we want to make sure we encourage
Speaker:folks not to shit on authors who have their books there. encouraging them not to have signings
Speaker:there would be great. They can definitely talk to their publishers about doing their signings
Speaker:or their readings at other independent bookstores. But certainly we want folks to think about
Speaker:the fact that because authors don't decide, you will see, know, Eve Engler's book on the
Speaker:shelves there, you will see Indigenous books, will see, what was it, Sayutibi's was on the
Speaker:top 100 books of 2025, which was kind of comical, but he himself is a supporter of the campaign.
Speaker:Just thinking about those types of things, we want to make sure that we are targeting
Speaker:the right groups. um And really at the end of the day, it's Indigo. And educating folks
Speaker:on why Indigo is a problem. You talked about keeping the door open and bringing as many
Speaker:people into the campaign as possible. You are very deliberate with your language. The
Speaker:campaign is very deliberate with its language to that end. sometimes you get criticized
Speaker:for it as well. Let's talk about that a little bit, the kind of word choices that you make
Speaker:um and like weigh the cost benefit a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the
Speaker:things we have to remember is that as much as we want to tear down the system, we still live
Speaker:in the system and we can't overnight decide, you know, it's not going to change. So we have
Speaker:to consider the mediums that we're using and the way that people consume information. And
Speaker:so that's why we chose to uh take a bit of a more marketing type approach to things. So
Speaker:we use their brands, they're similar to their branding, we use their colors uh and really
Speaker:we mimic them. It's sort of a mockery, right? And that's actually the counter to the copyright
Speaker:argument is that actually in the end, uh it's our right to do that. It's not copyright infringement
Speaker:if we are critiquing. That being said, in that uh idea of like we're using social media,
Speaker:so having these sort of like marketing type style graphics, things that are easy to consume,
Speaker:easy to grab, easy to share is one of the things. And one of the other things that we like
Speaker:to do is we like to, I'm really grateful for some of these creators. There's been some
Speaker:really great ones that have discussed, you know, like language and how we engage with, with
Speaker:groups. And if we think about. If we think about it from, you know, whether we're in a political
Speaker:sphere or we're in a marketing sphere, like there are people that are going to be decided,
Speaker:right? One way or another. And there's always that middle, those middle group, that middle
Speaker:group that we need to appeal to. And so one of the things we've considered is the fact
Speaker:that we don't want to create barriers. So one of the. Some of the feedback as we were creating
Speaker:content, were noticing people kept asking, what does IOF mean? like, IOF, IOF, it was a barrier.
Speaker:We were finding that people were getting stuck on it and we were having to explain it or spell
Speaker:it out. So we've adjusted our language to Israeli military instead of IOF. Yeah. So just for
Speaker:folks who are wondering what is she talking about? So do you want to explain the difference
Speaker:between IOF and IDF? Absolutely. So IOF is the Israeli occupation force versus the Israeli
Speaker:defense force. The common critique, what are they defending? They're actually occupying
Speaker:uh or offending. you know, depending on who you are, might say Israeli occupation force,
Speaker:Israeli offense force. uh The idea being a mockery of their language. em And it's something that
Speaker:counter protesters or anti or pro-Palestinian, should say, uh activists, like what the language
Speaker:that we'll use to highlight the occupation component of Israel. um But using abbreviations was
Speaker:a barrier. The other thing is people get... which when you start or uncomfortable squirming,
Speaker:when you start talking about, when you start using words like Zionist or Jewish and because
Speaker:of the conflation and the messiness that, um, that, uh, has barrests have done a fairly
Speaker:good job up to this point in doing, um, we try and stay away from that language. There are
Speaker:moments where, where it calls for it, but overall we try and stay away from the language just
Speaker:to create accessibility, uh, to, to highlight the fact that this campaign is not about an
Speaker:identity. This campaign is about, you can sub her out for anything. At the end of the day,
Speaker:you've got a billionaire using our charity system to get a tax break to send money to
Speaker:a foreign military. And that foreign military is committing genocide. that is the bare bones
Speaker:of it. um And so by creating, by... By not using certain types of language, we can help
Speaker:keep that door open and keep that conversation going because we just find that when you start
Speaker:using um that link, people tend to just kind of turn off or they turn away. I I had one
Speaker:woman at an action in the city that I live in. um We were outside at the last day of action
Speaker:and she came up. to us and started asking us questions. And she was like, how do even know
Speaker:this? How do even know it's $200 million or whatever, $185 million, right? And I was like,
Speaker:well, the CRA publishes, it's a charity, it's a registered charity. It's listed on their
Speaker:website, like on the CRA website, there's lots of very public information about how much money
Speaker:the Reese M. Schwartz Foundation sends to... sends to Hesseg Foundation. And she goes, yeah,
Speaker:well, how do you even know that Hesseg even does this? I was like, it's literally on their
Speaker:website. And so everything's They rang about it. That's how we know. They got video- only
Speaker:thing they did was change it to Hebrew after we launched. So they took away the English
Speaker:option, but hello Google Translate and Way Way Back Machine. There's many ways to see exactly
Speaker:what they're doing and they didn't change their Canada help. It's just the attempts to opposite,
Speaker:like, obfuscate, but also in this very sloppy way is quite funny. But that being said, the
Speaker:facts stand for themselves. We don't need to shove counter narrative down their throat.
Speaker:We can just use the facts and the facts speak for themselves. people, they say it themselves.
Speaker:And the joke is, Indicator kills kids, they say it themselves. I mean, they own the domain,
Speaker:for goodness sake. What else do you need? They own the domain that says Indigo Kills Kids.
Speaker:So what do you want? I completely understand what you're talking about in terms of trying
Speaker:to appeal to as many people. And we know definitely some words are triggers. But I do want to acknowledge
Speaker:there that it's not so much imposing an ideology, but refusing to legitimize another. So some
Speaker:people will take the conscious choice and we talked about this before we it again. I try
Speaker:in my writing not to use Israel, the word Israel. It legitimizes the state for some, right? Using
Speaker:that language helps solidify the right for that to even exist the way that it does, right?
Speaker:As an occupation, an illegal occupation, right? So even IOF for some. is a problem because
Speaker:it's still uh a bit of a form of legitimization. But yeah, it's about kind of being defiant
Speaker:because there's a lot of normalization that goes around simply that state of Israel, right?
Speaker:Whereas recognizing Palestine is some sort of question, but recognizing this illegal occupation
Speaker:as having a right to exist is just unquestionable now. It's just standard. I do understand
Speaker:some of the pushback that you receive for um not using the word Zionist and instead using
Speaker:the word Israel, but I do appreciate the explainer there and some campaigns serve different purposes,
Speaker:right? um And everyone's kind of got to decide how they can be as effective as possible while
Speaker:walking this very difficult line. that we're all just kind of trying to figure out. So
Speaker:I wanted to give you space to definitely talk about that. And that's choices that some people
Speaker:might make ah even when they're not talking about Palestine, when they're talking about
Speaker:landlords or the language that they might try to use to either maybe you think it fires
Speaker:some people up, maybe it's turning more people away. And that measurement is like hard to
Speaker:tell as well, but it's interesting to hear a marketing. approach. What's coming up?
Speaker:Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, that's okay. I think that's a really great. Uh, thank you for framing
Speaker:that because at the end of the day, we just, want people to step into it. We can radicalize
Speaker:them once they're here, but we need them in at the end of the day. Right. So we need to
Speaker:use whatever entry point we can. And, um, it's not going to be, it's already not comfortable
Speaker:for people. So, um, why not? I don't want to say why not be a soft landing because I don't
Speaker:think that's what we are, but, um, you know, why not just remove barriers and people come
Speaker:along, people radicalize and they change their tune as they learn more. What's next for the
Speaker:campaign? I read, you know, I think it was, I'm so bad with acronyms, maybe it's in my
Speaker:notes. CJPME had a quick fact sheet that I'll link a bunch of resources in the show notes,
Speaker:folks, so you can know exactly where she gets these numbers from, right? But um one of the
Speaker:things that they, They had three points to when will this boycott stop and they just seemed...
Speaker:Um, never like that. Yeah, it feels like that, right? They need to hit all those points. It
Speaker:was like, um, you know, the Reisman Schwartz Foundation stops donating to HESC, but they
Speaker:founded it. Um, the, the occupation ends. There was another one there, but like for you
Speaker:in the campaign, what is the end goal? Um, I think it depends who you ask. I think people
Speaker:have different motivators. Um, I think. You know, we have our campaign goals stated explicitly
Speaker:on our website. We want uh Indigo or Heather Reisman to stop funding the Hessex Foundation
Speaker:for them to either step down as CEO and completely divest from Indigo, like separate themselves
Speaker:completely from the organization. um And, you know, so, and to have the CRA revoke the Hessex
Speaker:Charity status. So these are, these are our. um These are our goals, campaign goals, and
Speaker:we're pushing in the ways that we can. So right now, for example, there is a petition that's
Speaker:out. You will have to link the number because I always get all the numbers jumbled together,
Speaker:but that Heather MacPherson is sponsoring uh to calling on the government to investigate
Speaker:IOS soldiers uh that have Canadians that have served in the Israeli military specifically.
Speaker:Uh, and calling for the investigation of HESG as well specifically. So, um, thank you to
Speaker:the person who put in that petition. So that's last I checked. might be a little bit dated
Speaker:this number. It was around 9,000 signatures. Um, and, uh, the petition closes, uh, in
Speaker:April. So of course we want to be pushing that and we want to be pushing folks to be chatting
Speaker:to their MPs and telling them that this is important. You know, um, we've been also criticized because
Speaker:we, um, We like to create, have a series called Heather's Picks, which highlights or showcases,
Speaker:if you will, um the wonderful achievements um of the Canadians who are participate, Canadian
Speaker:Loan Soldiers. So we love to showcase um that they participated, they're Canadians, and
Speaker:some have participated in gives us so, know, uh We've posted that online and that comes
Speaker:from the Maples Find IDF Soldier website. don't go digging. oh We haven't found anything
Speaker:outside of that. Everything is publicly available. um So I think it's really important that we
Speaker:are also focusing on the fact that they walk amongst us. They're business owners, they're
Speaker:food truck owners, they're... uh restaurant owners, they're, you know, your gym, there's
Speaker:like a, you know, Krav Maga craft that's around. Like these are, they walk amongst us and we
Speaker:are allowing it. We are allowing people who have served in a foreign military, who literally
Speaker:murdered children, um, walk amongst us and, and we really need to be looking into that.
Speaker:And so that's, that's another, uh, push. want to keep mobilizing people to organize actions
Speaker:in their own way, whether You know, they're out there flyering. have flyers and uh such
Speaker:on our website so folks can download some stuff and print whatever works for them and make
Speaker:sure that they're out there letting people know like the issues with Indigo. You don't have
Speaker:to stand in front of an Indigo to educate about Indigo. That's the other great thing. And
Speaker:there's also themselves as people like you can. You can just not shop at Indigo. There's
Speaker:lots of great indie bookstores on our website. We partnered with ah Watermelon Maps to specifically,
Speaker:they have like a uh boycott Indigo filter, like on their website specifically, which is linked
Speaker:on our website as well, that ah allows you to see bookstores that have, um that are like
Speaker:watermelon friendly or Palestine friendly. uh Apartheid Free uh BC or like the Apartheid
Speaker:Free Movement has bookstores or businesses across the country. They don't just sell books. They
Speaker:sell like all sorts of random shit like homeware and sex toys even. it's like a of other. Yeah.
Speaker:know, squishables. They sell squishables. Those are made by a company based in the occupation.
Speaker:Okay. Good to know. Yeah, I know. We bought this one beforehand. So you know, sometimes
Speaker:you just, yeah, when you know better, you do better, right? Like we can't, we can't be perfect
Speaker:and like perfection shouldn't be the goal. You know, we really, the goal is to just continuously
Speaker:improve. And you know, I can't, I can't stop. There's certain things in my home when we go
Speaker:to the grocery store, like, I do the best I can. At end of the day, and we should all be
Speaker:doing, doing what we can. And one way we can do is there's lots of online option, other
Speaker:options that are not Amazon or Indigo that you can buy books at. Um, and we've listed some
Speaker:of those on our website and our socials. Um, so there's lots of different ways that you
Speaker:can participate in the campaign without, um, yeah, even if you don't want to. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Or throw red paint or like, know, we have entry level. We have entry level. Yeah, we have
Speaker:phases, you know, like you don't have to like we will radicalize you, but you don't have
Speaker:to get there right away. No, I, I very much appreciate coming on the show to explain
Speaker:the madness to the methodology and whatnot. We will folks really do jump into the show
Speaker:notes. You should always go into the show notes, but there's always a call to action. So we'll
Speaker:link you to the petition. will link you to their website, the portal that gives you posters
Speaker:that you can print out yourself so that you can jump right into this campaign if you want,
Speaker:and as well as all the kind of supporting documentation so that when someone randomly asks, how do
Speaker:you know this? ah You've got the receipts already with you, but ah yeah, I very much appreciate
Speaker:this. It's a slog, right? taking criticisms from both sides and... just trying to do what
Speaker:we can do within the realm that's available to us, right? And every point of pressure
Speaker:is a valid one, I think, at this point, right? Like, it's been all hands on deck. Everyone
Speaker:has kind of looked to the institutions around them. And I agree with you. I think this is
Speaker:one of these kind of Canadian institutions, like, you know, maybe not official. It's not
Speaker:our courts. It's not our schools. It's not... but we hold it in very high regard and it
Speaker:needs to be taken down a few notches knowing what we know now, right? About the foundation
Speaker:and its role in the genocide. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for letting us talk
Speaker:about it. I think it's not very often that we get this opportunity, so I really appreciate
Speaker:you sharing it with your audience. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you came to the right place. Thank
Speaker:you. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining
Speaker:us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero. Blueprints
Speaker:of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker:at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo, please
Speaker:share our content. And if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our
Speaker:support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and
Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
