Vote Palestine!
Find out why and how the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) chose to intervene in the 2025 Federal Election.
VotePalestine.ca is more than a listing of candidates who have signed onto the Palestinian Platform. Yara Shoufani of the PYM explains the strategy behind the campaign, their expectations of politicians and, its long terms goals around mobilizing power.
The discussion also provides a great overview of the work the PYM has been doing since we last spoke to them, and specifics on how they're continuing to build capacity and bring people into the movement for a Free Palestine.
Hosted by: Jessa McLean
Call to Action: Take the Vote Palestine Pledge
Related Episodes:
- Our previous discussion with PYM, Return and Liberation;
- Canada's Colonial Imagination, with Tyler Shipley helps explain Canada's reaction to the occupation; and,
- Our entire Free Palestine Playlist
More Resources:
- PYM on Instagram
- Guelph News: Which federal candidates support the Palestine Platform? - An example of a local news outlet covering candidates' positions on the Palestine Platform.
- Trends in International Arms Transfers (2021) - On Canada's growing prominence in the arms industry.
- Vote Palestine FAQs
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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. I know a lot of you are going into this election feeling defeated. Maybe you
Speaker:feel a bit of relief that a conservative win is less likely at this point, but I don't see
Speaker:many of us looking at a liberal win as any kind of victory for the people or the movements
Speaker:we talk about here on Blueprints of Disruption. No, this election is another example of picking
Speaker:the least worst option. And with so many disappointments out there, even that's proving harder to do
Speaker:than usual. Particularly if we're thinking about the Palestinian question, as we should be.
Speaker:We know where some of the usual suspects sit on the issue, but for the most part, politicians
Speaker:have been happy to stay off the record in regards to the genocide in Gaza. So how do we know
Speaker:who to vote for? If anyone? Palestinian youth movement is in the middle of a campaign right
Speaker:now to force candidates off that fence they've been sitting on, while making it easier for
Speaker:you to find like-minded people in your riding to organize with. They've launched the Vote
Speaker:Palestine campaign and website and the response has been impressive. If you've not heard of
Speaker:it, Yara, our next guest, will tell you everything you need to know. But we don't just talk about
Speaker:the Palestine platform that's on the website and the pledge they're asking people to take.
Speaker:We get into the strategies PYM is using to achieve their long-term goals of return and liberation,
Speaker:how they're continuing to mobilize power, and how they came to decide to intervene in the
Speaker:2025 Canadian federal election in the first place. Good morning, Yara. Can you please introduce
Speaker:yourself to the audience? Hi, Jessica. Thanks so much for having me on the show. My name
Speaker:is Yara and I'm an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement. based in Toronto, Canada. And
Speaker:the PYM is a transnational youth organization. So we exist in just over 15 cities across Canada,
Speaker:the United States and Europe. And we're a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Arab youth
Speaker:who have been organizing for many years now, although certainly very intensely for the
Speaker:last 18 months in service of the Palestinian National Liberation struggle. And PYM does
Speaker:all kinds of various sorts of work. Of course we organize and have been organizing protests
Speaker:and days of action and so on. We're also heavily engaged in media campaigns and battle of ideas,
Speaker:which is particularly important here in the West where... so much of what we see around
Speaker:us is advancing Zionist ideologies. And we also, of course, engage in local community
Speaker:work in order to offer education and culture and various kinds of events and programming
Speaker:for our own communities, but also in partnership with other joint struggle and solidarity organizations.
Speaker:In the last couple of weeks, we've also been engaged at least here in Canada, in something
Speaker:that's slightly electoral, which is the vote-president campaign. And that's what we're going to spend
Speaker:the bulk of our time talking about. Folks may remember, if you've been long-time listeners,
Speaker:we had the two representatives from the Palestinian youth movement on back in 2023. and they really
Speaker:did a deep dive into all the cultural activities that they do on top of the advocacy. So I'll
Speaker:link that so you can hear, you know, what they got to spend a bulk of their time on prior
Speaker:to October 7th. But I imagine you have been just so incredibly busy. We've covered a lot
Speaker:of the actions that the PYM has been involved in. We do appreciate what you folks are doing.
Speaker:And yeah, this crowd that's listening will be curious to hear how you folks kind of settled
Speaker:on the votepalestine.ca campaign. That is obviously linked in the show notes as well. Folks can
Speaker:look there and get involved. But how did you decide on how, I mean, you couldn't do nothing.
Speaker:Not doing anything during the federal election just wasn't an option. I mean, nothing new,
Speaker:right? You had to approach it with something. How did you decide on this particular tactic?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, you said it exactly. We couldn't do nothing. Like, the last 18 months have been
Speaker:a huge reckoning for so much of the world. And certainly in Canada, we've seen people
Speaker:pouring out into the streets for Palestine in the hundreds of thousands. Like, we're talking
Speaker:about just a month into the genocide in November of 2023. where we called for a national march
Speaker:on Ottawa with over 100,000 people pouring into the streets on a single day. And that kind
Speaker:of energy has continued throughout the course of the 18 months where people have taken on,
Speaker:you know, all kinds of, whether it be mass mobilizations, right, joining protests, those mass mobilizations
Speaker:then acting as a window into political organizing for a lot of people, right? So they go out
Speaker:to protest many people for the first time in their lives. And now, you know, 18 months later,
Speaker:they're participating in political organizing for Palestine. We've been, you know, working
Speaker:on challenging political candidates, right? Because we know Canada, of course, we like
Speaker:to say, well, look, you Canada is not as bad as the United States. And look at how much
Speaker:how many billions of dollars the US sends to Israel, et cetera, et cetera. And of course,
Speaker:like we live in an era where the United States is sort of at the center of of world imperialisms,
Speaker:like the level of alignment with the US and Israel as an imperialist project is different.
Speaker:But in Canada, we also have weapons contracts, which allow for Canada to send weapons to Israel,
Speaker:but also allow for Canada to purchase weapons from Israel that are tested on Palestinian
Speaker:people. And all of this is further kind of heightened through what's called the US loophole.
Speaker:And what we've seen in the last 18 months is this huge, so much energy developed in Canada
Speaker:around an arms embargo specifically. Now, of course there's other demands, right? Like
Speaker:for a while we were calling for a ceasefire for Canada to just say the word ceasefire.
Speaker:And that took a while, but you know, then, and of course there's like a lot of other details
Speaker:around Canadian complicity, whether it relates to, you know, Canada's diplomatic record, the
Speaker:United Nations, or the trade that Canada does with Israeli settlements and Israeli corporations,
Speaker:different companies that are invested in Israeli genocide, like for example, Scotiabank. So
Speaker:we've seen all of these kinds of different campaigns pick up over the last 18 months,
Speaker:many of which are really targeted against or focused on this question of Canadian complicity.
Speaker:And in these last 18 months, we've seen people who, you know, we've been within our own communities
Speaker:who've maybe like, never have historically kind of felt like proud Canadians, or maybe
Speaker:even like they want to be at least good Canadians, right? Even though they understand that Israel
Speaker:is committing genocide and occupation and so on, but there's a bit of a difference between
Speaker:how they might see Israel versus how they might see Canada. And in the last 18 months, we've
Speaker:seen people for the first time ever reckon with Canada's role in genocide. And I think so...
Speaker:you know, this has kind of been like there's been sort of this mass reckoning, I think that's
Speaker:taken place, some of which is within the Palestinian Arab and Muslim community, but others which
Speaker:are also much more broad than that, right? Like, of course, we know, like within the labor
Speaker:movement, within other joint struggles, but then also within broad Canadian society where
Speaker:like, people are like, attending protests for the first time, people are learning about Palestine
Speaker:for the first time. And then these people are being moved into action. And many of them
Speaker:are getting involved in some way around the question of members of parliament, right? And
Speaker:we saw this really clearly with the arms embargo campaign, where if you go to the arms embargo
Speaker:campaign's website, you can actually see a list of candidates who have pledged onto arms embargo,
Speaker:something like 22 NDP, or sorry, not candidates, members of parliament. So something like 22
Speaker:NDPs, 23 maybe, or 22 liberals, and two green. And what's interesting about this is like,
Speaker:this didn't happen overnight. This happened through sustained organizing at the level of
Speaker:writings, at the level of the streets, the grassroots constituents calling those members
Speaker:of parliament, demanding meetings. mean, there was a protest that was organized on Thanksgiving
Speaker:outside of Arif Farani's house on the premise that he hadn't yet signed an arms embargo.
Speaker:And the demand was like, we don't want to leave until you meet with your constituents. You've
Speaker:refused for months to meet with your constituents who are demanding that you support an arms
Speaker:embargo. And so this kind of like reckoning to let the election just happen without finding
Speaker:a way to bring this movement and have it interact with a period of time, which we know the elections
Speaker:are not some kind of like tool for liberation. Like we have no disillusionment about what
Speaker:Canadian elections represent, but it's also a window. It's a window where people are super
Speaker:activated, they're mobilized, and it's a window where these candidates who have been ignoring,
Speaker:some of whom have been ignoring us for the last 18 months are knocking on our doors, coming
Speaker:into our community spaces, our churches, our mosques, you know, all of these places, our
Speaker:neighborhoods trying to ask for our votes. And so to not find a way to bring this mass movement
Speaker:into the election would have actually been, I think, a huge oversight, you know, in terms
Speaker:of our organizing. And so you mentioned or I mentioned earlier, the PYM has chapters across
Speaker:the world and that includes in the United States. So we witnessed some of this in the United
Speaker:States with the uncommitted movement. I mean, despite how it ended, we did see that there
Speaker:was something interesting that could take place if you could actually mobilize people in a
Speaker:way that promotes community power, that strengthens organizing and the prospect of future organizing
Speaker:and bring that into an election period. specifically to create crisis for the political system,
Speaker:which is sort of how we as PYM, you know, kind of think about this sort of stuff is what
Speaker:is our role here in the diaspora when we're talking about having complicit politicians,
Speaker:when we're telling them you can't knock on our doors, you can't come into our communities
Speaker:and fundraise, you know, without being disrupted. Justin Trudeau, every fundraiser that he had
Speaker:that we got windowed, if we were protesting outside and blocking the entrances and so on
Speaker:and so forth. That was a reflection of us basically leveraging community power, saying we've built
Speaker:a mass movement and we know that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions in this
Speaker:country, support the Palestinian struggle. We're not going to allow for business to go on as
Speaker:usual, for politics to go on as usual without this movement having to be reckoned with. And
Speaker:that was really the thought process going into this election is we're not going to allow
Speaker:Palestine to brush under the rug. while the terrafore and whatever else is being focused
Speaker:on, we want to put Palestine at the center of the election. Like I think anybody can realize
Speaker:that no politician, when listening to their advisors, would go and put the Palestinian
Speaker:question on their pamphlet. They're sitting there at their debates just praying nobody
Speaker:asks that question, right? They want to talk about maybe for lucky housing, but really we
Speaker:saw them talking, wanting to lead with military spending. almost the opposite of the arms
Speaker:embargo approach. know, absolutely that would have been what they would have taken hold of
Speaker:and all the other silly nonsense that they're getting away with. And I'm encountering people
Speaker:daily, constantly, especially because I do shit on electoral politics a lot. And I can't
Speaker:advise anybody who to vote for. I'm just sitting back. I don't want to focus on that. have
Speaker:my own niche, okay? And I don't answer that question for anybody. But I'm asked it a lot,
Speaker:you know, you don't like this, you don't like this politician or that party and that party,
Speaker:who do you vote for? And some for some people right now, the bare fucking minimum is going
Speaker:to be how they answer some of the questions that you have on the pledge that you're asking
Speaker:candidates to take. One of the tools that is on the website is quite literally a gallery
Speaker:of candidates who have signed on to the pledge as well as the pledge itself. You can use your
Speaker:postal code and look up and see if your candidates are on there. If they're not, they've got an
Speaker:email and all these questions ready to go if you want to go ask them where they stand on
Speaker:it or show up at a town hall and blast them with one of these questions. But it is going
Speaker:to be a tool at the... The bare minimum of it is to find where some of these folks lay
Speaker:now and hold them to these positions later. But I'd like to talk about the strategy of
Speaker:building in this moment while people are paying attention because it's funny for me for people
Speaker:to be now looking at their politicians seeing where they're at, but they should have already
Speaker:been doing this, right? Because we've asked people to go to your MPs, go to your MPPs and
Speaker:push them on an arms embargo now and now they're wondering where they're at. So that tells me
Speaker:there has been another awakening, not just from the over the 18 months, but now they're faced
Speaker:with this moment of time. And I imagine you said 15 cities you're based in, surely you're
Speaker:making contacts in all these ridings. And what is it? 338 ridings? I always forget. I imagine
Speaker:this has the potential to network. in this way, right? So do you want to hit on the other organizing
Speaker:tactics that are being employed now that go beyond whatever the politicians decide to do?
Speaker:Totally. Yeah. So, and like you said, just like the premise sort of at a really high level
Speaker:of the campaign is like, there is a personal pledge, which allows for me as like a voter
Speaker:to go and put in my postal code and my name and an email gets sent out. to the candidates
Speaker:who are running in my riding, basically letting them know that like, Palestine is a key election
Speaker:issue for me and I'm watching, I'm looking out for their positions on these five demands.
Speaker:And the five demands that are outlined on the website are what we call the Palestine platform,
Speaker:which are arms embargo, a full two-way arms embargo with the closing of the US loophole
Speaker:to be specific. You know, not the fake arms embargo that the liberals keep saying they've
Speaker:implemented, which they haven't. The second demand is to stop trade, Canadian trade, whether
Speaker:it's cultural, economic or academic, with illegal Israeli settlements. The third demand is around
Speaker:Palestinian or the protection of Palestinian freedom of speech and the implementation of
Speaker:anti-Palestinian racism as a formal policy. And this is really important because in the
Speaker:last 18 months, we've really seen heightened repression against the Palestine movement on
Speaker:so many levels. The fourth demand is a recognition of Palestinian state. And the fifth demand
Speaker:is the funding of Gaza rebuilding efforts, but specifically, like including UNRWA, which
Speaker:we know from Pierre Pelliev's discourse that he wants to basically ban as like a terrorist
Speaker:organization, despite it being literally a UN institution that for a long time has been playing
Speaker:an important role in funding efforts, despite actually some criticisms that we may have coming
Speaker:from the left of UNRWA. And so these are these five demands and basically, This pledge, this
Speaker:individual pledge allows for an email to go to the candidates, letting them know, hey,
Speaker:I'm looking out for your position on this. And on the flip side, the candidates can then indicate
Speaker:their position on this. And of course we know that candidates don't just do that necessarily
Speaker:out of the good of their heart. They do that because they're receiving thousands of emails
Speaker:about this. They do that because people are showing up at their canvassing offices, because
Speaker:people are sending them you know, doing phones apps and all of these kinds of things. We
Speaker:launched on March 11th and since then more than 240 candidates have pledged, the bulk
Speaker:of which are NDP. So 162 are NDP, 65 are Green, I think 15 are Liberal and we have got one
Speaker:bloc with a quah on there and unsurprisingly zero conservatives. But it is open to any
Speaker:of these five major parties. And so basically like, but the, like you said, the key thing
Speaker:is like this question of organizing. So, you know, when you go on and you pledge, you then
Speaker:get contacted. So it's not just that you're pledging in an email that goes to your MP,
Speaker:but actually you then get contacted with all kinds of different tools that you can do to
Speaker:organize in your neighborhood around vote Palestine and the election. So people got an invitation
Speaker:to town halls that were taking place within their cities. So I think to date there's been
Speaker:something like eight different vote Palestine town halls, which are obviously different than
Speaker:the election. the town halls that are run by the candidates, and they're meant to be town
Speaker:halls about how are we going to organize around Palestine this election. And people get to
Speaker:network and they get to meet other people. In a lot of these cities, there's writing groups.
Speaker:That's where you show up folks to then plot on how you can show up at the other town halls
Speaker:together too, right? And maybe set an agenda there. Exactly. Totally. Yeah. And actually
Speaker:today, the day that we're recording, which is April 15th, is actually a national day of
Speaker:action or day of camp. We've called it like a day canvassing where we basically said put
Speaker:Palestine in every corner and we set up an action network tool to basically, you know, we put
Speaker:out this blast calling on people to pledge or to sign up to go out in groups of friends and
Speaker:either poster in their neighborhoods, put do canvassing in their neighborhoods or flyering
Speaker:to talk on social media about why they're why they care about Palestine for this election
Speaker:and to do that in groups of of friends or comrades and so on. And the idea is like, you we know
Speaker:that the debate is taking place this week. We've already basically been told that Palestine
Speaker:is not going to be an agenda on the debate. And so it's like, OK, well, if Palestine is
Speaker:not an agenda in the halls of power, it's an agenda out in the streets with the masses of
Speaker:people. And we have over 700 people signed up to go out in groups of friends and comrades
Speaker:and communities all across the country just today. You know, that's incredible. It is.
Speaker:we we actually shared that action on our live the last two Friday lives. We kind of have
Speaker:calls to action. And we know we've got comrades, you know, example, like at Fairview Mall handing
Speaker:out leaflets. And we reminded people you can print out the leaflets themselves are available.
Speaker:But usually the supplies are all there. You get to meet a comrade in that area. And we
Speaker:interviewed a kind of a group. I think there was maybe five or six of them. from a couple
Speaker:different Palestinian locals in Toronto. So was Egglington, Don Valley. I can't remember
Speaker:all the groups that were on that particular episode, but they had participated in the
Speaker:weekly marches and whatnot and looked into that window you described at the beginning.
Speaker:And then, you know, that's an episode full of all the local actions that they're able
Speaker:to facilitate, you know, separate from PYM, but in conjunction with at the same time,
Speaker:you know, and I can only imagine this is going, like this type of campaign is going to replicate
Speaker:that again and again in writings that haven't yet quite built up capacity on this item. And
Speaker:they go on to do incredible work, like on Palestine, obviously, that's, but just mutual aid and
Speaker:community building as well. It's been quite beautiful to see that happen on a local level.
Speaker:So, but I know you definitely, have heard the criticisms around a campaign like this. You
Speaker:you mentioned there being 15 liberals on there and you know, I don't even, I can't even talk
Speaker:about the liberals. I feel changes happen in my body. I get really angry. I know we would
Speaker:be in a way worse spot had we had conservatives. Like the audience is not oblivious to that
Speaker:at all. But you know, what do you have to say to presenting politicians that have really
Speaker:not even done the bare minimum? No, for sure. mean, I think a few things are worth mentioning.
Speaker:So like, we made sure that the campaign is not endorsing. Like we're nonpartisan and there's
Speaker:no endorsements taking place. So we're actually, like the Vote Palestine project is not engaged
Speaker:in any kind of endorsements. And that was very intentional, right? Because there's sort of
Speaker:what feels like, guess, maybe to within the broader sort of Palestine periphery or terrain,
Speaker:I'm going to say, there's a few different political kind of approaches to the election. So you've
Speaker:got some people who are like, we need to punish the liberals. Okay. Like they were at the
Speaker:helm of this genocide and we need to punish them. And we saw that in the U S right. We
Speaker:saw this idea of a punishment vote. And then you've got people on the other side who are
Speaker:saying we need to do strategic voting. So we need to go online and we need to figure out.
Speaker:And you know what, actually I wish that was the case. Most people who call for strategic
Speaker:voting actually haven't are not actually looking at like, is strategic voting? Cause in some
Speaker:writings actually it's probably more strategic to vote MDP maybe. They just think it means
Speaker:vote liberal. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so you've kind of got like these two different
Speaker:orientations. Like we're not really necessarily trying to intervene in either of them directly
Speaker:because we're not telling people how to vote, but we're trying to say, there are candidates
Speaker:who are in your writing that are coming to you to ask you for votes. And part of the vision
Speaker:here is like, let's kind of flip things on their head where it's not like, okay, once
Speaker:every four years, we're like, oh, who's the best on the issue that I care about? I'm gonna
Speaker:go out to the ballot box and I'm gonna check next to their names, right? Like, generally
Speaker:that's how we think about informed voting, right? And some people don't even maybe don't engage
Speaker:in informed voting, they just vote to vote. But generally people are like, oh, informed
Speaker:voting means like you do a little bit of research, you think about the issues that you care about.
Speaker:and you actually just check off that candidate's name. But there's something really passive
Speaker:about that because it presumes then that candidates come to those political positions on their
Speaker:own. Right? That like, and that's also where like, you know, identity politics starts to
Speaker:go in because then you're like, oh, well, if this candidate is maybe like Palestinian or
Speaker:if they're Arab or if they're Muslim, that probably means that they're going to care about the
Speaker:issue that I care about. Right. When there's actually like certain, you know, there's there's
Speaker:people of color who run in within the conservatives, right? Like, you know, you're trying to find
Speaker:a nice way to say that, right? Right. There's some class traitors in the room. Not this
Speaker:room. Not this room. Yeah. And so, you know, and so basically what we're actually trying
Speaker:to say is like, we don't want to be passive. We want to actually be active and organize
Speaker:in our communities around the election. And so, yes, that does mean listing, for example,
Speaker:that a liberal candidate has pledged onto the platform, right? In the same way, for example,
Speaker:that the arms embargo website lists these 22 liberal MPs that pledged onto arms embargo.
Speaker:But when by doing that, we're acknowledging one, there's mass mobilization and community
Speaker:pressure and significant organizing that needs to be done in order to force the hand of a
Speaker:candidate, you know, just to be really blunt, to basically feel like, okay, if I want to
Speaker:get elected, if I want to have to go out and canvas in peace and fundraise in peace and
Speaker:you know, there's some writings where like, you know, the wonderful kind of groups that
Speaker:were organizing that you mentioned, just like these groups that were organizing for Palestine
Speaker:in their writings, like, you know, they did not give those candidates or those MPs like
Speaker:a day of quiet, you know, every time that MP was seen in their neighborhood, it was like,
Speaker:why haven't you pledged unto arms and work? Do you support the killing of Palestinian children?
Speaker:Like it was relentless, right? And so you have this kind of movement that's taking place where
Speaker:people feel like they have a say and they get to exercise that say and they get to do that
Speaker:with, most importantly, with other comrades who think the same way and that builds organizations.
Speaker:And then by putting that list out, right, by having that list, it also then allows for us
Speaker:to think about organizing after the election, right? Because if a liberal candidate, let's
Speaker:say in that particular writing, who pledged on to vote Palestine gets elected, well, you
Speaker:have now a network of people who are connected to each other. who have basically built out
Speaker:infrastructure in their local writing level. And now they have a long task ahead, which
Speaker:is to continue to hold that candidate accountable. I definitely, know there are some people who
Speaker:are like, we're not gonna vote for liberals no matter what, et cetera, et cetera, that
Speaker:sort of punishment vote kind of idea, or maybe no vote at all. And the great thing about
Speaker:Vote Palestine is even though the name suggests that we're telling you to vote Palestine, actually
Speaker:nowhere on the website does it tell people to vote. meant to be a tool to get people organized
Speaker:and to basically bring the kind of political agency and force that we've been able to create
Speaker:over the last 18 months into the election. A little bit of heat at the the feet of our our
Speaker:politicians. I whether you go vote or not surely you know to pester them. You talk about candidates
Speaker:not getting to this position on Palestine on their own and I mean the five pledges should
Speaker:be easy for any politician. I imagine some of the problems you're having with getting some
Speaker:of the NDP candidates on board is like logistics, like some of them are just paper candidates
Speaker:and they're just like floating in the wind somewhere, struggling to even do a campaign I've spoken
Speaker:to a few. But we don't really get official platforms anymore anyway. We get politicians
Speaker:not even showing up to debates. So and they've been dodging their constituents, like you said,
Speaker:for 18 months. So Save for like if you're in Jolie's writing or some of the usual suspects,
Speaker:you probably don't know what their position is on Palestine because they have been locked
Speaker:down from HQ, from headquarters, right? Like you don't talk on this unless you're, that's
Speaker:in your portfolio. There's a handful of NDP MPs that seem to be allowed to speak on it.
Speaker:Everyone else is just like, meh. And so it's making them take a stand now and not just not
Speaker:answering your emails anymore. Like you want on this list. And I think it's important for
Speaker:some of the progressives to get on this list, you know, with the bare minimum. can you imagine,
Speaker:you know, let's say we're in a position where the conservatives are in power or have some
Speaker:power and they suggest defunding UNRWA. You have a... 240, well, you know, they're not
Speaker:all gonna get elected, but you know, out of that 240 people that have already signed on,
Speaker:hopefully there's some names that are there that you can draw on and say, okay, I already
Speaker:have your position on this, let's go. Exactly. Right, let's move. I don't need to start that
Speaker:work of where are you on this? Where are you on statehood? Where are you on funding? Where
Speaker:are you in anti-Palestinian racism? Like that's a lot of people on record that weren't, that
Speaker:definitely weren't already. Have you thought of publicizing any negative responses? Like,
Speaker:did you get anybody that replied with a hell no that they deserve their own little post,
Speaker:perhaps? You know, definitely who not to vote for? Have you thought about that approach or?
Speaker:So I think there's just been a handful of people who've responded with an abstention against
Speaker:like one of the points. And when they do that, that's listed on the website. So it'll say
Speaker:like, checkmark to arms embargo. abstention to, you know, blocking trade with illegal Israeli
Speaker:settlements, check mark on this, check mark on that, check mark on that. Ooh, that's interesting.
Speaker:What's the most one that, what's the hardest sell out of those five? You know what's interesting
Speaker:is actually, think that everyone who's responded has positively responded to arms embargo, which
Speaker:really, when you think about it, like that is one of the most important asks. Like that
Speaker:is like so concrete because we're like, If we can disrupt the flow of weapons during a genocide,
Speaker:that is critical. I think the one that I think made me saw potentially one or two abstentions
Speaker:on was around settlements, around blocking trade with illegal Israeli settlements. And I think
Speaker:that one is to be expected in a way because we've got on there financial, cultural, and
Speaker:academic exchange. we know how universities, for example, freak out. It's BDS, right? Like
Speaker:you're not saying it, but it is. Right. It is. Effectively. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, you
Speaker:know, for example, like, you know, the University of Toronto has a partnership with, you know,
Speaker:the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is like on stolen land. And the students have
Speaker:now launched a campaign against that. But like during the encampment period, this was like
Speaker:a big taboo. Like you don't touch this partnership, you know, because there is this kind of idea,
Speaker:oh, well, academic and cultural that these are like somehow. they transcend politics, which
Speaker:is not true. But even that demand, honestly, the people who are responding are supporting
Speaker:it. Now, we're not getting people who are responding with negatives, it's that people aren't responding.
Speaker:And that is something that we need to see as a negative, right? Like the fact that there's
Speaker:zero conservatives tells us that this platform is antagonistic to the conservative platform.
Speaker:And I we know that anyways, like Pierre Pelliev is out in the streets calling himself a Zionist
Speaker:and talking about wanting to ban UNRWA and wanting to deport people and students and so
Speaker:on, like, you know, very much taking up that Trump language. So, I mean, we didn't really
Speaker:need this survey to tell us what he's telling us on TV. like when you go on the tool and
Speaker:you search up your writing, if you don't see your liberal candidate on there, it means that
Speaker:your liberal candidate saw this survey and made the choice to ignore. And they saw this survey
Speaker:potentially hundreds of times in their inbox, depending on how many people in your writing
Speaker:pledged. Same with your conservative candidate. And, you know, same with in the writings where
Speaker:the NDP or the Greens haven't pledged, or the writings where the Bloc de l'Equat haven't
Speaker:pledged. Nobody in my writing has pledged. Oh, really? I mean, our liberal candidate
Speaker:is real piece of shit, and I don't expect anything from him at all. But, or the cons, obviously.
Speaker:But the NDP one, I believe, is in one of those candidates I was talking about in You'd be
Speaker:lucky if they have an email address, you know, available, I think. So I'm not worried about
Speaker:who to vote for in this election at this point. I'm just really upset with all of the parties,
Speaker:but I can see you feel that. Like it's, we're all kind of in the same place, but people
Speaker:are often faced with this time where they feel like they don't know where to put in, right?
Speaker:They definitely don't want to organize behind a candidate or... or get into those spaces.
Speaker:And we've been encouraging people, like whether it's on the Palestine issue or whatever issue
Speaker:that you've already kind of been focused in on or passionate about, and you can press an
Speaker:issue rather than cheerlead for a party that kind of limits you in so many ways, right?
Speaker:Like when you cheer for your team, you don't like to shit talk in public, right? You say
Speaker:that for private and some of that's not very constructive. So I love the idea of this just,
Speaker:this just being another tool to kind of press not just one, right? You don't just have one
Speaker:MP right now, you've got four people or sometimes, I mean, I wouldn't bother emailing the people's
Speaker:party candidate. I mean, you could, but just knowing that there's so many different pressure
Speaker:points now as well, and it's encouraging people to kind of put this on the agenda wherever
Speaker:they're at. Because I know there's people out there organizing their own town halls. Like
Speaker:a lot of social organizations do that now. not just chambers of commerce, thankfully. So you
Speaker:can put it on the question. Try to push the issue in so many ways. This is a great time
Speaker:to do it. Totally. Have you had any surprising responses? You mean in terms of candidates?
Speaker:Sure. I'll say, I'll speak for myself here for a second and just say, I was personally
Speaker:really surprised when, you know, within like, two weeks of launching, we were nearing 200
Speaker:pledges. I was like, what? The vote passed and actually was formed in 2021. The idea then
Speaker:was a bit more around, let's get positions out of candidates, right? Because like you said,
Speaker:Jessa, there are many candidates who aren't even giving us positions, our platforms, right?
Speaker:They're not listing them, they're just, and... The party platform is confusing because sometimes
Speaker:they don't address these things directly within the party platform. And sometimes they do
Speaker:address it correctly, but then some people just like break from the party. And so it's like
Speaker:the idea back then was like, let's send the survey out to candidates. And this is really
Speaker:common. Like I think a lot of organizations in different struggles will send out these
Speaker:surveys. I've been a candidate. You don't know. the MS foundation, the gun owners association,
Speaker:all your local environmentalists will send you one. It's actually overwhelming sometimes as
Speaker:a candidate. You have to just pick and choose because some of them are lengthy questionnaires.
Speaker:Like they're not just do you agree with this vibe? No, exactly. So yeah, it's like this
Speaker:it's really common to do that, to try to basically say, look, like we want your platform on something.
Speaker:So, you know, that was kind of the thought process then in 2021. And what's interesting is back
Speaker:then, there were no liberals. It was all just NDP and Greens. I could probably pull up the
Speaker:demands, but the demands were not even, like it was like around, the one on Israeli settlements
Speaker:was there. There was one on, I think, anti-Protesting and racism. And then if I'm not mistaken, there
Speaker:was one on like the upholding of international law. Well, that should have been a red flag,
Speaker:people. Not to you, but like, yeah. Right. I mean, and I think at the time, It was probably
Speaker:likely that the liberals were instructed not to sign. Like, you know, they probably got
Speaker:instructions. I'm speculating here. They got a memo. They got a memo probably from headquarters
Speaker:saying like, you know, no, you do this. Actually, I was instructed during one campaign by NDP
Speaker:headquarters to send them all of the surveys that they got so they could pre-approve them.
Speaker:So that kind of handling likely exists in all the parties. Totally. Yeah, 100%. And so like,
Speaker:you know, I mean, I think I was really shocked on this question, like what surprised me? I
Speaker:was surprised to see how many candidates, of course, like I said, major overrepresentation
Speaker:in the sense that the bulk of them are NDP and Greens. still, within the first few weeks,
Speaker:we had hit 10 or 11 liberals. You feel like in that moment, you're like, okay, things are
Speaker:changing. The needle has moved. It's not like the needle has just moved because it's like
Speaker:we made the needle move. And also like, just to be like really honest, like it hasn't moved
Speaker:enough. Like let's just also speak really frankly here. Like we're talking about a genocide where
Speaker:over 160,000 people have been massacred where 85%, if not more now, of Gaza's infrastructure
Speaker:has been destroyed. Israeli officials have gone on live TV and spoken openly about their
Speaker:interest in destroying. and uprooting the Palestinian people. On the one hand, you're
Speaker:like, okay, well, yes, the needle has moved. There's been this mass movement that forced,
Speaker:like, this is maybe the more optimistic side of the discussion is like, we've been able
Speaker:to change the discourse on Palestine. On the other side, you're like, how many Palestinians
Speaker:have to be murdered in the last 18 months? But the one thing that I will say is, I think
Speaker:one of the outcomes of the last 18 months, Aside from the fact that there has been this
Speaker:mass movement that has been built in North America, I think is that Israel's reputation has been
Speaker:completely decimated. There is no going back for this genocidal regime. You've got world
Speaker:leaders who are not even revolutionary by any stretch, basically saying if Netanyahu comes
Speaker:into this country, we're going to have to abide by the permit to arrest him. You know, and
Speaker:Israel knows that. I mean, like I I read recently that Israel's planning to allot like something,
Speaker:I don't know, however many hundreds of millions. on a focus on, you know, ideological propaganda
Speaker:work. It's not working. It's not working because it's always going to be just supposed to what
Speaker:we can actually see with our eyes. Why won't they learn that? I think that's a huge testament
Speaker:to the work that you folks and others have done in the Palestinian solidarity movement, because
Speaker:I am surprised that more liberals now, even though the genocide, like even though they're
Speaker:seeing this, but the the atmosphere in which the Zionist lobby seems to dominate mainstream
Speaker:media, legacy media, and throw away claims of anti-Semitism that are just used to silence
Speaker:politicians who are, you know, abnormally susceptible to that. You know, a lot of us can be like,
Speaker:fuck off, I'm looking down range still, like, I'm not going to let that bother me right now.
Speaker:But politicians, oh gosh, that's like the worst thing. that could happen to them. And right
Speaker:now it just seems so heightened, not just anti-Palestinian racism, but the Zionist narrative, like Justin
Speaker:Trudeau standing up there, like some of his parting words, like, am a Zionist and making
Speaker:space for that. So I thought it would be a really hard environment for liberals to sign on because,
Speaker:you know, from a resistance perspective, like those five demands don't explicitly call for
Speaker:an end to the occupation, although it'd be hard to maintain an occupation without weapons.
Speaker:However, they would say like that doesn't go far enough, but you know to the Zionist
Speaker:lobby, signing on to any one of those gets you a label, gets you targeted, an email campaign,
Speaker:phone campaign, like if nothing, those shits are organized as well, right? Like they do
Speaker:generate a lot of noise to these folks worried about their egos in their campaigns. So that
Speaker:pressure, but then also kind of, guess you do have to reward when we get some movement
Speaker:from these politicians. We always want to say like, that's not enough, right? But there's
Speaker:the other side of making space for people to change their position. Totally. And I think,
Speaker:you know, you, of course, like, for example, as PYM, like our vision as an organization
Speaker:is to mobilize our communities in the fight for Palestinian liberation. complete and total
Speaker:Palestinian liberation from the rivers to the sea, right? We're very aware that these demands,
Speaker:the demand for an arms embargo is an important demand, really stand by that, right? mean,
Speaker:but at the same time, we know that there's a long struggle that we have ahead of us to
Speaker:liberate Palestine. And so we're certainly under no illusion that these five demands somehow
Speaker:are going to bring about Palestinian liberation. Just like you said, for example, an arms embargo
Speaker:demand, If you asked me six years ago, do I think an arms embargo demand would be a popular
Speaker:demand that people are shouting from every corner of every country and that politicians in imperialist
Speaker:Western nations are advancing? I would have said, no, absolutely not. But here, now we're
Speaker:here. And so we need to try to consolidate around this particular demand. But like you said,
Speaker:I saw the most interesting crazy thing, which was like, Ryan Lilly, conservative right wing
Speaker:commentator, whatever. He still comes on my feed. I'm sure I have him blocked, but I still
Speaker:have to see his stupid tweets. think people are quote tweeting him and I'm subjective to
Speaker:him. I know exactly who you mean. So I mean, he shared, I'm pretty sure it was him. I need
Speaker:to probably verify this, but he shared some kind of tweet where it showed the 12 liberals
Speaker:that had signed at the time. And basically, either he said it or he was quote tweeting
Speaker:a tweet that said it. which called them the Hamas wing of the Liberal Party. And it's like,
Speaker:you I think this speaks to your point of the absurdity. Like these demands, like for the
Speaker:Palestine movement, we see these demands as like pretty like, you know, low bar, if you
Speaker:will. Although I do really stand by this idea that arms embargo is a key demand. They're
Speaker:triggered by the flag, Yara. Like some people are just triggered by the flag. Right. I mean,
Speaker:and it just shows like how even kind of taking the most simple stances to say, you know, okay,
Speaker:yeah, like we need to limit Canada's involvement in this war, will get you labeled in a particular
Speaker:way by the Zionists, right? Which just goes to show like just how much pressure exists
Speaker:in this country. And also like how much like has been built around this narrative that like
Speaker:even the smallest bit of Palestine organizing. can get you sort of attacked or whatever. And
Speaker:we saw that again with Mark Carney, you know, with that statement, where, you know, he's
Speaker:asked this point about genocide, you know, there's a genocide happening. He responds and
Speaker:says like, you know, I'm aware. It wasn't clear, like, was he saying I'm aware and that there's
Speaker:a genocide happening? Was he just saying I'm aware? Like, it wasn't like he said, I'm aware
Speaker:there's a genocide taking place. So it was a very lukewarm kind of statement to clearly
Speaker:a moment of. pressure that was taking place at the level of his constituents or his prospective
Speaker:constituents. And then we have the prime minister of Israel going on Twitter and tweeting at
Speaker:Mark Carney to retract his statement. And I was just looking at this. I think Eve Engler
Speaker:maybe put out a commentary on this. But I was just looking at this and I was thinking, do
Speaker:people in this country? You know, who are all like, Canada first, Canada first, like all
Speaker:of this kind of stuff. Like this reactionary, you know, whatever. Elbows up. Do people in
Speaker:this country, yeah, do they realize that you effectively have a foreign prime minister who
Speaker:is wanted by the criminal courts for war crimes, trying to decide what Canadian politicians
Speaker:can and can't say about Palestine and Will Canadian politicians, this election, like I this is
Speaker:a question I have, will they listen to, you know, Israel and this foreign prime minister
Speaker:and the scientists lobby and so on and so forth, or are they looking outside and seeing, you
Speaker:know, millions of people across Canada who are calling on them to take action to stop the
Speaker:flow of weapons? I think this is actually a question. I think we probably know the answer
Speaker:to that, but it's still So when you kind of put it in these terms, like this is the difference
Speaker:on the one side, you have the demands of people. And on the other side, it's the demands of
Speaker:the Israeli state, Canadian corporations and profit and, you know, the, the Israeli lobby.
Speaker:just, some of their positions defile logic. Like we, it's been really hard to predict
Speaker:politicians behavior in the last little bit because we had like a formula and You know,
Speaker:a certain amount of noise and pressure and this need to be reelected. You could factor a lot
Speaker:of things into it. And even now, you know, in this by Canada moment, it's still, it
Speaker:puzzles me. But I think then I go back to the discussion I had with a few people, but Tyler
Speaker:Shipley wrote about Canada's colonial imagination and It really explains, especially like settler
Speaker:mentality and we are obviously mirrored there in Israel, right? That is a similar project
Speaker:as Canada. It helps explain why our government holds on to the position that they do. They
Speaker:don't want us to be too reflective on this occupation and the forms of genocide that they're
Speaker:using, right? Because we'd have to look at our own history and our current treatment of indigenous
Speaker:people here. But it still, you know, really flexes with that identity that you talked about
Speaker:at the very beginning where we like to think of us as the good guys or as the better version
Speaker:of the Americans or less hostile. But, you know, there's so many examples as to where we actually
Speaker:solidify the colonial project even more so sometimes. We know our police work together on top of
Speaker:all of the other kind of collusions that you were talking about earlier. So, yeah, it's
Speaker:So it'd be interesting. I wonder if you've gotten any sound bites or any clips from folks
Speaker:getting the Palestinian question into a town hall, forcing that maybe on all four candidates,
Speaker:because that would be good viewing. haven't seen any. I know I've for sure seen people
Speaker:going into... maybe like campaign protests, rallies, or, you know, like focused on one
Speaker:candidate. But I haven't seen anything within the town halls, although I don't know, who
Speaker:knows? I know today a lot of people have pledged to take action. So maybe at the time that this
Speaker:is released, who knows? Maybe we'll have some of those sound bites up on the Vote Palestine
Speaker:Instagram. Well, yeah, I think yesterday on the 14th, I guess it was, or maybe the 13th.
Speaker:No, it probably the 14th. Folks were occupying a liberal candidate's office. demanding that
Speaker:and I'm sure I'm sure we will get footage of someone finding somebody today and pressuring
Speaker:them and Likely because of the tools that you folks have been able to provide Going through
Speaker:the website right before we talk for real entry-level stuff too for people Kind of the basics of
Speaker:organizing so get on there take the pledge obviously obviously But take a look at what they're doing.
Speaker:Look at look at their strategy, look at the way they're plugging you right into your community
Speaker:and then making contact with those in power around you. You can replicate that model. You
Speaker:know, it takes a little bit of tech savvy to do it the way that they're doing it, but you
Speaker:get the idea behind it on top of obviously understanding the issues behind the arms embargo and why
Speaker:we're pushing on federal politicians during this time. mean, Yara, thank you so much for
Speaker:coming on, I'm sure. Like on a day of action as well, I thought I was catching you in a
Speaker:lull, but because you know, there was just the march on Ottawa with tens of thousands of people.
Speaker:And so she catches her breath. She jumps in the studio and on with a day of action. We're
Speaker:only by the time you listen to this, it's a week until the E-Day basically. So again,
Speaker:all hands on deck. Just when we were all very exhausted and doing everything we could, you
Speaker:guys added a whole new project to the agenda somehow. But even I remember interviewing
Speaker:folks back in 2023 and they just kept listing all of the things they were doing. was actually,
Speaker:I was so impressed by how much they did with the small team. I don't remember the number
Speaker:of people that were working on a time, but I was like, that's not possible. Like, where's
Speaker:the rest of you? And it's like, well, there's volunteers, but it's, it's an organization
Speaker:to watch and how they replicate people's energies and get you done. So yeah, you guys are doing
Speaker:really good work. We love covering your actions on the show. You give us endless things to
Speaker:talk about. And now we finally got to get you in the studio. So I appreciate your time,
Speaker:Yara. Thank you so, so much, Jessa. And yeah, hoping we'll get another chance to join you
Speaker:all again soon on the show. Like you said, there's always... so much work taking place, but
Speaker:it's like, think it is, it is our duty here in the, in the far diaspora, especially as
Speaker:Palestinian Arab youth. And so we've been really just like, yeah, overwhelmed also by the amount
Speaker:of support we've been receiving from so many people from all walks of life, from our own
Speaker:communities and really feel like we were building something that's really, really critical. And
Speaker:so, yeah, thanks for giving us a chance to be on the show today. I'm just talking, platforming.
Speaker:the recent project. That's the least I could do, Yara. Thank you. Please share our content
Speaker:and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our support come from
Speaker:the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or
Speaker:who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
