Category: Events

Upcoming and past events organized or sponsored by the Canada Palestine Association.

Photo Gallery from #Nakba74 Actions in Vancouver, Victoria

On May 15, activists in BC came out to commemorate #Nakba74 and demand justice for Palestine. In Vancouver, several hundred people attended a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Presentations included Solidarity Notes Choir; Columpa Bobb reading poetry for her late mom, indigenous poet Lee Maracle; and several speakers, including Palestinian-Canadian writer and journalist Khaled Barakat. The crowd then marched to the U.S. consulate. Victoria activists marked #Nakba74 with several banner drops on a busy highway overpass.
(Vancouver photos courtesy of Michael Y.C. Tseng)

,Marching to the US Consulate
Solidarity Notes Choir showing support for Palestine
Columpa Bobb reading “Remembering Mahmoud”, a poem written by her late mother Lee Maracle
Khaled Barakat speaks at the Vancouver rally
At the US Consulate
Banner drop actions in Victoria, BC

Actions in Support of Palestine

As Israeli forces are stepping up their brutality against Palestinians, activists in British Columbia are taking to the streets to show support for the Palestinian struggle. On April 23, there is an action in Surrey, BC to Stand for Palestine and to highlight Palestinian political prisoners.

And on April 16, an information picket to say “No to Israeli Apartheid Wines” was held at the BC Liquor Store on Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Hundreds of leaflets were distributed, signatures were collected, and then a delegation went to the office of MLA Melanie Mark to also deliver the message.

April 16 Picket: No to Israeli Apartheid Wines!

The campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines” has featured joint actions in Vancouver and Victoria over the last two months, and the letter initiative has garnered over 1300 signatures (both on-line and in person). Check out full details here.

Friends of the Campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines!”

Our “Friends of the Campaign” initiative highlights notable friends and allies who have endorsed our letter campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines!”. We appreciate the support of Roger Waters, Libby Davies, former and current Vancouver city councillors, IJV members, local artists, lawyer Dimitri Lascaris and professor Sunera Thobani amongst others. (The list of endorsers to date follows the text of the letter.)

Text of Letter
To: BC Premier John Horgan
      BC Finance Minister Selina Robinson

I am writing to express my outrage at the refusal of BC government officials to remove Israeli apartheid wines from publicly owned liquor stores. Your recent action in quickly putting a “…halt to the importing and sale of Russian liquor products” clearly demonstrates that your government can take decisive action. However, your unwillingness to do the same for Israeli wines shows a hypocritical double standard that smacks of racism.

Human rights activists in BC have sustained an on-going campaign for 14 years to have Israeli wines removed from liquor store shelves, most of which are linked to the Israeli settlement enterprise. They have detailed that the wines in question are either from the Golan Heights Winery and its joint venture the Galil Winery; or from the Israeli Teperberg Winery, which proudly displays a map on its website showing vineyards in occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. They are part and parcel of the systematic targeting of the Palestinian people for dispossession, occupation and apartheid for over 73 years. Last year, the New Democratic Party NDP of Canada passed a resolution that committed in part to end “all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”. The Canadian government also acknowledges the illegality of Israeli settlements in its official policy.

Further, major international and Israeli human right groups, including Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. Therefore, I demand that the BC government immediately de-shelve Israeli wines from our publicly owned liquor stores; I do not wish to be made complicit in supporting apartheid.

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-bc-government-to-pull-israeli-apartheid-wines

Friends of the Campaign:

Anne Roberts
(former Vancouver City Councillor)
Dimitri Lascaris
(Lawyer, journalist and activist)
Earle Peach
(Director, Solidarity Notes choir)
Gurpreet Singh
(Independent journalist and activist/Cofounder of Radical Desi, an online magazine that covers alternative politics)
Jayce Salloum
(Artist and curator)
Jean Swanson
(Vancouver City Councillor)
John Soos
(PhD, clinical psychology)
Kevin Neish
(Retired vocational instructor, Mavi Marmara survivor)
Khaled Barakat
(Palestinian-Canadian writer and activist)
Khaled Loutfi Mouammar
(Palestinian Christian denied the right to return to his homeland because he is a non-Jew/Served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1994-2005)
Kimball Cariou
(former editor of People’s Voice)
Libby Davies
Natalie Knight
(Indigenous (Diné and Yurok) organizer and Chairperson of Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle)
Noah Gotfrit
(Musician, WCCARS member at large)
Pat Howard
(Retired Professor, Simon Fraser University)
Rehab Nazzal
(PhD, Artist and Lecturer, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)
Rev. Marianna Harris
Rifat Audeh
(Canadian award-winning filmmaker and human rights activist)
Roger Waters
(Musician)
Sid Shniad
(Founding member, Independent Jewish Voices Canada)
Stephen Aberle
(Member of Independent Jewish Voices – Canada)
Sunera Thobani
(Professor, University of British Columbia)
Tim Louis
(Lawyer and former Vancouver City Councillor)