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At least 19 Liberals back platform endorsed by group that celebrated October 7 massacres
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By Tristin Hopper
Published Apr 22, 2025
Last updated 1hour ago
4 minute read
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FIRST READING: More than 300 candidates sign on to campaign pushed by radical anti-Israel group Back to video
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At least 300 federal candidates, including 19 Liberals, have lent their names to an initiative bearing explicit links to one of Canada’s most radical anti-Israel groups.
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As of press time, the website VotePalestine.ca lists more than 330 candidates who have expressed “full” endorsement of their “Palestine Platform.”
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The platform calls on Canada to recognize Palestinian statehood without any caveat that Hamas be removed from power in Gaza.
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It demands broad Government of Canada sanctions on anything connected to Israel, including “cultural and academic exchanges.”
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It also calls on Canada to further increase foreign aid to UNRWA, a UN aid agency that has faced repeated scandals due to its links to Palestinian terrorism. As recently as August, the UNRWA fired nine employees for allegedly participating in the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
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VotePalestine is closely associated with Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), one of the central organizers of Canadian anti-Israel blockades and street demonstrations over the last 18 months.
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PYM is also repeatedly recorded as having celebrated the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
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While the attack was still occurring, PYM organized “victory” rallies in multiple Canadian cities. “The resistance has set a new precedent for the Palestinian struggle,” reads a Facebook page organizing one such PYM event in Vancouver.
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PYM is listed as an “initiating endorser” on VotePalestine.ca.
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PYM and VotePalestine have organized joint events, such as an April 15 “Free Palestine National Day of Action.” They have issued joint social-media statements, such as a video recorded at a massive anti-Israel rally convened near Parliament Hill on April 12.
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A PYM Facebook video even depicted its members handing out VotePalestine literature. “Make Palestine unavoidable this federal election,” reads a caption. “We are turning up the pressure and making it clear: Palestine must be at the forefront.”
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PYM organizer Yara Shoufanialso promoted VotePalestine in a recent appearance on the podcast Palestine Debrief. “For this election cycle, we’ve updated some of the demands in the platform,” she said, noting a similar VotePalestine campaign that occurred in 2021.
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VotePalestine’s slate of supporters is primarily composed of candidates for the NDP and the Green Party, although more than a dozen Liberals have signed on, including several incumbents.
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The sitting Liberals listed by VotePalestine include Patrick Weiler, Chris Bittle, Shafqat Ali, Alexandra Mendès, Sameer Zuberi, Sean Casey, Salma Zahid and Adam van Koeverden.
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Zahid is the longtime chair of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, an organization that has repeatedly been accused of hosting extremists to Parliament Hill gatherings.
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In 2022, one of their events featured Nazih Khatatba, the publisher of an Arabic-language newspaper that has referred to the Holocaust as a “hoax.”
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That same event was also attended by Montreal activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose immediate reaction to the October 7 attacks would be to publicly declare his allegiance to Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif at an Ottawa rally.
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Van Koeverden, the Liberal MP for Milton, has been particularly explicit about his intention to prioritize Palestinian issues if re-elected. In a mosque appearance earlier this month, van Koeverden accused Israel of committing genocide and pledged to “make sure that Palestinian voices are heard in Ottawa by our leaders.”
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Not a single Conservative has signed on to the VotePalestine platform. And it contains just one candidate for the Bloc Québécois, Nabila Ben Youssef.
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POLICY CORNER
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The Easter weekend saw the Liberals drop their costed platform. Somewhat surprisingly, it contains even more deficit spending than under the prior targets set by Justin Trudeau.
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If Trudeau had gotten his way, he would have run up $130 billion in new debt over the next four years. Under Mark Carney, the new plan is to raise that by $100 billion for a total of about $230 billion.
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Bloomberg News, for one, did not hold back in what the plan held in store for Canada’s future. “Overall, the platform shows Canada’s fiscal position worsening if the Liberals are re-elected on April 28,” it concluded.
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It’s also somewhat unexpected given that this entire election was sparked in part over concerns that Trudeau was spending too much. Chrystia Freeland resigned as deputy prime minister in December due to concerns that the government was failing to keep its “fiscal powder dry” in the face of trade war threats from the United States. Her resignation would set the events in motion for Trudeau to resign, Carney to replace him, and an April election to be called.
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TURNOUT!
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The 2025 election is already featuring a record-shattering level of voter turnout. Elections Canada has reported that an all-time high of two million voters turned out for the first day of advance voting on Saturday. As this newsletter has covered often, voter turnout is the variable to watch in this election. Many electoral projections are based on the 2021 and 2019 elections, both of which featured disproportionately low rates of voter turnout. If 2025 turns into a high-turnout election, it could easily turn a lot of those predictions on their heads.
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