PV Quebec Bureau
The federal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Montreal will have a byelection on September 16, triggered by the resignation of Liberal MP and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti.
In an effort to highlight the issue of Canada’s complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people, the group LaSalle-Émard-Verdun pour la Palestine (LEV 4 Palestine) has registered as a third party and launched a poster campaign in the riding.
LEV 4 Palestine says the aims of its third-party campaign are to shine a light on Canada’s complicity in the genocide; attract media attention and force candidates to debate Canadian militarism, military exports and support for Israel’s genocidal actions; and “affirm that the residents of Lasalle, Ville-Émard and Verdun are in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
The group points out that as a registered third party, its campaign posters are protected by electoral laws, and altering or vandalizing them can result in criminal prosecution.
However, within just 36 hours of going up, the posters were vandalized and removed from public spaces in the riding. Sources told People’s Voice that nearly one hundred posters were removed on Wellington Street alone, which is Verdun’s main thoroughfare.
Adrien Welsh, leader of the Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ, section of the Communist Party of Canada), says there are suspicions that the removal and vandalism is a coordinated and that the City of Montreal is involved.
“The mayor of Hampstead, which is a suburb in the Greater Montreal area, is a notorious Zionist. He urged Montreal mayor Valérie Plante to demand the removal of these posters,” Welsh told PV. “At the same time, the Liberal candidate is a city councillor and her party is clearly targeted by the campaign. People are asking, justifiably, if she took advantage of her position to press for the posters to be removed.”
Whatever the case, the motive for the vandalism and removal is clearly to conceal the genocide in Palestine and maintain the status quo which has led to the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
It is also a blatant attack on freedom of expression. This is particularly galling during an election campaign, a period during which the Supreme Court of Canada described freedom of expression as “at its most precious” in its 2003 judgment in the Figueroa v. Canada case. That case, named for then Communist Party of Canada leader Miguel Figueroa, was a successful and landmark fight to defend the right to participate in elections against anti-democratic changes to the Canada Elections Act.
“This is not the first time that the Palestine solidarity movement has faced attacks and political censorship in Montreal,” says Welsh. “Even within the strict framework of an election campaign, such acts continue. During the 2015 federal election, for example, Palestine solidarity signs from BDS-Québec and the Communist Party of Canada were systematically removed by the City of Montreal.”
The incident in 2015 was challenged by BDS-Québec and the Communist Party, and the city was ordered in 2018 to compensate the two organizations.
The PCQ has for many years been a strong supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid. “We were the first Quebec political party to officially denounce the opening of the Quebec office in Tel Aviv in August 2023,” said Welsh. “We are not going to allow state harassment, whether direct or indirect through inaction, to silence the Palestine solidarity movement. Especially at this time of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, we are committed to broadening support for BDS, including at the academic and institutional levels, and building the campaign for an embargo on all sales of arms and military technology between Canada and Israel.”
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