Ontario Municipal and School Board Election 2022 Questionnaires
In Ontario, Municipal council and school board elections will take place on Monday, October 24, 2022.
Encouraging responses from Municipal and School Board Candidates in Ontario #IVotePalestine
The following questions can be used to make contact with candidates running for election (or acclaimed) in your municipal or school board elections.
For ease you can ask local council candidates questions using this LINK.
For ease you can ask school board trustee candidates questions using this LINK.
If you are making contact could you please let us know, so we can see the coverage #IVotePalestine in the 2022 Ontario municipal and school board elections. Use this LINK to let us know you have reached out.
To Municipal Council Candidates
We hope you will answer the following questions as to your stance on human rights, international law, civil liberties, and anti-racism.
“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Nelson Mandela
We stand for freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people. We believe “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
We hold successive Canadian governments responsible for aiding and abetting Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and apartheid.
The Canadian government, as well as provincial and municipal governments, must immediately stop their blind and unconditional support for Israel which enables and maintains the ongoing Israeli violations of international law and Palestinian rights.
At the provincial level actions such as legislation, motions, orders-in- councils, and policy is used to restrict civil liberties and human rights for Palestinians and for those who speak up for Palestine.
At the municipal level bylaws, resolutions, policy, and procedures can be used to restrict civil liberties and human rights for Palestinians and for those who speak up for Palestine.
Local school boards use resolutions, directives, and purchasing decisions to restrict civil liberties for Palestinians and for those who stand in solidarity with Palestine.
Recently human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch (HRW), established that Israel is a racist apartheid state “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”.
Municipal Election Questionnaire
You can use these questions to contact your own local municipal candidates.
You can use this link to determine your municipality (upper tier, lower tier, or single tier), and from there you will need to find the list of local candidates for your own municipality.
For ease you can ask municipal council candidates to answer questions at this LINK.
As a candidate for Municipal Council, we ask you to clarify where you stand on the following points:
Anti-Racism
Q1. Do you recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality and protection under the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights?
Q.2 Would you be prepared to implement policies to ensure no anti-Palestinian racism?
Q3. Do you oppose the anti-Palestinian, anti-democratic and politically charged IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and do you pledge to ensure this racist Ontario government position is not implemented in your municipality?
International Law and Human Rights
Q4. Do you support ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands allocated to the Arabs in 1946 by the United Nations including dismantling the Wall, and do you support the necessary concrete measures to implement such a commitment including in your scope as an elected municipal official?
Q.5 Are you prepared to ensure procurement procedures for your municipality ensure that no goods or services come from any company listed on the UN database as complicit with war crimes in occupied Palestine? The full list of the companies can be found in the report.
Q.6 Are you prepared to develop a supply chain management system, like that of the OECD, to ensure the human rights of all participants meet the requirements of the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights?
Q7. Do you support calling on municipal police forces to stop exchanges with Israeli police officials and units, and to educate themselves on anti-Palestinian racism and its implications in their relations with the community?
Civil Liberties and Charter Rights
On February 22, 2016 the House of Commons passed a resolution that called “upon the government to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.” Ontario passed a motion in this regard on December 1, 2016.
Q8. Do you recognize the rights of Ontarians to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement as a non-violent strategy to force Israel to abide by UN resolutions and all international humanitarian laws?
Q.9 Do you condemn these tactics to try to silence the rights of Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them?
We will make your answers public on our websites.
We call on our all-anti-racist voters to vote their conscience based on the information provided.
We do not support any candidates and are non-partisan organizations.
For ease you can ask local council candidate questions at this LINK.
Initiated by: Palestine House, Just Peace Advocates, Oakville Palestinian Rights Association & the Canadian BDS Coalition
#IVotePalestine
Anti-racism and Apartheid: Where do you stand?
Questionnaire for those running for Ontario school board trustees
You can find who is running for your school board and contact them directly using the following links:
English Catholic School Boards
Summary list that might be helpful to find your school board name
The following questions have also been sent to all candidates, running for election and/or acclaimed, for the English Public and English Catholic school boards, that made their email known. We will share the responses that are provided.
You can also use these questions to ask questions of candidates running for your school board.
Trustees for Ontario School Boards
Anti-racism and Apartheid: Where do you stand?
We stand for freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people, and believe as Nelson Mandela did that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
I Vote Palestine is a Canadian national initiative to hold federal, provincial and municipal governments accountable for perpetuating systemic anti-Palestinian racism and enabling ongoing Israeli violations of international law and Palestinian rights.
We are reaching out to those running or acclaimed as a school board trustee in the upcoming Ontario school board election to know where you stand on the following issues.
This was sent to over 700 candidates who are running as school trustees in Ontario. Responses will be posted shortly.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
For ease candidates for school trustee can answer questions at this LINK.
No IHRA in Ontario schools
On September 14th trustees of the York Region District School Board (YRDSB – Ontario’s third largest school board) heeded the concerns of anti-racist parents and community members, and voted to indefinitely postpone a vote to adopt the dangerous and highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) antisemitism definition.
1. Do you agree that such a definition, that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, “undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism”?
2. Do you pledge to consult with Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and human rights organizations when discussing city policies relating to race relations and racism, and to combat all forms of racism including anti-Palestinian racism?
Israeli Apartheid:
International human rights organizations Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, have established that Israel is an apartheid state that practices institutional racism in all of the territories under its control “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”.
Please check out Amnesty International’s Aug. 15, 2022 post: “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Report & Resources” and Desmond Tutu’s opinion: Israel guilty of apartheid in treatment of Palestinians.
3. Would you be willing to work towards declaring your school board as an apartheid free zone?
We will make your answers public on our websites.
We call on our all-anti-racist voters to vote their conscience based on the information provided.
We do not support any candidates and are non-partisan organizations.
For ease you can answer questions at this LINK.
Initiated by: Palestine House, Just Peace Advocates, Oakville Palestinian Rights Association & the Canadian BDS Coalition