CAEF Statement - TDSB Parent Involvement Advisory Committee - Resolution re Recommendation to Integrate Anti-Palestinian Racism to Criteria for Selection of External Vendors and Partnerships

For Immediate Release

Jun 2, 2026

Re: Toronto District School Board Parent Involvement Advisory Committee

CAEF Statement on Recommendation to Integrate Anti-Palestinian Racism to Criteria for Selection of External Vendors and Partnerships

The TDSB's Parent Involvement Advisory Committee (PIAC) is once again playing at international politics. They're trying to get the TDSB to boycott educational partners and vendors unless they somehow prove that they're anti-Israel enough, and are dressing up this call for a new version of the Inquisition in the language of human rights.

Let's make a few points clear.

First, the Ontario Human Rights Commission has ruled that there is no separate category of discrimination known as "Anti-Palestinian Racism" (Letter of Chief Commissioner, November 5, 2024). The letter says that "the existing grounds in the Ontario Human Rights Code provide the necessary protection to deal with any potential form of discrimination based on or related to race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, or creed, including anti-Palestinian racism." Therefore, the legal premise of PIAC's resolution is wrong. "Anti-Palestinian Racism" as a separate category of discrimination, legally, is not a thing.

Second, neither PIAC nor the TDSB has taken any steps to define this amorphous concept of "Anti-Palestinian Racism". Indeed, at the June 2025 meeting of the Board, the Director of Education insisted that the Board was not going to adopt a definition of Anti-Palestinian Racism. Expecting education partners and vendors to adhere to criteria that remain undefined is, in a word, ludicrous.

Third, the chief proponent of the concept of "Anti-Palestinian Racism", a private organization calling itself the Arab Canadian Lawyers' Association, defines Anti-Palestinian Racism as a form of "racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives." So sorry, but human beings get human rights. Political narratives do not. This is just a sleight-of-hand trick to put a political position beyond challenge or debate. Don't fall for it.

The overwhelming majority of Jews, and Canadians of Israeli national origin living in Toronto are Zionist, i.e., they support the continuation of the State of Israel as an independent sovereign country, as a core element of their identity as Jews. This resolution threatens to purge them from participation in the work and mission of the TDSB. Far from promoting human rights, this resolution is itself racist and discriminatory.

Contact: Andria Spindel, Executive Director, CAEF andria@caef.ca 416-409-3822