Israeli-Palestinian conflict missing from resolution list as NDP prepares for policy conference

The New Democratic Party of Canada has released its list of 60 “priority” resolutions up for debate at this weekend’s party convention in Hamilton, Ont. — and none of them touch on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Roughly 1,100 delegates voted to bring these resolutions to the convention. They cover everything from health care and affordability to worker’s rights and foreign policy issues.

Some 350 resolutions were put forward for consideration, including at least one regarding Israel. A resolution from the NDP Socialist Caucus called on the NDP to “strengthen its defence of Palestinian human rights by actively campaigning for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state until Israel ends its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

A spokesperson for the NDP said delegates voted on the resolutions they wanted to prioritize last Thursday — before Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.

The NDP’s foreign affairs critic told CBC News that, given everything that has transpired in the Middle East since then, she would be surprised if a resolution about the conflict was not added to the list at the last minute.

“I expect that we will have an emergency resolution on this issue,” MP Heather McPherson told CBC News on Wednesday.

Emergency resolutions can be submitted until Thursday, October 12, and are meant to address topics that emerge after the regular deadline for the Oct. 13-15 policy convention.

“Obviously, this is an issue that is top of mind for just so many people across the country and around the world,” McPherson said. “So I would be surprised if a resolution didn’t come forward.”

The NDP and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

McPherson released a statement on behalf of the NDP Monday condemning Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel and calling on the Canadian government to insist that Israel respect international law in operations in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

“What Israel is doing right now looks very much like collective punishment,” McPherson told CBC. “Israel has every right to defend themselves, but they also have an obligation to live up to international law. People in Gaza, over 50 per cent of them are children.

“All of us need to be going into our convention … thinking about how we support our Jewish Canadian and Palestinian Canadian friends and family and community members. How we make sure that Canada is doing everything we can to call for a ceasefire to stop the deaths of innocent civilians.”

This will be the first in-person meeting of NDP members in five years. During a virtual convention in 2021, delegates supported motions calling for “an end to Israeli occupation on Palestinian land” and an end to “all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine.” The NDP also wants Canada to stop selling arms to Israel.

“There’s going to be difficult conversations because we wouldn’t be a political party if we got along and agreed on 100 per cent of the things, 100 per cent of the time,” McPherson said.

One foreign policy resolution on the list for debate focuses on the anti-Sikh riots in India in 1984. The resolution, sponsored by the Brampton East riding association, calls on the party to “recognize the November 1984 state-sponsored violence perpetrated against the Sikhs throughout India as a genocide.”

In November 2019, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh issued a statement on the “1984 Sikh Genocide” that said many observers, “including former Indian Supreme Court justice GT Nanavati, have pointed out that state resources were instrumental in these premeditated killings.”

A look at what’s up for debate

Approximately 1,100 delegates had roughly 350 resolutions to choose from. Here are some of those that will be debated and voted on in Hamilton:

HEALTH CARE

• Ensure federal health dollars can’t be used by provinces to deliver for-profit private health care.

• Re-establish a Crown corporation to manufacture vaccines, other drugs and medical devices.

• Add dental, mental, drug, auditory and vision care to the public healthcare system.

• Make federal reproductive healthcare funds permanent.

• Develop a national agency to coordinate and retain the healthcare workforce.

• Increase dementia research funds to $105 million annually.

WORKERS

• Increase federal minimum wage to $20 an hour

• Raise the minimum wage for childcare workers to $25 an hour, fast-track permanent resident status for immigrant childcare workers.

• Forgive up to $20,000 in debt for students making less than $100,000 a year; permanently eliminate interest on student loans.

• Require employee input before companies introduce artificial intelligence, make government use of AI subject to civilian oversight.

• Create anti-scab legislation, implement a plan for a four-day work week, ensure workers elect half the members of workplace supervisory boards, and legislate the right to disconnect.

• Push for significant changes to the temporary foreign workers program that would:

  • Make being in a union a necessary precondition.

  • End work permits that are tied specifically to an employer.

  • Lower education/language requirements.

  • Create a tribunal to review appeals from workers when employers decide to send them home.

  • Give temporary foreign workers and seasonal agricultural workers access to EI.

CLIMATE

• Create a “climate corps” of young people to respond to climate impacts and support conservation efforts, including tree-planting.

• Push the federal government to end fossil fuels, set climate targets, accelerate zero-emissions buildings and transport, and provide a year-end report to public.

ELECTRICITY AND COMMUNICATIONS

• Create a public telecommunications Crown corporation.

• Hold a public investigation into offshoring and elimination of Canadian jobs by Canadian telecoms; call on government to suspend its contracts with telecom companies that offshore jobs.

• Build an east-west, interprovincial power grid to achieve 100 per cent non-emitting electricity.

AFFORDABILITY

• Wealth tax — a 1 per cent tax on people earning more than $10 million, a 2 per cent tax on those earning more than $25 million and a 3 per cent tax on those making more than $50 million.

• CEO pay — Require that large companies disclose CEO-to-median workers pay ratio and increase income taxes for large companies with large disparities.

• Housing — Boost the party’s current target of building 500,000 housing units up to 3.5 million, further regulate how landlords and builders supply low-income housing, create a national rental registry and non-speculative housing program.

• Restore corporate tax rate to 18 per cent.

• Increase Old Age Security payments by at least 10 per cent.

• Add a union voice to the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy review committee and expand the bank’s mandate to consider employment and price stability in monetary policy.

INDIGENOUS JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

• Call on federal government to ensure that the Prairie Green landfill outside Winnipeg is searched for human remains without delay.

• Declare missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada an emergency, invest in a “red dress alert system” for those who are missing, reverse $150 million cut to women’s shelters.

• Domestic violence — Require that employers agree to quickly move an employee to a different work location if they are at risk of domestic violence.

• Prioritize Indigenous rights related to mineral extraction, including those used for electric vehicles.

• Ensure permanent funding for LGBTQ non-profits and ensure each major municipality has at least one with stable funding.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

• Increase funding for refugee assistance and eliminate permanent resident fees.

• Increase funding for Ukrainian survivors of sexual violence and collection of war crime evidence.

• Condemn China’s provocation of Taiwan and China’s efforts to interfere in Canadian politics through espionage and disinformation.

• Push for specific support for dissident and/or diaspora communities in Canada that are subject to foreign interference or violence from foreign states.

• Push government to pursue trade agreements only if they prioritize labour and environmental standards, require more transparency on negotiations and ratify trade deals through Parliament.

• Increase international aid spending to 0.7 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic income and ensure aid spending increases match increases in defence spending.

• Demand that the federal government apply its sanctions to family members of the Iranian government living in Canada, list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.