On March 16th, in an historic vote at the BC Teachers’ Federation’s (BCTF) 2026 Annual General Meeting, teachers from across British Columbia passed a motion in support of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement in solidarity with Palestine. Individual motions were submitted by 10 of the 76 locals of the BCTF. Speaking in support of the motion, Palestinian educator Khaled Shawwash said:
“I stand before you envisioning another universe…I envision a universe in which children of all faiths — including Muslim, Jewish, Christian — can laugh and play along the shore of Gaza, underneath not the deafening hum of drones, but the songs of the Palestinian sunbirds. Sadly, this is not the universe we are in, but it is one that we can help make possible.”
This is the BCTF’s first province-wide motion to support boycotts, divestment and sanctions in relation to Palestine, despite the union’s history of supporting international struggles for justice, including the boycott campaign against Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. It follows the adoption of other motions in support of Palestinian human rights including a $50,000 donation to UNRWA and endorsement of the Arms Embargo Now campaign. Last fall, BCTF members also voted to call on the Canadian government to stop any supply of weapons to the United Arab Emirates until the UAE ceases its support for the RSF militia that is committing war crimes and genocide in Sudan.
Teachers at the meeting wore buttons with the slogans “BDS Saves Lives” and “BDS Saves Kids,” recognizing the especially high death toll of children in Gaza, as well as the impact of the Israeli bombing campaign on schools and universities. The motion was supported by Indigenous teachers, who spoke to the similarities between the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada and Palestinians in their homeland. Indigenous teacher Carol Arnold said to the delegation:
“I want to express solidarity and add our Indigenous voices loud and clear to support Palestinians who, like us, are victimized by settler colonialism. We are grateful to the Haida Gwaii delegates who crafted such a comprehensive resolution, including the defence of teachers who are threatened about teaching the truth about what is happening in the Middle East.”
BCTF AGM Delegates in Support of BDS is an ad-hoc group of educators from across British Columbia who share a commitment to the use of non-violent strategies to support Palestinian human rights, including the support of the Boycott, Divest & Sanctions movement.
How did this group of teachers make this win possible?
Although supporters observing the debate and the vote on the convention floor said that it looked smooth and effortless, in fact it was diligent planning that made this win possible. In 2025, a BDS motion came to the BCTF Annual General Meeting, but was never voted on as time ran out. Beginning in April of 2025, some of the teachers involved in introducing that motion started organizing to get a BDS motion passed at the 2026 AGM.
Young teachers Kaeli Wood and Auston Neveu from Nanaimo and Victoria began by researching how unions such as the BCTF brought successful motions to boycott and sanction South African apartheid during the 1980s and 90s. These teachers were able to locate and speak to retired teachers — some of whom were now in their 80s — who had been part of bringing these successful motions in the past. These retired teachers were excited to share what they had learned and experienced. One of the keys, they said, was to show that the issue had broad support coming from several locals. The organizers were hoping perhaps three or four locals could submit similar motions; in the end, 11 BDS motions were submitted by 10 of the 76 locals of the BCTF!
Lots of these retired activists talked about how much appetite there was to do this work in the rank and file, but also how many felt that it was not our business or our mandate to take an interest in global politics. They stressed that South African teachers sharing their stories changed a lot of hearts and minds, but agreed that the climate is still not so safe for Palestinian teachers to do the same, though of course many do so anyway (with more backlash).
Neveu and Wood also researched which unions had passed BDS motions in support of Palestine, and contacted other unions such as CUPW, CUPE Ontario, CUPE Manitoba, CAPE and the FNEEQ-CSN (Quebec CEGEP teachers). They asked for advice on how to proceed and how to counter arguments against BDS. From these conversations, they developed a comprehensive document with talking points that supporters could use in one-on-one conversations with others and at the microphones on the convention floor. These conversations also inspired the distributing of buttons as a way to make support for the motion visible.
Another key piece of strategy gleaned from these conversations was to begin organizing before even getting to the AGM. This way they could make sure members knew what BDS was about, and that their local contacts knew how to talk to others about it. Then they could assess who in the room would be for, against, or ‘on the fence’ and thus flippable, and figure out who they could get to talk to each person who would be most likely to win them over. They could then keep a tally of how many supporters they had.
By the time of the 2026 AGM, there was a core group of delegates from more than a dozen locals prepared to do this work. These one-on-one conversations were the most challenging and for many the most uncomfortable part of the work, but as one organizer said, “It’s an old-school organizing method that I think can have a resurgence if we try to change the culture within our union a little bit.”
Organizers were also concerned that opponents of BDS might turn to legal arguments against BDS during debate, since they had seen this strategy pop up at an earlier province-wide delegates meeting (BCTF Rep Assembly). In order to be ready to counter these points, teachers involved sought the advice of contacts who were labour lawyers, who assisted by looking at what they anticipated a legal argument would say against Haida Gwaii’s proposed BDS motion and tweaking the language of the motion in response.
Finally, a helpful tactic was to amend the agenda so that the BDS resolution didn’t “fall off the table.” This ensured that the BDS resolution didn’t suffer the same fate as last year’s, where time ran out to discuss it — something that seems to happen to many ‘controversial’ resolutions in other unions’ meetings as well.
In passing this motion, the BCTF became the first Canadian K-12 public school teachers’ union to pass a BDS motion in support of Palestine. Hopefully this paves the way for many other unions to follow suit!
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