Poilievre is threatening to import Trump’s playbook to suppress student activism and freedom of expression for all Canadians.
Throughout this election season, Poilievre has promoted far-right policies mirroring Trump’s efforts to suppress Palestine solidarity. Under the guise of fighting antisemitism, he has threatened to increase policing of pro-Palestine events, deport activists, and defund Canadian universities.
These are all tactics straight out of Project Esther, the American strategy from the white nationalist, far-right Christian think tank Heritage Foundation. Project Esther and the Heritage Foundation have guided the Trump administration’s wave of fascist repression against US citizens and residents who advocate against Israeli genocide.
Now, Poilievre wants to bring similar authoritarian strategies to Canada.
Targeting universities for defunding is a dangerous step toward criminalizing Palestine solidarity at large. We’ve seen the Trump administration and ICE agents target student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. We’ve seen them use massive funding cuts to pressure university administrators into repressing on-campus activists and academics, which have already done serious damage at institutions like Columbia.
This is what Poilievre’s threats would mean—authoritarian crackdowns, academic censorship, and state-sanctioned kidnapping of activists.
Jewish student and faculty organizers across Canada reject these scare tactics and refuse to be used as political cover for apartheid and genocide. They are part of the growing movement pushing Canadian institutions to divest from Israeli state violence and the corporations that profit from it.
Just this week in Montreal, McGill University lost an injunction case against the student union’s historic Policy Against Genocide in Palestine, which saw the highest student voter turnout in decades. Student activists have the right to call for university divestment, and are leading the movement to end Canadian institutional complicity in Israeli genocide.
Poilievre and other Zionist politicians are weaponizing accusations of antisemitism and targeting students, threatening all Canadians’ right to freedom of expression and political dissent.
Poilievre may or may not become Prime Minister on Monday, but far-right and pro-Israel politicians and lobby groups will keep pushing for these repressive policies. It is essential that we reject the false conflation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism. We will not let anyone speak in our name as they escalate repression.
Whatever the outcome of this election, our movement will not be silenced!
