The Canadian trade union bureaucracy's response to the genocide has followed the same essential pattern as its counterparts in the US, Germany, Britain, and Australia — but with a distinctly Canadian inflection, rooted in the unions' deep integration into the Liberal-NDP governmental alliance.

The "ceasefire" statement: confining opposition to appeals to the war government

In late October 2023, as protests against the genocide were building across Canada, a coalition of unions and "social justice" groups stepped forward with an appeal for a ceasefire. Endorsed by some dozen major union bodies — including Unifor, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Montreal labour councils — the October 21 statement was, in the words of the WSWS, "mealy-mouthed" and "aimed at confining the mounting opposition... to futile appeals to the Liberal government to press for a 'ceasefire'" (Canadian unions urge pro-war Trudeau government to push for a "ceasefire" in Gaza).

The statement's character was revealing. It deplored "the violence in Israel-Palestine" in a detached, supposedly neutral tone, suggesting Hamas and the Israeli state were equally responsible for the slaughter. It mentioned the bombing of the al-Ahli Hospital — in which hundreds perished — without naming Israel as the perpetrator, a direct concession to the war propaganda of the Netanyahu regime and its Western allies. It contained not a single word of criticism of the Trudeau government or Canadian imperialism, despite the fact that Trudeau and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly had repeatedly justified the siege of Gaza by insisting Israel had a "right" and a "duty" to "defend itself."

Several of the statement's demands were framed as endorsements of what the pro-war Trudeau government was already doing. The unions "humbly" called on the government to "call for an immediate ceasefire" and "endorse the Canadian government's call for humanitarian aid" — as if the government prosecuting the war could be appealed to as a neutral arbiter.

This was not naivety. The union leaderships have decades of experience smothering working-class opposition to austerity and war. Their aim was to corral the growing opposition among workers and youth behind pathetic appeals to the "progressive" Liberal government, so as to prevent them from turning to a socialist program.

The political basis: the NDP-Liberal alliance

The unions' distorted portrayal of the conflict is inseparable from their close political alliance with the Trudeau government, which they helped elect in 2015. The governmental alliance between the Canadian Labour Congress-sponsored NDP and the minority Liberals — formed to strengthen the government as Canada joined the US-led war on Russia — has bound the unions even more tightly to the pro-war Trudeau government. The CLC leadership under President Bea Bruske has openly boasted of its role in brokering this anti-worker alliance.

This is the decisive point: the Canadian union bureaucracy is not merely passive or silent on the genocide. It is an active political prop of the very government that is complicit in it. Ottawa has given full-throated support to Israeli war crimes, shielded Israel from criticism at the United Nations, and expanded its military-strategic partnership with the US, for whom Israel serves as a garrison state in the Middle East. The unions, through the NDP, provide the parliamentary votes that keep this government in power.

The NDP's own conduct exposed the fraud. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh issued a letter calling for a ceasefire that began with a sharp denunciation of Hamas' "terrorist attack" — suggesting October 7 was the origin of the conflict. And when Ontario MPP Sarah Jama issued a statement calling for an "end to all occupation of Palestinian land" and an immediate ceasefire, the Ontario NDP leadership expelled her from caucus, accusing her of creating an "unsafe work environment," on the same day the Ford government passed a motion of censure against her.

The witch hunt against Fred Hahn

The most dramatic expression of the Canadian bureaucracy's role came in August 2024, when CUPE's National Executive Board sought to purge Fred Hahn, the president of its Ontario division, for his opposition to the genocide. Hahn had reposted an anti-genocide social media video — depicting an Israeli Olympic diver becoming a bomb over Gaza — and was vilified as an "antisemite" by the corporate media, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and his ministers. The CUPE leadership demanded Hahn resign, citing a supposed violation of the union's "equality statement" (Canada's largest union victimizes senior official, Fred Hahn, for opposing Gaza genocide).

The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party (Canada) called on workers to resolutely oppose the witch hunt of Hahn, despite well-documented political differences with him. The attack on Hahn was a flagrant assault on the democratic rights of CUPE's 750,000 members, and part of a ruling-class drive — actively supported by the Trudeau government and now aided by the CUPE leadership — to delegitimize and suppress popular opposition to imperialist war.

But the defense of Hahn could not be separated from a rejection of his politics. His differences with the top CUPE leadership, in which he has served for decades, are solely tactical. He voiced no opposition to the anti-worker union-NDP-Liberal alliance. In November 2022, he joined the rest of the bureaucracy in preventing the mass defiance of Ford's anti-strike Bill 28 from becoming a province-wide general strike. And while professing support for the Palestinians, he lifted not a finger to mobilize CUPE's 8,000 members at the University of Toronto to oppose the dismantling of the anti-genocide encampment there.

The class character

The Canadian case confirms the general analysis. The trade union bureaucracy is a privileged social layer whose material position depends on its relationship to the corporations and the state, not on the workers it nominally represents. In Canada, this takes the specific form of the unions' subordination to the NDP, which in turn props up the Liberal government. The bureaucracy's function is to suppress the class struggle and subordinate the working class to the foreign policy of Canadian imperialism — which is why, when Ottawa made support for Israel's genocide a pillar of its war drive, the union leaderships fell into line.

The pseudo-left has tried to use the victimization of Hahn to bolster the claim that workers must orient to the unions, arguing that there is a section of the bureaucracy susceptible to "left" pressure. This is a lie. The struggle against the genocide requires a struggle against the trade union bureaucracy itself — the building of independent rank-and-file committees that can mobilize workers in strike action against the war, and the fight for the political independence of the working class from the NDP, the Liberals, and the entire apparatus of Canadian imperialism.