https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/What the BDS movement is, what it does in Toronto and Canada, and why the Toronto Coalition Against Racist Boycotts opposes it. Every claim is sourced.en-cahttps://stopbdsintoronto.ca/about/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/about/Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTStopBDSinToronto.ca is published by the Toronto Coalition Against Racist Boycotts, an informal gathering of Torontonians opposed to the BDS movement. The site documents what BDS is, what it has done in Toronto and Canada, and why the coalition opposes it.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/arguments-against-bds/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/arguments-against-bds/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe case against BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) rests on five documented points. BDS applies a blanket exclusion to one country, the world's only Jewish state, which Canada's House of Commons rejected by 229 votes to 51 on 22 February 2016. Its own guidelines boycott individuals who cooperate with Israelis, list twelve categories of academic activity to shun, reject settlement-only boycotts in favour of boycotting the state itself, and have cost Palestinian workers their jobs.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/boycotting-israel-vs-settlements/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/boycotting-israel-vs-settlements/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTA boycott of settlements is not the same as BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), and BDS says so itself: PACBI's position paper of 31 March 2012 rejects settlement-only boycotts because the movement holds the Israeli state, not the settlements, to be the root cause. A settlement boycott is narrower, and the Palestinian Authority endorsed one in December 2013 while rejecting a boycott of Israel, but it still targets Jews and Israeli businesses by location and cost about 500 Palestinian workers their jobs when SodaStream left Mishor Adumim in 2015.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/canada-position-on-bds/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/canada-position-on-bds/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTCanada has rejected BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) at the federal and provincial levels: the House of Commons voted 229–51 on 22 February 2016 to reject it, and Ontario's legislature voted 49–5 on 1 December 2016 to reject the differential treatment of Israel, including BDS. Harper and Trudeau both condemned it, and the modernized Canada–Israel Free Trade Agreement came into force on 1 September 2019. The University of Toronto, McGill, UBC and York have each stated that they do not support BDS or academic boycotts; endorsements have come from student, faculty and labour unions.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-bds-help-palestinians/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-bds-help-palestinians/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) harms the people it claims to serve. When SodaStream closed its Mishor Adumim plant in 2015 after a boycott campaign, about 500 Palestinian employees lost jobs that paid roughly NIS 5,000 a month. The movement's anti-normalization guidelines forbid joint Palestinian-Israeli business, dialogue and peace-building unless the Israeli side first adopts the movement's platform, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in December 2013 that the PA does not support a boycott of Israel.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-bds-want-one-state/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-bds-want-one-state/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) says it is rights-based and takes no position on one state or two, but its program points to one outcome. The 2005 call demands refugee return to homes and properties inside Israel, PACBI's 31 March 2012 paper holds the Israeli state itself to be the root cause, co-founder Omar Barghouti is recorded opposing a Jewish state in any form, and the Canadian BDS Coalition's Basis of Unity, adopted by its Toronto member groups, advocates a secular democratic State of Palestine.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-university-of-toronto-support-bds/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/does-university-of-toronto-support-bds/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe University of Toronto does not support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). President Meric Gertler wrote on 8 April 2024 that academic boycotts of any kind are antithetical to the university's mission, a position dating to the 1980s, and that it does not divest on political demands. The university obtained a court injunction on 2 July 2024 ending a pro-divestment encampment, and in March 2022 withheld fees from a graduate student union whose BDS caucus excluded members on the basis of belief. Divestment votes there were taken by autonomous student unions and bind only their own funds.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/utsu-divestment-vote-2022/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/utsu-divestment-vote-2022/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe University of Toronto Students' Union (UTSU) passed a motion at a special general meeting on 16 February 2022 to divest the union's own funds from firms it deemed complicit in the occupation of Palestinian territory. The union reported only that the majority voted in favour; it has published no vote count and no minutes for that meeting, and news reports disagree on the margin. The University of Toronto did not vote and has not divested: its president wrote on 8 April 2024 that the university's divestment policy does not permit divestment on political demands.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/is-bds-legal-in-canada/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/is-bds-legal-in-canada/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) advocacy is lawful in Canada: no federal statute criminalizes it, the House of Commons motion of 22 February 2016 rejecting BDS was non-binding, and Ontario defeated a statutory restriction, Bill 202, on 19 May 2016 by 18 votes in favour to 39 against. Canadian law does regulate boycott conduct: a court ended the University of Toronto encampment on trespass grounds on 2 July 2024, Toronto adopted a protest 'bubble zone' by-law on 22 May 2025, and Bill 166 requires Ontario campuses to keep anti-hate policies. Opposing BDS is equally lawful expression.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/is-bds-antisemitic/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/is-bds-antisemitic/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) singles out the world's only Jewish state for a blanket exclusion applied to no other country and boycotts individual Israelis who decline to endorse its program. Canada's House of Commons concluded on 22 February 2016, by 229 votes to 51, that BDS promotes the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, and Ontario's legislature voted 49–5 on 1 December 2016 to reject the differential treatment of Israel. A survey released in August 2026 found that 95.7 percent of Jewish students in Canada had experienced or witnessed antisemitism in the previous year.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/uoft-encampment-2024/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/uoft-encampment-2024/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe University of Toronto encampment was set up on King's College Circle on 2 May 2024 and cleared on 3 July 2024, the day after Justice Markus Koehnen granted the university an injunction on trespass grounds in 2024 ONSC 3755. The university adopted none of the encampment's demands and had stated on 8 April 2024 that academic boycotts of any kind are contrary to its mission. No figure for the encampment's total cost has been published.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/what-is-bds/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/what-is-bds/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS, short for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, is an organized campaign that began with a call issued on 9 July 2005 and is coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee. It seeks to exclude Israel from trade, universities, culture and sport until three cumulative demands are met, two of which concern Israel inside its 1948 borders, and it rejects boycotts limited to settlements. Canada's House of Commons rejected the campaign by 229 votes to 51 on 22 February 2016.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/who-runs-bds-in-toronto/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/claims/who-runs-bds-in-toronto/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTBDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in Toronto is organized, not spontaneous. The Canadian BDS Coalition held its inaugural meeting in April 2016, adopted a shared Basis of Unity, was renamed in May 2024, and publishes a membership roster naming Toronto groups and, under National, Just Peace Advocates, a federal not-for-profit incorporated on 27 March 2018. The BDS National Committee's Canada page names four further Canadian partners, and the University of Toronto has hosted Israeli Apartheid Week since February 2005.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/faq/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/faq/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Toronto Coalition Against Racist Boycotts answers the questions most often asked about BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions): what the campaign demands, why it is discriminatory, what Parliament, Ontario, the courts and Toronto's universities have decided, and what boycotts have cost Palestinians. Every answer stands on its own and cites the record it rests on.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/timeline/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/timeline/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTDated events in the history of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as it bears on Toronto and Canada, from the Arab League boycott of 2 December 1945 to Ontario's revised Bill 166 enforcement directive of September 2026, each with a source. Canada's Parliament, Ontario's legislature, the courts and Toronto's universities have repeatedly declined to adopt BDS.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/glossary/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/glossary/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTDefinitions of the terms used across StopBDSinToronto.ca, from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement's own vocabulary to the Canadian legal and campus terms that recur in the Toronto record. Each definition stands on its own and cites the document it rests on.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/key-facts/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/key-facts/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTCanonical dates, votes, court decisions, university positions and statistics on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Toronto and Canada, each row with a source. The Toronto Coalition Against Racist Boycotts holds that BDS is a discriminatory and antisemitic campaign to isolate the world's only Jewish state; Canada's House of Commons rejected BDS 229–51 on 22 February 2016 and Ontario's legislature rejected it 49–5 on 1 December 2016.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/corrections/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/corrections/Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTA public log of every correction made to a published page on StopBDSinToronto.ca, with the date, the page, what was wrong, and what changed.https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/methodology/https://stopbdsintoronto.ca/methodology/Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTEvery factual statement on StopBDSinToronto.ca is tied to a cited source on the same page, with primary records ranked ahead of press and advocacy material. This page explains the rules the coalition follows.