The Vancouver Public Library (“VPL”) has implemented a branch-wide ban on employees who show symbols of support for the Palestinian people.
According to internal workplace memos obtained by The Mainlander and interviews with employees, library management has been enforcing a ban on library workers’ ability to wear signs of support for Palestinians, including the watermelon pin and the keffiyeh.
The policy has been in place since July, 2024. One VPL worker, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of workplace reprisal, recounts being told by management that staff can only wear a pin or clothing item displaying a Palestinian flag if they speak “Palestinian Arabic.”
Keffiyehs have also been banned in the workplace, unless staff are able to declare they are wearing the scarf for “cultural reasons” when investigated by management and HR. This is based on the VPL’s Endorsement and Advocacy Policy and independent reports from staff. The policy was consolidated in a memo entitled “Culture attire at work” [sic] sent by VPL management to all employees on Oct. 31, 2024, and obtained by The Mainlander in full.
The Oct. 31 memo states: “If someone is wearing a keffiyeh for political reasons, this is not permitted at work; if we believe that this is happening, we will ask questions and will not permit it to continue. However, if someone is wearing it as cultural attire, this has always been permitted.”
The same memo also makes the claim that Palestinian religious and cultural symbols compromise workplace safety, and that for some staff it is “very hard and even threatening to see a keffiyeh worn at work.” VPL management will tolerate the donning of Palestinian cultural attire in some instances even though the attire is threatening for some staff, says the memo, since the aim of the policy is to “balance competing rights and interests.”
According to one VPL worker, the current controversy began when an influential member of the public filed an official complaint against an art exhibit shown at the Britannia Art Gallery that is couched in the VPL’s Britannia Branch in June 2024. The exhibition, entitled Still Here, showed an Indigenous figure in regalia, wearing a woven cedar bark hat, standing alongside another Indigenous figure wearing a keffiyeh. The Director of the Britannia Community Centre confirmed their support of the artist’s right to exhibit their work and to continue the show for its planned duration, according to a VPL worker.
For the remainder of the summer, pressure mounted against all staff regarding the enforcement of the Endorsement and Advocacy policy. Minutes from the VPL Board meeting of Sept. 25, 2024, show that Amir Abbey, President of CUPE 391, expressed concern about the Endorsement and Advocacy policy. Paraphrasing Abbey’s presentation, the minutes read: “the Union believes the employer [has] utilized an arbitrary and punitive approach towards staff who were wearing symbols representing the Palestinian cause. The Union asked that the Board consider the impact of the implementation and enforcement of this policy on staff.”
VPL Appointments and ABC Council
Several Vancouver institutions have undergone a pro-Israel shift since the October 2022 election of Mayor Ken Sim and his ruling ABC Vancouver party to City Council. Shortly after the municipal election, City Council voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) definition of antisemitism in November 2022. The IHRA definition of antisemitism conflates critiques of the state of Israel with antisemitism, which means that any critique of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine is labeled antisemitism, and therefore subject to repression and censorship. Vancouver was one of the first municipalities in Canada to approve the IHRA definition.
Numerous Jewish groups have spoken out against the IHRA definition of antisemitism. In a press release sent to The Mainlander, Sid Shniad, founding member of the Vancouver chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, says that, “Responding to instances of antisemitism does not require a special definition. Antisemitism is a form of racism that should be addressed the same way we respond to other forms of racism, such as Islamophobia or anti-Black racism.”
Shniad continues: “The IHRA definition includes eleven examples of anti-Semitism, seven of which relate to Israel and Zionism. These examples serve to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. Jewish identity and Judaism are distinct from Zionism. Furthermore, a significant and growing number of Jews are joining movements in support of Palestinian liberation.”
Vancouver remains one of the few BC municipalities to decline growing calls for a ceasefire. Mayor Sim has refused to explain why, even as he was approached and asked by a descendant of a passenger on the Komagata Maru at a February 2024 public apology for “past” imperial violence.
The year 2023 saw a gradual ABC-led transition within public institutions in Vancouver, including the purging of a trustee from the VPL Board of Trustees. Melody Ma, an active member of the board, was controversially terminated in December 2023 at the end of her first term.
Ma was recommended for a second two-year term renewal by the Board’ governance committee, but the City’s nomination subcommittee interfered. Shortly after her termination she was replaced by an ABC party insider.
At issue was her support for the City of Vancouver’s Living Wage Policy, which ABC city council voted to scrap in January 2023. Ma was alone in endorsing a continuation of the policy within the VPL, when the library board voted to “harmonize” library policy with the city’s decision to scrap the living wage. She believes that alongside her advocacy for Chinatown, the living wage debate played a role in her termination. FOI requests have been declined to date, stating that no records exist for the nomination subcommittee.
More recently, longtime VPL Trustee Abeer Yusuf was also phased out of her VPL Board trusteeship after not being recommended for re-election this past November 2024.
Abeer was the only Muslim trustee serving on the Board. She was in her sixth year on the board, and was among the youngest VPL trustees to serve, with one two-year term remaining in her maximum eight-year trusteeship. Yusuf has been vocal about Palestine in the past.
Like Yusuf, Ma has also spoken out and has raised humanitarian aid to help rebuild a bombed public library in Gaza. When it comes to the current VPL policy against symbols of Palestinian solidarity, Ma says, in an interview with The Mainlander: “For an institution that is supposed to be for learning and freedom of speech, this policy represents a case of using too big of a hammer and applying that policy inappropriately.”
“For an institution that is supposed to be for learning and freedom of speech, this policy represents a case of using too big of a hammer and applying that policy inappropriately.”
Staff at VPL have also expressed concern about the loss of diverse perspectives on the Board and the authority the Board has to circumvent previous Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives. In an audio meeting with staff on Jul. 16, 2024, Chief Librarian and CEO of the VPL, Christina de Castell, commented on the extent to which the Board can influence the VPL’s policies and values, according to a VPL worker interviewed by The Mainlander. When asked about the risk of a racist Board in the future, the worker said de Castell responded, “our role is no longer to raise voices that are marginalized.”
Austerity and Workplace Tensions
Internal developments at the VPL come in the wake of a long and acrimonious negotiation between library staff and management. Shortly after threatening strike action, CUPE 391 members ratified a new collective agreement in May 2024. This agreement expires this month.
Tensions at the VPL could be related to budget austerity at the municipal level. Mayor Ken Sim’s austerity approach to governance has involved freezing budgets for most departments except the police, who have continued to receive significant funding increases. During the 2022 municipal election Sim argued in favor of using the VPL’s “basic services” to generate new revenue streams, portending a renewed neoliberal assault on the VPL’s model of free public services at the library. 
Sim and ABC’s austerity approach has led to a deeper reliance on charity and the private sector at VPL and elsewhere. This might help explain the banning of Palestinian support symbols except for religious and cultural reasons, given that two prominent VPL donors – the Diamond Foundation and the Wosk Family – either donate to or have ties with Birthright and Israel Bonds, respectively.
Critics of Sim’s austerity have long worried that basic services would be sacrificed in order to fund already-bloated policing infrastructures throughout the city. In the current City budget the VPL was not granted its request for an additional $450K to operate, yet VPD’s $12M increase was approved. The additional VPL funding would have allowed the VPL to meet adequate staffing levels and prevent branch closures. Numerous closings have already taken place this past year, and 2025 budget austerity will mean reduced hours in the new year for some branches.
Whose Free Speech?
VPL’s censorious actions against staff are notable considering the library management’s previous grandstanding in favor of freedom of expression. In late 2018, the library hosted a talk by Meghan Murphy, a figure notorious for her anti-trans/anti-sex worker writings and speeches. Though the talk was condemned by LGBTQ+ groups across the country, the VPL Board proceeded with the event, merely updating its room booking policies, and stating the following: “in keeping with its value of intellectual freedom, the Library will not restrict freedom of expression beyond the limits prescribed by Canadian law.”
The VPL’s decision drew ire, even from the Vancouver Pride Society – an institution that itself has been accused of setting a low bar in the face of ongoing genocide – which responded by banning the VPL from its 2019 parade. Anybody wondering if the new room booking policy would have prevented Murphy’s previous booking got their answer the following year, when VPL board members approved hosting yet another panel discussion debating trans rights and featuring Murphy.
Conclusion
VPL is not the first workplace to crack down on pro-Palestinian employees. Canada saw a wave of censured, suspended, and fired workers following Israel’s intensified campaign of genocide since October 7, 2023. Since then, the state of Israel has deepened their longstanding illegal occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank, committing what is widely decried as the 21st century’s worst act of mass genocide and social cleansing to date. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in 15 months of bombing, and the total number of Palestinian lives lost almost certainly triples that figure by now.
VPL’s actions suggest that intellectual freedom is a fair-weather friend when coupled with austerity. If a revenue source is threatened – be it room rental fees or donations from Zionist groups – VPL will respond in whatever way that keeps the budget balanced and the status quo intact. As an institution, the VPL has joined the call for Truth and Reconciliation and implemented the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). But contrary to the principles enshrined in these documents and commitments, the institution has stopped short of allowing its own staff to highlight wrongdoing perpetrated by settler-colonial regimes.
Note: VPL media relations was asked for comment but did not reply by deadline.