Doctors Kavita Algu and Ben Thomson, both very active in the Palestinian solidarity movement, talk about the backlash they received at their separate workplaces - clear cases of anti-Palestinian racism (APR) in our public hospitals. Similar cases, met with very different means of resistance.

“There’s multiple paths of resistance...they’ll all serve different goals, and push in different ways. We find the ones right for us depending on our situation. And they’re all important.”

Dr. Kavita Algu a physician, activist and Ph.D candidate, was working in palliative care at Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto) in the Fall of 2023, while the genocide in Gaza was intensifying. Already a longtime advocate for various issues, she did what any decent human being should have - and was shocked at the response from her fellow doctors.

She talks about seeing her boss' name at the bottom of a letter signed by 550 Zionists, calling her and any other doctor advocating for Palestine antisemitic. how she was pushed out of her job, and what it was like finally being able to go public and expose the anti-Palestinian racism that singled out her work.

Her story brings up discussions around the "entitlement of comfort" and the prioritization of declared feelings over the right to speak against actual violence.

Dr. Ben Thomson, of Eyewitness Gaza has been visiting Gaza for over 10 years, been extremely active in the movement - but how his workplace responded to this work also changed after 2023. All of a sudden "being passionate became a liability", and his protected political views were being used against him.

This happened to him twice! He was first suspended, then reinstated, by McKenzie Health - which caused him to file a lawsuit that is slowly working its way through the courts. Although critical for future cases, this method has been resource consuming and taxing in other ways.

"There needs to be a cost for organizations who behave badly. Whether its shaming them publicly...or causing them to have significant liabilities with cost, or whether its changing the law."

When Ben lost a job opportunity in B.C. for the same reasons, he chose a different route to find 'justice' and filed a human rights complaint against . This process has been more accessible, and public.

Ben contrasts his experiences in other ways, and together with Kavita, provides lots of lessons for other workers who are most certainly facing something similar.

Also discussed: IHRI definition, Bill C9, the Palestine exception, zionism

Call to Action: Donate to the Toronto Community Justice Fund

Related Episodes:

• United Against Genocide: Name it, Stop it, Sanction It (June 2025) Alex Neve, Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo, and Dr. Ben Thompson on their work to pressure Canadian politicians to end Canada's complicity in the genocide
• Holding Institutions Accountable (Oct 2025) Activist and lawyer Dimitri Lascaris on students' $10 million lawsuit against the Toronto Metropolitan University for anti-Palestinian racism.

More Resources:

• Toronto Doctor Resigns From Mount Sinai (Toronto Star)
• Ontario doctor suspended, his address published after pro-Palestinian social media posts (CBC)

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Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. Welcome to blueprints, and welcome back. Ben, may you introduce yourself, please?

Kavita, start. We'll start with you. Sure. Yeah. Thanks so much for having us. My name is Kavita

Elgu. I'm a physician working in Toronto at the moment. Used to work in palliative care,

now predominantly in primary care. And I'm also doing a PhD in health policy. Thank you

so much for having us. It's a pleasure. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It's great. Great

to be on again, Jessa. I'm Ben Thompson. I'm a physician working predominantly in the Toronto

area, and I've been going to Gaza since about 2013 fairly regularly, and I'm one of the two

leads of the Eyewitness Gaza Advocacy Group of healthcare providers that have been to Gaza

during the genocide. Well, that's the first clue to the audience, if they didn't hear your

previous episode, as to why I would have two physicians, two doctors on the show. We typically

talk to activists, employers, rarely politicians. But these doctors, as you can tell, have advocated

for Palestine, but they've also paid a price for that. We're going to talk to them about

their individual stories at their places of employment as much as we can. Some of them

are tied up in litigation, but these are stories that are likely, have likely been replicated

across the country and across the globe. So we want to know how these folks dealt with

it. how it might differ within the industry of healthcare and what we can learn from their

experiences. So Kavita, you know, I had a hint something was going on with you quite a while

ago. I went through our chat, I think it was almost a year and you were like, yeah, I'm

going to want to talk about this one day. And sure enough, I saw the Toronto Star published

an amazing investigative piece. that did finally tell your story at the beginning of August.

And so I'm like, maybe I can talk to her now. And so, yay, I finally do have you in the

studio. I'll link the Toronto Star piece for folks, but so that they know what we're talking

about, can you just recap to us what happened to you working at Mount Sinai as you began

to advocate for Palestine? Yeah, of course. So this obviously happened over a very long,

period of time. And so I'll my best to just kind of pull out some kind of the broad strokes.

And, you know, as you said, Jessa, these kinds of stories are replicated throughout the country

and throughout the globe in different workplaces and in healthcare. But essentially what happened

was that I had been a physician at Mount Sinai Hospital at the Tammy Lattner Center for palliative

care, practicing home palliative care for almost 10 years. I had engaged in advocacy of various

kinds throughout my career in medicine and even prior to that. And so when this phase of the

genocide started in October, 2023, it became very clear to me very early on what was happening.

You know, as we started to see hospitals getting bombed, physicians, health workers being kidnapped,

patients being targeted, health infrastructure, medications, et cetera. And very naturally,

I started started speaking out about it much like I thought we all would, because we could

all see what was happening. And as some people say, this is the first live stream genocide.

so we were all able to see what was happening. Initially, I signed a letter that was by Health

Workers Alliance for Palestine calling for an end to the siege, an end to the blockade,

the protection of hospitals, et cetera. So there was that letter. And then seemingly in

response, there was another letter which people may have heard of. that was signed by 555 Zionist

physicians at the University of Toronto, just in the Department of Medicine, essentially

saying that if other faculty accuse Israel of apartheid, settler colonialism or genocide,

these faculty are actually anti-Semitic. And so the University of Toronto should treat us

as such. And so... That letter was signed by my direct supervisor as well, and I believe

was signed by six people just in my small palliative care department at Mount Sinai Hospital. And

so, you know, it became clear that was fairly early on that this was not like other humanitarian

issues and there was a lot more tension in the workplace. I very much kept my advocacy and

my work separate, knowing that this was happening, although previously I did advocate in the workplace

as others did around issues to do with health. And it was not this level of a there was no

discipline or, you know, this this level of conflict around that. But but I'll just note

that. So eventually what happened was that I in January of twenty twenty five, there were

six of us that were called into a meeting to discuss know, essentially our advocacy for

Palestine. Some people had only just signed one letter, for example. Several people declined

the meeting. Three of us ended up going into the meeting. At that meeting, we were told

that our advocacy, we were told that there had been a meeting prior by Jewish physicians,

which I later found out not all Jewish physicians were even invited to. So pro-Israeli Well,

I don't know who was invited, but I know not everybody was invited. So at this meeting,

the people who were called together were supposedly named as making people uncomfortable in the

workplace. And so we were told about this. I did ask some questions like, did I break

any policies? We were told we did not break any policies. We were told the hospital supports

activism. And we were... I said, are you telling us to do something differently? And I was

told you were not, but you may choose to, knowing this information, which, you know. So I continued

in my out of work advocacy. I began to experience what I felt to be repercussions in the workplace

from my supervisors. And I, along with other folks raised concerns of anti-Palestinian racism

in the workplace, formal complaints to Sinai. Sinai then went on to hire Osler Law Firm,

which sponsors the annual Walk for Israel to handle our anti-Palestinian racism concerns.

Dr. Ben's probably like laughing at my face because I am aghast or just the ridiculousness

of it all. not sure. mean, have this concept in medicine, like when we pursue research or

publish something, we have to declare our conflicts of interest. Right. So if I'm being paid by

a company to do research on a drug, I have to declare that, especially if I'm writing a paper

about that drug. But hospitals are not required to even consider conflicts of interest when

hiring legal firms to investigate anti-Palestinian racism. And in this case, hired a firm that

very clearly is potentially one of the most biased in doing so. I mean, you couldn't write

this stuff. I'm glad someone did that. Yeah. yeah, and this law firm sponsors the Walk

for Israel year after year. anyway, so they hired this law firm. This law firm went on

to hire you know, another investigator, our investigator was Jillian Shearer. I believe

the firm is called Shearer Pernaga. The whole relationship is a bit confusing to me because

that firm declined or Jillian Shearer declined to talk to the star for the piece citing client

attorney privilege. But I'm not sure like who is the attorney. Yeah. So anyway, I don't

know what the relationships were behind the scenes. But the whole thing triggered off a

process by where there was an investigation into our concerns about anti-Palestinian racism

in the workplace. They also did a parallel, what they called an environmental assessment

into the whole workplace environment. Notably, only physicians were allowed to participate

in that investigation. Like I had said, six of my direct coworkers had signed this letter

in support of Zionism and the non-physician staff are disproportionately racialized. So,

you know, take from that what you will. I had my own thoughts about it. Ultimately, what

happened was the concerns we raised about anti-Palestinian racism said they were not a fact-finding or

they were not there to find fault with anybody in particular, then went on to name me specifically

as being problematic in the workplace. The environmental assessment, and as I had said,

in neither, well, I'll come back to that. The environmental assessment, again, like made

a whole bunch of findings and then went on to name me specifically saying that I was identified

as somebody who disproportionately contributed to a negative workplace culture. At no point

in the process up until that point had I ever been told, that I was the subject of an investigation.

At no point in that process had anybody ever come to me with one single example during the

investigation and saying, you know, this tweet is problematic, this, you know, whatever,

this thing you wrote, what you said at this protest. At no point did anything like that

happen. So nothing was ever brought to me for me to see and be able to respond to. And in

response to all of this, the hospital ultimately brought highest level professionalism complaint

against me. The complaint process is supposed to be, what's it called, been graded? Yeah,

there's a pyramid of complaints with sort of low level to the peak of the pyramid would

be the highest level complaint. Right, but you're supposed to progressive discipline or

something like that. You're supposed to start at the top. You're supposed to start and then

like, you know, except for something very egregious, but they started at the very most serious level

with me without even having provided me an example of anything I supposedly did wrong. So ultimately,

I ended up resigning at that time. So this was January 2025. So it is some time ago now,

but I left the field of palliative care. I took a job in primary care in Indigenous health.

So I've been working predominantly as a primary care physician since then. Yeah. That's a

heavy story. Kind of being forced out of your place of employment. Even the... What was your

gut reaction when you initially saw your supervisor's signature at the bottom of the list? Were you...

Like, oh, shit, I've stepped in it. Like, were you not like you cried the way you told the

story kind of gave me the impression that maybe you weren't aware how volatile Palestine could

be. I was like, OK, really? OK, that's not that's unusual just for me, because it's always

just been so contentious. But so for people who just saw what was happening and got into

it because that was the right thing to do, had no idea what they were stepping into. That

would be a moment then, yes, when you're just like, what? Yeah. And so I've talked about

this before. I didn't know. And it's not because the information wasn't there, because it's

been there for a decade. It's always been there. But this was the first time I opened my eyes

to Palestine. And so. When I saw my supervisor's name on there, I, to be honest, the letter

itself just very much upset me. In particular, saying that accusing a state of genocide is

anti-Semitic. What if that state is committing genocide? What if that state is committing

apartheid? What if that state is a settler colonial state? It just is so racist. I wasn't... I

actually wasn't thinking like, I stepped in. was I was very mad to the point that I wrote

an op-ed about it that was subsequently published in Spring Magazine, where I talk about how

this letter is so racist and like, especially we're watching all these brown people, these

Palestinians, these being murdered. And how can you say? that there is no circumstance

under which anybody can accuse Israel of genocide, apartheid, or settler colonialism. And so

that op-ed was actually raised in our January meeting as having made people uncomfortable

or something like that. It's so strange to me, but like we're starting to get used to

it, this concerted effort to... prioritize comfort and feelings very vaguely, even with

legal mechanisms and bureaucratic measures. Even the name of it, an environmental assessment,

sounds so scientific. Sanitized. Yet they can't produce anything of substance except for anti-Palestinian

racism. And the idea that we shouldn't be uncomfortable during a genocide we're facilitating. The

powers that be would make sure to sanitize our workplaces and everywhere we go of any sort

of discomfort or reminder that we are playing a role in this genocide, right? Like just,

no, no, no, no, no. That's a problem and extract it. How did you feel when you resigned? Did

you, was that like the beginning of a fight for you or did you, I don't want to put any

words about you, tell me. Yeah. So kind of to touch on one thing. you talked about, which

I'm sure we'll come back to around comfort. Comfort is like a privilege most people are

not afforded, right? So when a gender diverse person walks into the workplace or the hospital,

an indigenous person, a black person, an Arab person, they are not comfortable. So to think

that people have a default of entitlement to workplace comfort to me is so privileged because

which one of us And I'm a very privileged person. But it's very common to not be comfortable.

That's just how people walk through the world that was not made for us. So anyway, side

point, but back to your question about how did I feel to resign. It was... So I took another

job before I officially resigned. And the complaint came once I already had accepted another job.

Part of me did think about keeping both jobs to have a mechanism to fight the complaint

because it was so obscene. But I was advised that would not be a... good choice for my own

health. You're a doctor. should know this. We cannot fight every battle and justice will

come in different ways. ultimately, as I talked about in the start piece, I also don't want

to just like languish away and give my labor into an institution that's silencing people.

speaking out against the genocide when I could give my labor to creating something that's

promoting health and well-being elsewhere. Absolutely. I think many people can understand

that and the prospects of getting justice in some of these institutions can be so bleak

anyway, right? So what is your health worth and we need folks in the fight. let's hear

Ben's story as well because there's going to be similarities that allow us to unpack some

more and it's important to tell these stories too in this environment where we're being told

that Zionists are actually, you know, discriminated against and fearing for their lives and are

in need of legal interventions and resources put in and all of these efforts because it's

such an awful environment for Zionists right now when it's people advocating advocating

against Zionism that are actually losing their jobs and being prosecuted by the police and

harassed by the crown and whatnot. yeah, and like I said, this is just an example of many

stories. But Ben, we did have you on before and you just hinted, like it was like a throwaway

comment that like I was like, oh gosh, that's another episode. And so yet here we are.

You've you've faced a few instances of we'll say it doesn't seem to sum up discrimination

on in the workplace for your advocacy for Palestine, starting in my neck of the woods ish at Mackenzie

Health. Do you? I was like, do you want to talk about that? Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely.

So I mean, I think. I think we should probably, as a transition from what Kavita said, I think

it would be worthwhile just remembering that Canada's medical system has a well-established

history of institutional racism. And I'm not talking specifically about anti-Palestinian

racism, but even today, people who are Black, people who are Indigenous suffer worse health

outcomes for the same conditions in Canadian hospitals than someone who looks like me. that's

not acceptable, right? And a big part of that is attributable to racism. It wasn't that

long ago when in fact, if you were a black person applying for medical school, the fact that

you were black would be sufficient to be rejected for consideration for some medical schools

in Canada. Queen's University had to just recently admit that and apologize publicly for that.

So we have a well established history of racism within our healthcare institutions in Canada.

And unfortunately that that persists. So from my perspective, I've been going to Gaza and

West Bank since 2013, quite regularly, once or twice a year. That's included clinical

work, teaching in the medical school, developing a couple humanitarian projects, working with

a number of organizations like the World Health Organization and UOSSM and other organizations.

Ultimately, I've been doing this for over a decade now. And so When I was in Gaza in September,

2026, I returned and I was in daily contact with healthcare workers on the ground. And

even before October, 2023, healthcare workers in Gaza referred to what Israel was doing as

genocidal. So this was not a foreign concept to people who were working in Gaza. And if

we consider Gregory Stanton's 10 conditions of genocide, Many and arguably most of them

were already fulfilled prior to October 2023 with what Israel was doing. So when October

2023 came along, I was suspended by McKinsey Health Hospital hours after I pushed back against

Israeli atrocity war propaganda and after I called what Israel was doing a genocide. Now

we know because of leaks that the hospital Mackenzie Health engaged with pro-Israel people within

my hospital and outside the hospital and pro-Israel organizations, including CJEA, prior to my

suspension. Now, there's more that we know because the legal case has moved to discoveries.

I did sue my employer after I was suspended. It's moved to discoveries, meaning the hospital

has been compelled to provide many of the internal documents about what they did, what they said.

I can't comment on what's included with those internal documents about what they did. But

what I can say is that the initial legal case said, like our initial filing said that the

hospital had committed anti-Palestinian racism. And I still believe that if not the same, significantly

more than prior to starting this legal action. I think it should be pretty obvious to anyone

who knows how hospitals operate that suspension is not the appropriate response to advocacy.

And so in my situation, the hospital, Mackenzie Health Actions clearly demonstrate anti-Palestinian

racism. Now, since my case against Mackenzie Health, soon after my suspension, I knew

I couldn't provide my labor. in some of the best years of my professional life to an institution

that so rather unceremoniously disrespected my work and behaved in such a horrific fashion

towards me and showed racism. So I started to apply for kidney medicine work nationally.

And one place that kept asking me to come back repeatedly for work absences or for short contracts

to cover people's holidays, was on Vancouver Island, which includes Victoria and Nanaimo.

I worked several times there. I got great feedback about my clinical work. So when a job was posted

there, of course, I applied. In advance of the application, I actually met with the division

head. It was a peculiar conversation, because what she said to me was, there's a couple people

in our division who have some concerns about your work outside medicine. Do you know immediately

what she was talking about? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm guessing it wasn't my work for Indigenous

communities. I'm guessing it wasn't my work in Uganda. And it was pretty obvious what

it was. It was pretty obvious because I clarified it with her. And I said to her, was like, you

know, it would be extraordinary that you create a completely different application process

for one candidate. just because they happened to advocate for Palestine. That seems a little

bit like even counter to the job description. Like none of what you're describing seems

like it's not gonna make me do my job very well. But I was urged to communicate with two different

members of the division who had voiced concerns about my out of work advocacy. In good faith

I did and neither of them were particularly interested in talking to me about it. One of

them pretty much told me to buzz off. They told you to go find the two Zionists or they

named them and then ask them why they have a problem with you. That sounds like inciting

a fight. Yeah, that's I was asked to do. OK. And like, mean, it's ridiculous on its face,

but the fact that they would think that that's even acceptable to devise a parallel, separate

process for one candidate because he happens to advocate for Palestine. That's a wonderful

example of the Palestine exception. Now it just so happened that when it came time that they

had to tell me that I didn't get an interview, the division head called me and explained

to me that being passionate can be a liability. And of course I had to clarify what that meant.

I said, you know, being passionate about patient care certainly isn't considered a liability.

Are you talking about my passion for advocating against genocide in Gaza, and it was confirmed

that that was what people had a problem with. And so, like, they actually confirmed that

the reason I was not considered for work was because of my advocacy for Palestine. Now,

the issue here is we all know this happens, right? And we're not unique in medicine. This

happens in other industries and organizations as well. We know this happens in universities.

We know what happens at law firms in the restaurant industry, like name an industry. There's anti-Palestinian

racism with regards to their employment practices. We've all seen it. What was particularly unusual

about my case is the fact that they simply admitted it. They admitted flat out, yeah, you're not

getting a job here because you're advocating for Palestine. under the human rights code,

your political views are protected grounds of discrimination, meaning they cannot discriminate

against you for your political views. And the act of discriminating against someone because

they're advocating for Palestine, that's reflective of anti-Palestinian racism. And the fact that

they so boldly were able to say it means that they either don't know it's racism or they

have never suffered impunity for their anti-Palestinian racism. which indicates that an action needs

to be taken against it. And so I filed a human rights complaint to the human rights, the

British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal specifically for discrimination for my political stances.

And that covers both Nanaimo as well as Victoria. And thankfully the National Council of Canadian

Muslims has supported me with that. Ben, just to clarify one thing you said around the human

rights code, my understanding is in Ontario, political views is not a protected grounds,

that? Yeah, you're absolutely right. So the typical things that we consider protected grounds

of discrimination are things like your age, your sex, your sexual orientation, your religion,

these sorts of things. Clearly, you know, if I was to say to you, You know, Jessa, as a,

I don't know, as a woman who's under the age of 50 years old, I cannot consider you for

this job. You you would sort of say like, that's ridiculous. That has nothing to do with the

job description. You know, I want to be considered for my ability to do the job. And quite rightly,

you would file a human rights complaint for age discrimination, for sex discrimination.

And that would be, you know, It would be pretty easy to understand. The reason this is somewhat

unique is that the idea of anti-Palestinian racism is something that Zionists and people

who support Israel are even against the concept of anti-Palestinian racism. They suggest it

doesn't exist. Some of them suggest even Palestine doesn't exist. And so coming through with a...

human rights complaint of anti-Palestinian racism, it's somewhat unique. Yeah. Especially from

a non-Palestinian. Yeah. Right? Like it would be, if that's maybe for the audience to understand,

I think you guys have done a good enough job and we've talked about it enough for people

to understand that despite you not being Palestinian race, being Palestinian, you are impacted

by anti-Palestinian racism, which people are now calling APR. I just found out. and you

know, the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association and the Canadians for Justice and Peace in

the East, who are probably the two most authoritative organizations on the definition of anti-Palestinian

racism, they've quite clearly outlined the fact that you don't need to be Palestinian

to experience anti-Palestinian racism, right? If you are advocating for Palestine and by

doing so, that prevents you from accessing the same job opportunities as someone who advocates

for Sudan instead or advocates for indigenous people or doesn't advocate for anything. You

know, someone shouldn't be penalized because they choose to say, I don't think Israel should

be committing genocide in Gaza. And I think like a lot of these HR folks or, you know,

executives making these decisions, they know the human rights code and they know they wouldn't

get away with admitting, you know, I'm not hiring you because of your religion or the other criteria

that people would more easily understand. And even with political ideas protected in British

Columbia, the way in which the Zionist lobby has been able to frame the issue, best example

was the letter Kavita described, right? Where A lot of folks are saying this isn't them advocating

for Palestine. This is them being racist themselves. Right? Correct. They have kind of got there

first. And they're like, no, no, just in case anybody starts saying anything, we're going

to start teaching that this is actually anti-Semitism. And nobody wants to be facilitating racism.

And nobody wants to be. making their employees feel uncomfortable, right, en masse. And if

that's what they're saying, then these folks are put in this position where, like you said,

they either don't know they're being racist, but they still are being, right? They're still

perpetuating APR without maybe understanding that they've been duped into it, right? That

it's not racist to think that Israel shouldn't exist as an ethnostate. And I kind of laughed

there when you're like, oh, Zionists say it doesn't exist. They don't want you learning

about it. We know that, right. The EFWO had a workshop canceled because it might make community

members feel uncomfortable. But I laughed only because they don't think it exists because

it is Zionism. They just have a different name for it. Right. It's the cornerstone of Zionism

to have a terra nullis, right, to have a lesser there to remove, to be better than and to subjugate

and whatnot. So it it. It doesn't need a name, it's part and parcel of their ideology already,

and you should not demonize it. Because their political ideology is protected. Yeah, well,

it's funny you say that because it's another example of prioritizing the comfort of one

group over the actual safety of another, Like weaponizing the concept of safety to protect

those who love Israel while facilitating or even welcoming visits. to University of Toronto

by those who openly and gleefully participate and support genocide, right? Like it's that

fundamental institutional contradiction. That's a wonderful example of anti-Palestinian racism

again. Sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say, yeah, one of the threads you had posted at one point,

Ben, was about anti-Palestinian racism at Sinai. And you noted how they had a soldier who posted

a picture of him in like army fatigues and a gun in Gaza during the genocide, speak at

an educational day. an obstetrics conference, obstetrics gynecology conference. yeah. I

mean, it amazes me. And it's another example of the Palestine exception, Like, Kavita,

you've done impressive advocacy work for other communities, right? For Indigenous communities

you've published about. palliative care in marginalized groups. And that's to be congratulated. That's

to be like amazing. That's exactly what you should be doing as a physician, as an advocate.

Similarly, like I've run an education series for Indigenous services Canada and Ontario

communities. I've done Uganda work. I've done other works in other communities. I published

about the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Every time I'm doing that, I'm universally

congratulated. like and encouraged to do more work like that. And told, yes, that's what

being an advocate as a physician is all about. But the moment you even touch Palestine, it's

like, no, we're gonna destroy you. We're gonna destroy your career. And that's essentially

what McKenzie Health bought into when, you know, we know who the people are in the hospital.

Many of their names were actually leaked from a private Facebook group that discussed quite

openly. how they were trying to get me suspended. And they work in my hospital and they had

a direct line to speak with the CEO about how they wanted me out. And they were listened

to, right? Like, why were they listened to? Why is it that the National Council of Canadian

Muslims writes a letter and doesn't get a response? And yet, CEJA does. I think we know the answer

to that, So yeah, mean, the answer is you can give a complicated answer or a simple answer.

The simple answer is it's anti-Palestinian racism. Yeah, I'll complicate it just like a tiniest

little bit. But the shift that you experienced, because you're talking 2013, 10 years you've

been going to Gaza and employed and working amongst folks who have probably heard through

the grapevine. that you do what you do in Palestine, but that push and shift that we experience

post October 7th, right, from folks like Sieja, who we hate to say, like, I can condemn them

for doing such a bang up job of being at the forefront of pushing a narrative that would

make it really difficult for people in the workplaces, right? And this isn't to excuse them, it's

just to kind of explain why so many employers fall into this trap and will likely pay a legal

price or have to deal with human rights complaints over and over again until they realize, right?

Or until, you know, they officially adopt the IHRA everywhere. And in fact, what you did

is deemed anti-Semitic, right? Then we see the other end of that where legislation is

being passed where we can redefine. what is and what isn't hate and whatnot. So it's interesting

to hear the difference. There's really three different paths of resistance. Like Kavita,

you told your story and found a better place to use your skills so that you could continue

your advocacy. Ben, you've used the human rights complaint mechanism in British Columbia as

well as suing your employer here in Ontario. Have you learned anything from having to...

Like if you had to do it all over again, Kavita, would you like sue their asses off? Or were

you, are you happy that you walked away and you can do what you're doing now? Or can we

just sit for a moment before we let you go onto your busy lives and Labor Day? Just reflect

on how you handled it and where you're at now. Yeah, I think it's challenging, right? Because

you don't have all the information till like a year ago or two years ago. We didn't know

all the things we know now in terms of who was involved, what were the mechanisms, know,

all of those things. But I would say I very much struggled around legal action versus not.

And there's lots of different factors, you know, thinking about how going through legal processes

draws other people in who maybe need to move on with their lives for various reasons was

a big consideration for me. And the legal process is like, then you become more under the microscope.

Everybody's going to try and pick you apart as a person and every single thing you've said

or done. I feel very at peace with... the story being out there, and that this piece of truth

is now there, documented forever. And I can speak about it, and I didn't have to sign away

any rights. And I've already heard of stories of folks where the story has impacted them

in a positive way. in terms of APR, they have been experiencing in their workplace. And

so I think there's multiple paths of resistance and they're all important and they all will

serve different goals and push in different ways. And we find the ones that are right

for us depending on our situation and they're all important. And I am very, let's just

say I sleep much better at night. Well, that's good news. Ben, you're still in the thick

of it too, right? A little bit, yeah. it's more difficult. I mean, think what I've learned

is justice doesn't occur in the courtroom. And I think I was a little bit naive at the

beginning of the court process against the hospital as far as how long it would take, how expensive

it would be, just how egregious certain behaviors could be without any consequence. So... I

mean, without going into the specifics of my hospital case against the hospital, again,

I'm not allowed to go into specifics with it. I can say that, you know, Kavita very effectively

demonstrated that Mount Zahihana Hospital was overwhelmed with anti-Palestinian racism and

probably still is. And that was very well demonstrated by the way that she did her story with the

Toronto Star. Right. The issue with And a lawsuit has the potential to, like what I'm doing with

Mackenzie Health, has the potential to pave a pathway to make it easier for people who

are similarly affected as Kavita was, as I am, as dozens of other healthcare providers have

been, to make hospitals think twice about pulling that nonsense again with someone else. And

that was probably my number one motivation for doing it. My lawyers warned me it would be

a long process, it would be a costly process. They told me that. You just didn't listen to

them. I just underestimated how true that was going to be. And we're now talking more than

three years into a genocide, and I'm still at a point where the lawsuit is still ongoing.

Not because it isn't moving forward, just the legal process is so slow. And so there might

be a point where I come back on your show in a year from now and say, that lawsuit is the

best decision I ever made based on the court saying A, B and C and paving a pathway for

other people to be protected in these situations in the future. I hope I get to that. I really

do, but, um, I'm not sure I'm going to get there, right? There's, there's a long way to go before

I get there. the other hand, the human rights complaint. I think the. The benefit of the

human rights complaint, it's simple. It's much less expensive to do. The decision tends to

be fairly quick and you're not providing mountains and mountains of input and hesitation at each

legal step before you can move forward with it. So we'll see how that goes. Other people

have also filed human rights complaints in Ontario, and I don't know if they would be happy if

I shared who it was, but similar situations, they filed human rights complaints in Ontario.

You know, really what I'm hoping for, and again, this might be naive, but I'm hoping that institutions

say, yeah, we discriminated against you. We're sorry about that. We're going to look at our

internal policies and procedures, and we're going to change them to make sure that this

never happens to someone else. And if it means that every person in our organization needs

to have training on anti-Palestinian racism, then so be it. human rights complaints, I

think, are a little bit more, how do I put this, accessible to people who have a more

limited budget. I didn't intend on spending six digits of legal fees and other fees on

suing a hospital, but that's where we're at. Right. Yeah. When you said expensive, you

meant it. it's over. It's been over one hundred thousand dollars easily. Yeah. That is an

exception. That's not even done. Oh, man. That's always been an issue with the courts. Right.

And challenging legislation or any wrongs from the state is just it is a financial hurdle

that you need to. But knowing that there are other avenues to name and shame or, you know,

bureaucratic measures where even if it's not because it's the right thing to do, it's because

it'll have really bad PR or, you know, eat away at their bottom line, become a headache to

deal with in the courts later. Any form of deterrence is going to help, right? Because

drop by drop by drop on every single front. it takes people like you going through the

wringer. unfortunately, to get where we have to go. So if we can at least learn from your

traumas, they have more value, right? Like, fuck those guys. Like, let us unite under their

mistreatment of you and learn ways to navigate these institutions better because they forced

us to. So. Yeah, there needs to be a cost. There needs to be a cost for organizations to behave

badly. And in this case, whether it's shaming them publicly, which I think is important,

it's an important part of this, whether it's causing them to have significant liabilities

with costs for doing these sorts of things against others, whether it's changing the law in a

way that they can't do this again, you know, to other people. And maybe next time we're

sitting at this table, it won't be anti-Palestinian racism, it'll be anti-Indigenous racism, or

it'll be anti-Sudanese racism, or anti-Black racism. Because the healthcare system in Canada

does not have a good record on these things, right? They have committed racism, misogyny,

they still do, right? And if we can make it one step less likely to commit discrimination

against one's group of people, I think it helps us all. Absolutely. Is there anything the two

of you have coming up that you would like to share with folks? Like, what do you do with

yourselves now? No, I'm sure you're you're very busy. But. When I don't think we were recording.

You spoke, hold on, I wrote down something you said. Ben, you spoke about people reacting

before any understanding. Yeah. And then we've tried to help people understand real hard,

right? Yeah. Yeah. But there's like an unwillingness to understand. So how do we move forward?

Knowing that. How does that change how you approach advocacy? I would say my opinion

to that has changed in the last three years. Maybe I'm more pessimistic or cynical than

I was in October, 2023, but I can tell you what one of my good friends, Hama Malo, told me.

He was a brilliant nephrologist, kidney doctor who worked in Gaza, who he and I had developed

a training program to train kidney doctors in Gaza. And before he was killed in an Israeli

airstrike on his in-laws' home in November of 2023, he would constantly tell me if the world

knew, they would make it stop. Right now, I said that, I've said this and I've repeated

that line, if the world knew they would make it stop. And I quite commonly get a reaction

of, if only that was true. Right? Like, I was determined at the beginning to make that true.

I was determined to talk everywhere, do media everywhere, educate people, be in every lecture

hall, be in every theater, everywhere. talking to people about the reality on the ground in

Gaza and the preceding conditions of apartheid and illegal occupation and siege and humanitarian

blockade and all those things and providing that education, hoping that at some point,

people would learn and that the genocide would stop, that that would lead to an end to the

genocide. And if that meant I had to go to Ottawa and talk to politicians, again, not something

I liked, but I was willing to do it. And I did it a few times and I hope I don't have to do

it ever again, but I will probably have to do it again, right? So my mentality is like,

I think ultimately Hamam will be proven right. I think at some point he will be proven right,

but it can be very, very discouraging on the way and we just have to persevere. If we show

even a fraction of the perseverance that our colleagues and friends in Gaza have, we'll

see an end to this genocide. We will. It's just the pace, right? It's just the pace. It's not

fast enough to save as many as we'd like to save and that's unbearable for us as we watch

the destruction. That's why, right? Like it's true. Of course you can't mobilize people until

they know, look at Kavita, right? Once she knew it was like, what? No, this is the only

thing, the only thing any sane person needs to do is something, anything. So absolutely,

but the pace is heartbreaking. Well, Kavita will know this better than me. Kavita grew

up in South Africa, so she would probably remember the quote better than I would. But Nelson

Mandela had a quote, and I'm misquoting him, but it was something to the effect of, you

know, every day you feel like it's never going to end until it ends. Right. Almost to say,

like, even until the day before the genocide ends, you're going to feel like it's never

going to end. Right. And he said that about the apartheid movement in South Africa. He

said it much more eloquently than I just summarized. And I don't know if you remember the actual

quote, Kavita, but it was much more eloquent than I just explained. I mean, the point is

it never feels like it's going to end until it's over. And I think we just need to believe

that. I think the quote is it always seems impossible until it's done. I'll have to hold on to that.

And hopefully the audience will as well. I very much appreciate you folks taking the time

out of your busy day to tell these stories again. You know, you've had to relive it a few times

and I hope you do have to tell it a few more because the more traction it gains, the more

people that hear what's happening, again, the more that they can intervene. So, and as well,

I very much appreciate your perseverance. A lot of people will be silenced by such obstacles.

It's very much. an easier path to just check out. Neither of you have. So we very much

appreciate that. Do you have any final words for the audience? Something you didn't get

to say before I... I guess just a couple things, one being I think Ben and I are both relatively

privileged. And so there are all these other factors that go into different people's abilities

to do different things and how visible they can be when doing things and a lot happens

that isn't as visible. And so just acknowledging that and the importance of using the privileges

that people have. And then the other thing I was going to say is, while I agree with some

of what Ben said, and I do think it will be impossible, like it will feel impossible until

it's done, I do think these institutions know. So it's been almost three years. The genocide

has been live streamed. The people who run these institutions are making these decisions know

exactly what they're doing. And their actions are very tightly linked to the genocide that's

happening. And as they fire people, silence people, push partnerships with Israeli institutions

implicating genocide, bring IDF soldiers here to whitewash genocide, those are parts of

the same mechanism. And we very much have to continue to push back against those. Yeah.

Very good point. Absolutely. Yeah. I think I gave a little bit, I was a little too gracious.

to folks when I was describing, you know, that they just don't understand how racist they're

being when they say that other people feel unsafe because you advocate against genocide. But

you're right, Kavita. Like, I think there's just too much out there at this point for me

to give them that much grace. Very good point there. Thank you for ending on that as well.

We will hold them accountable. So I will tag them as we share this episode when we do.

yes, I hope folks listening will check the show notes and you'll get to read more of their

stories a little bit in depth. And I'll also pair you back with Ben's episode. We couldn't

even remember. Probably a year ago, back when you were talking to politicians. and cringing

about it. so I think people think it's funny to hear the then and now how you've changed.

But thank you very much and thank you to the audience. you so much for having us. Thanks

so much for having us. Cheers. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption.

Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero.

Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on

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