Designate Victoria an Apartheid-Free City
City of Victoria
Apartheid is a crime against humanity, clearly defined under international law as a system of domination by one racial group over another through segregation, land confiscation, movement restrictions, separate legal systems, and repression.
The same legal definition used for apartheid in 1970s South Africa is being applied by human rights organizations today to describe the Israeli state's treatment of the Palestinian people.
The South African apartheid was modelled after Canada’s system of segregation and domination against Indigenous peoples — through land confinement on reserves, the Indian Act, and systemic underfunding of services.
Canada was complicit in the apartheid regime in South Africa. It is also complicit in Israeli apartheid today.
What you can do
Apartheid systems exist quietly until communities challenge them by refusing to be complicit.
In the 1960s-1970s, Canadian grassroots took action to pass anti-apartheid resolutions and impose Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on South African apartheid. Under pressure, the federal government followed suit in the late 1980s.
This campaign calls upon Victoria to join that tradition and stand clearly for equal rights, justice, and international law. As Canadians belonging to a state with a long history of apartheid practices against Indigenous peoples, it is even more important to speak up.
“Apartheid is exactly what happened here.
That apartheid system still exists, and it is what we,
who are working for reconciliation,
are all working to dismantle.”
- Justice Murray Sinclair, Peguis First Nation (Ojibwe), 2017
The Ask
This is why we are asking you to:
- sign the Apartheid-Free Pledge, and
- call on the City of Victoria to adopt the pledge as a motion, which would designate our city Apartheid-Free.
| The Pledge |
| WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; WE DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community, and to that end, WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation; WE RECOGNIZE that apartheid exists in the settler-colonial system in Canada, and that we should, following Indigenous leadership, work to end this apartheid right here in Lekwungen territories. |
The pledge is about accountability and responsibility. Signing the pledge aligns with Canadian values of human rights and justice, starting with right here at home.
- The Ambiguous Champion: Canada and South Africa in the Trudeau and Mulroney Years, Linda Freeman, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997
- International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the War that Liberated South Africa, edited by Ronnie Kasrils, Jacana Media, 2021
- Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity, Amnesty International, 2022
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
City of Victoria
From:
[Your Name]
Mayor and Council will receive a letter, calling on them to designate Victoria an Apartheid-Free City, once we have collected a sizeable number of signatures.
Thank you for signing this petition!