The mayor of Montreal is set to speak at a forum set up by the racist Jewish National Fund. A Quebec minister is also participating in an initiative set up by an organization that had its charitable status revoked by the government.
Recently David Suzuki withdrew as the keynote speaker for the Climate Solutions Prize (CSP) Festival. The famed environmentalist did so after thousands emailed him to draw attention to the JNF’s role in creating CSP and its ties to the Israeli government. In withdrawing from CSP’s event, Suzuki pointed to the Canada Revenue Agency revoking the JNF’s charitable status in 2024. The CRA did so because of JNF Canada’s opaque funding of its Israeli parent organization and support for the Israeli military and West Bank colonies.
In what may be a replacement for Suzuki, CSP just announced that former Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Quebec board member Pascale Déry, will speak at its conference Monday morning. After the former head of JNF Montreal opens the festival, Déry will take to the podium. Now Quebec environment minister, Déry was embroiled in an anti-Palestinian academic freedom scandal during her tenure as higher education minister.
The new mayor of Montreal Soraya Martinez Ferrada was also recently added to the conference schedule. As was recently detailed by the Rover in “Who Raises Money for the Mayor of Montreal?”, Ferrada received significant financial assistance from Jewish Zionist organizers during her election campaign.
After Suzuki withdrew over CSP’s ties to the racist JNF, the group messaged its speakers, supporters, partners, judges, sponsors and advisors in a bid to counter pressure for them to withdraw from the June 8-9 event (at least one other speaker joined Suzuki in withdrawing). In a June 2 leaked email they admit “CSP was initially incubated with support from JNF Canada” but then claim it became an independent group at some point in 2024. Regardless, in September 2025the Montrealer who co-founded CSP, Jeff Hart, gave out its awards in Israel. At that time Hart boasted that “next year’s Climate Solutions Prize for Israel will be even larger” and StartUp Nation labelled the prize money a way to “connect global capital with breakthrough Israeli solutions.”
As Just Peace Advocates explained:
“There is no evidence that the drivers behind CSP have changed since its inception. The leadership remains the same. It claims to be an independent, non-partisan, charitable organization. However, there is no evidence it is independent of JNF Canada, KKL-JNF, or Startup Nation. Further, it continues to provide support for Israeli companies, and therefore the Israeli economy. This is partisan support, not just for a foreign country, but for a State actively committing genocide, instituting an illegal occupation, and enacting an apartheid regime. These are not opinions but well-established facts. The idea of Israel supporting innovations that address climate change is just an absurd attempt at greenwashing. Even when only considering the last 2.5 years, Israel not only killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese communities — and entire family lines — they have also contributed to climate change and the destruction of indigenous Palestinian land.”
David Suzuki was right to withdraw from a forum initiated by an explicitly racist organization supporting a government committing genocide. Others scheduled to participate in the Climate Solutions Prize Festival should follow his lead.
At 9am on June 8 a rally is planned outside the Climate Solutions Prize Festival at Marché Bonsecours in old Montréal.
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