Montreal Council to Debate Motion Cutting Ties with Israeli Government, NDP Leader Avi Lewis Says Tide Has Turned

Montreal City Council is scheduled to debate a motion calling on the city to suspend all institutional ties with the Israeli government, according to Democracy Now!, which did not publish the motion's text, sponsor, or a vote count. The council's own agenda and any final vote were not available at the time of the report.

The segment aired as an interview with Avi Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, who was asked about the motion by host Anjali Kamat. Lewis framed it as one sign of a broader shift, telling Democracy Now! he has spent recent weeks knocking on doors in federal by-elections in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

"The vast majority of people are shocked and appalled by the activities of the state of Israel... And I think the Montreal City Council debate is one of many that you're going to continue to see. It is not going to stop, because Canadians are outraged by this impunity."

Lewis said he had encountered only "a couple of people" taking a pro-Israel position at the doorstep over weeks of canvassing, a characterization based on his own campaign activity rather than published polling. He argued that pro-Israel lobby groups, naming AIPAC in the United States and its Canadian counterpart CIJA, are now "on the defensive," while acknowledging they "still capture most of the political class and the mainstream media."

In the same answer, Lewis described Israel as "dragging the United States into attacking Iran," called the military campaign in Gaza an "ongoing genocide," and characterized Israeli operations in southern Lebanon as "effectively an invasion." These are Lewis's own political characterizations, offered without supporting documents or specific incidents in the interview, and each remains contested in broader public debate.

What is verifiable from the report: Lewis holds the NDP leadership, a position with real standing in federal Canadian politics, and he used a national interview platform to publicly back a municipal effort to sever Montreal's ties with Israel. Whether the council motion passes, and in what form, was not established in the source material and requires confirmation through the council's own records once the debate concludes.

The episode illustrates a pattern Occupation Watch tracks closely: elected officials in allied countries testing public appetite for institutional distancing from Israel, even as the same officials describe the political and media establishment as still resistant to that shift.