On December 8th, 2025, one of our media advocates responded to an article written by the Western Standard titled: “RCMP employee linked to Palestinian activist network raises questions over political influence.”
Our main issue was with the framing of the article. Rather than reporting on legitimate workplace inclusion efforts, the piece manufactures suspicion around a Muslim RCMP employee for participating in an internal volunteer network - a network that allegedly supports Muslim staff, identifies anti-Palestinian racism, and promotes balanced representation of Palestinian perspectives.
These are standard equity and diversity practices across the federal public service; yet we argued that the article presents them as politically threatening by suggesting there is “scrutiny over political advocacy within Canada’s national police force.”
According to the Arab-Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), anti-Palestinian racism includes conduct that “silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.” By portraying basic inclusion work and calls for fair representation of Palestinians and religious minorities as warning signs of “political influence,” the article contributes to the silencing and stigmatization of Palestinian and Muslim employees. In doing so, we argued that the piece participates not only in Islamophobia but also in anti-Palestinian racism. This is not responsible journalism. It is fear-mongering.
The complaint was published as a letter to the editor here.