At a ritzy downtown Toronto hotel last November, on one of the year’s biggest nights for Canadian literature, a pro-Palestinian campaign quite literally took centre stage.
There, during the opening minutes of the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize gala, anti-war activists stormed the ceremony. Flanking host Rick Mercer with signs reading, “Scotiabank funds genocide,” the protesters called out the award’s title sponsor for its multi-million-dollar holdings in a controversial Israeli arms manufacturer. Then, as quickly as they arrived, the activists were escorted out of the star-studded ballroom by police and later charged. It was an event that marked the beginning of an ongoing movement led by pro-Palestinian activists that has upended the Canadian arts scene, with the goal of pressuring cultural organizations to distance themselves from corporations that they say are tied to the Israeli war effort.
